Motivated by a simple model, I use DHS data to test nine hypotheses about the prevalence and decline of African polygamy.  First, greater female involvement in agriculture does not increase polygamy.  Second, past inequality better predicts polygamy today than does current inequality.  Third,...

It is known that unit root test statistics may not have the usual asymptotic properties when the variance of innovations is unstable.  In particular, persistent changes in volatility can cause the size of unit root tests to differ from the nominal level.  In this paper we propose a class of...

Information asymmetries constitute a significant obstacle to capital flows across international borders, and in particular to flows of foreign investment (FDI) to emerging markets.  Many governments aim to reduce information barriers by emerging in investment promotion activities.  Despite...

This study investigates the relationship between parental schooling on the one hand, and child health outcomes (height and weight) and parental health-seeking behaviour (immunisation status of children), on the other.  While establishing a correlational link between parental schooling and child...

A large majority of the labour force were manual workers in 1960.  As voters, they had electoral power to pursue collective goods.  As producers they were able to disrupt production.  The majority left school with no qualifications.  Their human capital consisted of skills specific to...

Between the 1870s and World War II, falls in world shipping costs and Western industrialisation gave rise to export-led Southeast Asian growth and specialization in a narrow range of primary commodity exports.  A linked development was the emergence of a few dominant Southeast Asian urban...

This report considers alternative exchange rate arrangements for EAC countries in the transition to a monetary union.  Four main considerations shape our analysis.  First, while existing exchange rate policies differ in some important ways across the EAC, the Partner States have expressed a...

The newly dominant interpretation of the British industrial revolution contends that Britain was a high wage economy (HWE) and that the high wages themselves caused industrialization by making profitable labour-saving inventions that were economically inefficient in the context of other relative...

Banking in the UK was stable for more than a century after 1866.  Financial institutions were differentiated according to function.  The core banks did not engage in maturity transformation, but in managing a payments system for business.  Real estate was a potential source of instability due...

The theoretical literature on (non-random) choice largely follows the route of Richter (1966) by working in abstract environments and by stipulating that we see all choices of an agent from a given feasible set.  On the other hand, empirical work on consumption choice using revealed preference...