Many theories link urbanization with industrialization; in particular, with the production of tradable (and typically manufactured) goods. We document that the expected relationship between urbanization and the level of industrialization is not present in a sample of developing economies. The...

Recent studies argue that cross-country labor productivity differences are much larger in agriculture than in the aggregate. We reexamine the agricultural productivity data underlying this conclusion using new evidence from disaggregate sources. We find that for the world's staple...

The Lewis model has remained, for more than half a century, one of the dominant theories of development economics. This paper argues that the power of the model lies in the simplicity of its central insight: that poor countries contain enclaves of economic activity just as rich countries contain...

In most poor countries, large majorities of the population live in rural areas and earn their livelihoods primarily from agriculture. Many rural people in the developing world are poor, and conversely, most of the world's poor people inhabit rural areas. Agriculture also accounts for a...

How will global climate change affect the prevalence of tropical diseases? In general, warmer temperatures will expand the areas in which these diseases are endemic. However, if households can take actions to protect themselves from disease—such as purchasing bednets or insecticidal...

As many as one million deaths annually are attributed to malaria, a parasitic disease transmitted by mosquitoes. The heaviest burdens of malaria are found in poor tropical countries, where medical systems are often ill-equipped to treat the sick, and where public health programs may lack the...

In most poor countries, small firms and self employment are the dominant forms of business enterprise. This phenomenon is true not only in agriculture and the service sector: even in manufacturing, large fractions of the workforce are self-employed. In Ghana, as an illustration, more than 75...