This paper presents a new global dataset on contemporary witchcraft beliefs and investigates their correlates. Witchcraft beliefs cut across socio-demographic groups but are less widespread among the more educated and economically secure. Country-level variation in the prevalence of witchcraft...

This research explores the persistent effect of the Neolithic Revolution on the evolution of life expectancy in the course of human history. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that the onset of the Neolithic Revolution and the associated rise in infectious diseases triggered...

We study the labor supply impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by gender in four Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries: Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, and Mexico. To identify the impact, we compare labor market stocks and labor market flows over four quarters for a set of balanced panel...

In many high-income economies, the recession caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in unprecedented declines in women's employment. We examine how the forces that underlie this observation play out in developing countries, with a specific focus on Nigeria, the most populous country in...

Religion and beliefs in the supernatural are present in all societies. Yet, studies about the spread of small-scale supernatural belief systems remain quite limited. In this work, we test the anthropological hypothesis that historical dependence on pastoralism favored the adoption of customs...

We report on a large randomized controlled trial of hospital insurance for above-poverty-line Indian households. Households were assigned to free insurance, sale of insurance, sale plus cash transfer, or control. To estimate spillovers, the fraction of households offered insurance varied across...

This paper discusses how the reform of university accounting programs has been accomplished in Armenia and Bosnia and suggests how a similar reform can be accomplished in Russia. Curriculum reform in Armenia and Bosnia encountered similar difficulties but the methods chosen to overcome the...

Experiences arising from recent geo-political tensions, natural disasters such as the 2011 Japanese Tōhoku Earthquake, the Covid-19 Pandemic and the 2022 Russo – Ukrainian war have all illustrated the fragility of the global supply chains to exogenous shocks. Shocks always occur, but the...

This article studies the effects of Chinese aid on economic development in Africa. We geographically match Chinese aid in Africa to the satellite nightlight and other variables. Using a grid-cell panel dataset, we find that Chinese aid, particularly infrastructure projects, has significant and...

A key to understand the evolution of an economy is the property rights institution and the contracting institution that the government set up to shape the business environment of private firms. Focusing on China during its crucial two decades of transition (from the early 1990s to the early...