This paper is motivated by a set of cross-country observations on growth, structural transformation, and investment rates in a large sample of countries. We observe a hump-shaped relationship between a country's investment rate and its level of development, both within countries over time and...

Exposure to community violence is a pervasive development challenge that goes beyond armed conflicts. Millions of people live in high-crime areas exposed to numerous and gender-differentiated negative impacts. This paper studies the effects of violent crime on intra-household resource allocation...

We analyze how a region’s industrial structure affects its productivity and its resilience to shocks. Using co-occurrence analysis, we construct an interdependence network of U.S. industries. For each U.S. metropolitan area, we then calculate an aggregate metric of this network called economic...

Hybrid work is emerging as a novel form of organizing work globally. This paper reports causal evidence on how the extent of hybrid work—the number of days worked from home relative to days worked from the office—affects work outcomes. Collaborating with an organization in Bangladesh, we...

Household innovation is the development of functionally novel products, processes, or other applications by consumers. These are developed in discretionary time without payment. Household innovation is widely present in all economies, but not yet in official statistics. In this chapter we...

Purpose - With growing interest in the relationship between national governance, corruption and economic growth, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of corruption and macro-level governance on economic growth using advanced statistical estimation...

This chapter evaluates state capacity from a long-run historical perspective. We discuss how to define and measure state capacity. We explain how the establishment of a high-capacity state can enhance domestic peace, improve material prosperity, and promote more pluralistic norms. We describe...

The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns have led to a rise in gender-based violence. In this paper, we explore the economic consequences of violence against women in sub-Saharan Africa using large demographic and health survey data collected pre-pandemic. Relying on a two-stage least square method...

Women in Bangladesh have a lower rate of participation in the labour force than men. But over the years, their participation in the workforce has increased significantly. The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between female education and the labour force participation rate...

This study explores the current state and dynamics of the global Indigenous data sovereignty movement—the movement pressing for Indigenous peoples to have full control over the collection and governance of data relating to their lived realities. The article outlines the movement’s place...