Using US county data, we estimate employment growth equations to analyze how the spatial distribution of jobs has changed between 1972 and 2000. We find that total employment has become increasingly concentrated. This aggregate picture hides important sectoral differences though: whereas...

This paper investigates whether human capital raises the productivity and labor allocation of rural households in four districts of Pakistan. We find that households with better educated males earn higher off-farm income and divert labor resources away from farm activities toward non-farm work....

March 1997 <p> This paper tests the efficiency of insurance markets in the Pakistan Punjab by examining how crop choices are affected by the presence of price and yield risk. We estimate reduced-form and structural models of crop choices. Although we cannot reject the hypothesis that village...</p>

Using original data on gifts and loans, this paper investigates how rural Filipino households deal with income and expenditure shocks. Results indicate that gifts and informal loans are partly motivated by consumption smoothing motives but do not serve to efficiently share risk. Certain shocks...

Households in the west African semi-arid tropics face substantial risk -- an inevitable consequence of engaging in rainfed agriculture in a drought-prone environment. It has long been hypothesized that these households keep livestock as a buffer stock to insulate their consumption from income...

Not only does livestock make an important contribution to rural incomes and export earnings in the Sahel, it is also kept as insurance against weather risk. Fluctuations in livestock prices can therefore trigger food entitlement failures. Using monthly price data from Niger, we show that...

This paper develops a theoretical model of land leasing that includes transaction costs of enforcing labour effort, risk pooling motives and non-tradable capital inputs. We test the implications of this model compared to those of the "Marshallian" (unenforceable labour effort) and "New School"...

This study looks at public service delivery in rural areas of Madagascar. The blockade of the central highlands of Madagascar by a defeated president let us examine the short-term effect of a large unanticipated macro shock and subsequent elimination of user fees on the rural delivery of health...

This paper investigates the relationship between criminal activity and geographical isolation. Using data from Madagascar, we show that, after we control for population composition and risk factors, crime increases with distance from urban centres and, with few exceptions, decreases with...

Using detailed data from rural Pakistan, this paper investigates whether human capital, learning-by-doing, gender, and family status affect the division of labor within households. Results suggest the presence of returns to individual specialization in all farm, non-farm, and home based...