The authors analyze the determinants of interfirm agreements between industrial and developing countries for research and development (R&D) - that is, between firms with asymmetric endowments of knowledge. They develop a model in which a multinational has two options: a) setting up a subsidiary...

The authors develop an early warning system for macroeconomic vulnerability for several Latin American countries, drawing on the work of Kaminsky, Lizondo, and Reinhart (1997) and Kaminsky (1988). They build a composite leading indicator that signals macroeconomic vulnerability, showing that,...

This paper focuses on problems and their causes and cures in policy and planning for large infrastructure projects. First, it identifies as the main problem in major infrastructure development pervasive misinformation about the costs, benefits, and risks involved. A consequence of misinformation...

The authors employ propensity score matching and a traditional control function approach to examine the impact of participation in various societal institutions on microfirm performance in Mexico. They find that firms that participate in credit markets, receive training,pay taxes, and belong to...

Past approaches to correcting for unit nonresponse in sample surveys by re-weighting the data assume that the problem is ignorable within arbitrary subgroups of the population. Theory and evidence suggest that this assumption is unlikely to hold, and that household characteristics such as income...

The authors investigate whether factor prices matter in agricultural production and in the selection of production technology. Each stage of the analysis corroborates the inducement hypothesis, which implies that factor prices do matter in agricultural production and in the selection of...

Large and sustained differences in economic performance across regions of developing countries have long provided motivation for fiscal incentives designed to encourage firm entry in lagging areas. But empirical evidence in support of these policies has been weak at best. The authors undertake a...

Since 1984, the Unified Survey has been the World Bank's principle mechanism for gathering quantitative macroeconomic information from country teams on Bank member countries. After gathering annual data those teams also do most-likely-scenario projections. The author examines the numerical...

The authors present new estimates of educational attainment in 71 developing countries for the years 1985, 1990 and 1995. They also project levels of educational attainment through the year 2020 by using the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization's projections of...

This paper introduces a computationally efficient method for estimating structural parameters of dynamic discrete choice models with large choice sets. The method is based on Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood (PPML) regression, which is widely used in the international trade and migration...