The paper assembles and harmonizes sectoral data from several sources to study the industrial trends in six Central American economies. The industrial employment share contracted by 2.5 percentage points on average over the past two decades. This deindustrialization was not trade-driven in which...

This paper examines the post-reform economic growth in three Central American economies -- Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Panama. From 1995 to 2015, each economy witnessed phenomenal shifts in labor market participation and occupational distribution of women. If the innate talent for a job did not...

Bihar, India's poorest state, witnessed impressive yield growth in each of its three principal crops over 2005-17. This paper examines whether a convergence in district yields accompanied the improvement in yields at the state level, thereby reducing regional inequalities in land productivity....

This paper investigates the relative importance of different channels in explaining the low share of industrial employment in Latin America relative to the economies that employ a large share of the workforce in industry. Differences in domestic final consumption shares play a pivotal role and...

Using panel data on input-output intensities and expenditure prices from 28 countries, this paper finds the elasticity of substitution across sectoral inputs to be less than one in each of the three broad sectors of the economy. Intermediates are most complementary in the production of services...

The paper uses a detailed household survey to document precautionary wealth accumulation in Afghanistan, with wealth being significantly higher for households facing higher income uncertainty. Annual household expenditure on nondurable goods is also lower for these households. There is no...

This paper investigates the state of low investment in Afghanistan by studying how investment decisions interact with risks and uncertainty in the presence of underdeveloped financial markets. The analysis shows that investing firms experience a higher probability of being affected by events...

This paper compares the intergenerational mobility of educational and occupational attainment of men from disadvantaged groups (Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST)) in India with the intergenerational mobility of men outside these groups during 1983-2009. Although there has been a...