Corrupt practices in the assignment of government contracts are largely diffused and can generate misallocation of resources across firms. We study how disclosure of such practices affects firm growth and labor reallocation. We exploit exogenous variation in the exposure of illegally favored...

Several scholars argue that high agricultural productivity growth can retard industrial development as it draws resources towards the comparative advantage sector, agriculture. However, agricultural productivity growth can increase savings and the supply of capital, generating an expansion of...

Does fiscal consolidation lead to social unrest? Using cross-country evidence for the period 1919 to 2008, we examine the extent to which societies become unstable after budget cuts. We find a positive correlation between fiscal retrenchment and instability. Expenditure cuts are particularly...

Brazil experienced one of the most severe recessions in its history from 2014 to 2016. Following a pattern shown for previous economic downturns in other countries, the Brazilian recession was preceded by a substantial increase in household debt from 2003 to 2014. This study utilizes a novel...

Brazil experienced one of the most severe recessions in its history from 2014 to 2016. Following a pattern shown for previous economic downturns in other countries, the Brazilian recession was preceded by a substantial increase in household debt from 2003 to 2014. This study utilizes a novel...

We study the historical roots of social unrest in China. In particular, we investigate whether the incidence of social unrest against local government officials under the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) has a persistent effect on the incidence of anti-government protests in present-day China. To...

The introduction of labor-saving technologies in agriculture can release workers who find occupation in the manufacturing sector. The traditional view is that this structural transformation process leads to economic growth. However, if workers leaving agriculture are unskilled, the labor...

We present large-scale evidence on the effects of access to information on agricultural technology adoption and crop yields in India. We combine geo-referenced data on the construction of new mobile phone towers with data on the location and content of 2.5 million phone calls made by farmers to...

Using new case-level data we document a set of stylized facts on bankruptcy in China and study how the staggered introduction of specialized courts across Chinese cities affected insolvency resolution and the local economy. For identification, we compare cases handled by specialized versus...

The introduction of labor-saving technologies in agriculture can release workers who find occupation in the manufacturing sector. The traditional view is that this structural transformation process leads to economic growth. However, if workers leaving agriculture are unskilled, the labor...