This paper offers a unified framework linking two important debates: First, the debate about the respective roles of geography and institutions on economic development; Second, the literature on the role of technological change and economic development on agricultural intensification and land...

In this paper we investigate the relationship between per capita income and foreign aid for a panel of131 (alternatively 52) recipient countries over the period 1960 to 2006 by employing annual data and 5-year averages. Reliance on standard panel estimation techniques (such as 2-ways FE...

Institutions are a major factor explaining development outcomes. This study focuses on social institutions related to gender inequality understood as long-lasting norms, values and codes of conduct that shape gender roles, and presents evidence on why they matter for development. We derive...

In this paper we construct the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) and its five subindices Family code, Civil liberties, Physical integrity, Son Preference and Ownership rights using variables of the OECD Gender, Institutions and Development database. Instead of measuring gender...

This paper uses the gravity model of trade to investigate the link between bilateral and multilateral foreign aid and donor's exports. There are three primary findings from this approach. First, in the long term, the average return, in terms of an increase in the donor's level of goods exports,...

This paper investigates whether different types of female?headed households in Thailand and Vietnam are disadvantaged in terms of current consumption, exposure to shocks, consumption smoothing capacities, as well as vulnerability to poverty and downside risk. Using a unique panel data set of...

This paper uses the gravity model of trade to investigate the link between foreign aid and exports in recipient countries and tests for the transmission channels between aid and exports/economic development in developing countries. Most of the theoretical work emphasizes the negative impact of...

One of the most serious weaknesses of the human development index (HDI) is that it considers only average achievements and does not take into account the distribution of human development within a country or by population subgroups. All previous attempts to capture inequality in the HDI have...

As is now well documented, aid is given for both political as well as economic reasons. The conventional wisdom is that politically-motivated aid is less effective in promoting developmental objectives. We examine the ex-post performance ratings of World Bank projects and generally find that...

In the past twenty years, India's economy has grown at increasingly faster rates and now belongs to the fastest-growing economies in the world. One would think that in such economic conditions, women are increasingly being pulled into the labour force by attractive pay and employment conditions....