There is a growing literature which analyses, using cross-country data, whether institutions or geography is the most important deep determinant of income per capita. The empirical proxies used for institutions in this literature, however, focus only on formal institutions, rather than informal...

Most of the literature on determinants of economic growth in developing countries is basedon cross-country analysis and thus only yields some patterns that hold on average. The aim of this paper is to identify aspects of the determinants of growth in Kenya, in particular if aid played a role....

In this paper, we analyse the effect of food price changes on household consumption in Ghana during the 1990s and assess the extent to which changes can be explained by trade and agricultural policy reforms. The measurement of the total household welfare effect, one that jointly considers...

In developing societies, social norms typically ascribe differential weights to paternal, maternal and communal (or state) contributions to children’s expenses. Individuals internalize these valuations. I examine a Cournot model of voluntary contribution to children’s goods in a two-adult...

Lenders condition future loans on some index of past performance. Typically, banks condition future loans on repayments of earlier obligations while international organizations condition future loans on the implementation of some policy conditions. We build an agency model that accounts for...

Investment is a major determinant of economic growth, both in reference to the level of the capital stock and its productivity, but has been deficient in poor developing countries. A particular concern for poor countries has been relatively low levels of foreign direct investment (FDI), and a...

We model the consequences of parental control over choice of wives for sons, for parental incentives to educate daughters, when the marriage market exhibits competitive dowry payments and altruistic but paternalistic parents benefit from having married sons live with them. By choosing uneducated...