research paper on economic development

Skip to main content

• Director's introduction
• STICERD grants
• STICERD research grants
• Grants for PhD students
• STICERD visitor's programme
• STICERD grants awarded
• LSE Overseas Travel Homepage
• STICERD's history
• STICERD and Japan
• History of Economics at the LSE
• In memoriam
• Tony Atkinson
• Michio Morishima
• Research focus
• Research programmes
• Development
• Econometrics
• Economic Theory
• Economics of Environment and Energy
• Economics of Industry
• Political Science and Political Economy
• Psychology and Economics
• Public Economics
• Related centres
• Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE)
• Self standing programmes
• Beveridge 2.0
• Hayek Programme in Economics and Liberal Political Economy
• Hub for Equal Representation in the Economy
• Mouradian Foundation Programme
• The India Observatory
• Past programmes
• Academic staff
• PhD Students
• Administrative Staff
• Publications
• International Studies
• Theoretical Economics
• All CASE Papers
• Applications
• Econometrics and Statistics
• Industrial Organisation
• International and Japanese Studies
• STICERD Work in Progress
• STICERD Public Events and Lectures
• All CASE Events
• Join our mailing list
• STICERD Leadership
• STICERD Administrative contacts
• RLAB IT Support
• Postal Address:
• STICERD SAL 3.04 London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE. United Kingdom
• Actual location on campus:
• 3rd floor, 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, WC2A 3PH.
• Covid-19//Return to Campus
• 32 LIF Guidance
• Health and Safety risk assessment
• IT guidance on remote working
• LSE - Coronavirus: community advice and guidance
• Covid-19//Return to campus

Search the STICERD Website

Development economics papers.

For further information about this series and for press inquiries please contact Lubala Chibwe, by email: [email protected].

Development Economics Paper

Just rewards local politics and public resource allocation in south india.

Timothy Besley, Rohini Pande and Vijayendra Rao

This paper uses data on elected village councils in South India to examine the political economy of public resource allocation. We find that the pattern of policy-making reflects politicians' self-interest. Elected counc... Read more...

October 2007

Keywords: decentralization ; india ; panchayat.

Making Autocracy Work

Timothy Besley and Masayuki Kudamatsu

One of the key goals of political economy is to understand how institutional arrangements shape policy outcomes. This paper studies a comparatively neglected aspect of this - the forces that shape heterogeneous performan... Read more...

Keywords: keywords: dictatorship ; democracy

Decentralization's Effects on Educational Outcomes in Bolivia and Colombia

Jean-Paul Faguet and Fabio Sanchez

The effects of decentralization on public sector outputs is much debated but little agreed upon. This paper compares the remarkable case of Bolivia with the more complex case of Colombia to explore decentralization?s eff... Read more...

Keywords: decentralization ; education ; public investment ; bolivia ; colombia ; local government

Does Envy Destroy Social Fundamentals? The Impact of Relative Income Position on Social Capital

Justina A.V. Fischer and Benno Torgler

Research evidence on the impact of relative income position on individual attitudes and behaviour is sorely lacking. Therefore, this paper assesses such positional impact on social capital by applying 14 different measur... Read more...

February 2006

Keywords: relative income position ; envy ; positional concerns ; social capital ; social norms ; happiness

The Unequal Effects of Liberalization: Evidence from Dismantling the License Raj in India

Philippe Aghion, Robin Burgess, Stephen J. Redding and Fabrizio Zilibotti

This paper investigates whether the effects, on registered manufacturing out-put, employment, entry and investment, of dismantling the `license raj? - a system of central controls regulating entry and production activity... Read more...

December 2005

Political Selection and the Quality of Government: Evidence from South India

This paper uses household data from India to examine the economic and social status of village politicians, and how individual and village characteristics a?ect politician behavior while in o?ce. Education increases the ... Read more...

August 2005

Why So Much Centralization? A Model of Primitive Centripetal Accumulation

Jean-Paul Faguet

With strong conceptual arguments in its favor, decentralization is a popular and growing policy trend across the world. And yet dozens of empirical studies have failed to find convincing evidence that past reforms have w... Read more...

Keywords: centralization ; decentralization ; local public goods ; local government ; municipal government ; legislative bargaining ; capture.

Gender Discrimination and Growth: Theory and Evidence from India

Berta Esteve-Volart

Gender inequality is an acute and persistent problem, especially in developing countries. This paper argues that gender discrimination is an inefficient practice. We model gender discrimination as the complete exclusion ... Read more...

January 2004

Keywords: growth ; gender discrimination ; labor market ; allocation of talent ; india.

Government Corruption and Legislative Procedures: is One Chamber Better Than Two?

Cecilia Testa

This paper studies the impact of the competition between lobbies and voters on policy outcomes under alternative legislative procedures. Lobbies and citizens have opposing interests in a public policy and offer money and... Read more...

November 2003

Keywords: bicameralism ; corruption ; lobbying ; voting ; party polarization.

Do Rural Banks Matter? Evidence from the Indian Social Banking Experiment

Robin Burgess and Rohini Pande

Lack of access to finance is often cited as a key reason why poor people remain poor. This paper uses data on the Indian rural branch expansion program to provide empirial evidence on this issue. Between 1977 and 1990, t... Read more...

August 2003

Keywords: finance and development ; rural banking ; bank licensing ; credit constraints ; structural change ; diversification ; redistribution ; povery ; growth.

Eviction Threats and Investment Incentives

Abhijit Banerjee and Maitreesh Ghatak

We show that the effect of eviction threats on unobservable investment effort can be positive. We demonstrate this apparently counter-intuitive result in a model of tenancy where investment by a tenant in the current per... Read more...

Keywords: sharecropping tenancy ; eviction threats ; investment incentives.

Intrahousehold Efficiency and Individual Insurance in Ghana

Markus Goldstein

I test a model of Pareto efficient risk sharing within households using consumption data from Ghana. The results reject this model despite showing that individual consumption is not significantly affected by both agricul... Read more...

Democracy and Education Spending: Has Africa's Move to Multiparty Elections Made a Difference to Policy?

David Stasavage

While it is generally recognized that electoral competition can have a major influence on public spending decisions, there has been little effort to consider whether the move to multiparty elections in African countries ... Read more...

February 2003

Keywords: primary education ; political economy ; democracy ; electoral competition.

The Role of Freedom, Growth and Religion in the Taste for Revolution

Robert MacCulloch and Silvia Pezzini

A fundamental issue for economists is what determines civil conflict. One unsettled question is the relative importance of political freedoms versus economic development. This paper takes a new approach to provide an ans... Read more...

September 2002

Keywords: conflict ; freedom ; development ; growth ; religion.

Social Networks and Technology Adoption in Northern Mozambique

Oriana Bandiera and Imran Rasul

Despite their potentially strong impact on poverty, agricultural innovations are often adopted slowly. Using a unique household dataset on sunflower adoption in Mozambique, we analyse whether and how individual adoption ... Read more...

Keywords: social networks ; technology adoption ; information sharing.

Land Distribution, Incentives and the Choice of Production Techniques in Nicaragua

Oriana Bandiera

Does the distribution of land rights affect the choice of contractible techniques? I present evidence suggesting that Nicaraguan farmers are more likely to grow effort-intensive crops on owned rather than on rented plots... Read more...

Keywords: agricultural productivity ; asymmetric information ; crop choice.

Can Labour Regulation Hinder Economic Performance? Evidence from India

Timothy Besley and Robin Burgess

This paper investigates whether the industrial relations climate in Indian States has affected the pattern of manufacturing growth in the period 1958-92. We show that pro-worker amendments to the Industrial Disputes Act ... Read more...

February 2002

Keywords: indian industrial relations ; industrial disputes act ; manufacturing growth ; pro-worker regulations ; urban poverty ; capital and labour.

Is a Friend in Need a Friend Indeed? Inclusion and Exclusion in Mutual Insurance Networks in Southern Ghana

Markus Goldstein, Elisabeth Sadoulet and Alain de Janvry

Mutual insurance has been shown, theoretically and empirically, to be incomplete and limited by asymmetric information and lack of enforcement mechanisms. While some research has shown that networks based on kinship, nei... Read more...

Keywords: risk ; social setworks ; sutual insurance ; intrahousehold allocation.

Does Social Insurance Help Secure Property Rights?

Robert MacCulloch

This paper develops a simple model to show how social insurance affects the desire to revolt against property rights. It then tests for the effect of social insurance on revolt by introducing a panel data set derived fro... Read more...

September 2001

Keywords: social insrance ; property rights ; revolt.

What Makes a Revolution?

Although property rights are the cornerstone of capitalist economics, throughout history existing claims have been frequently overturned and redefined by revolution. A fundamental question for economists is what makes re... Read more...

Keywords: property rights ; revolts ; income inequality.

Modernisation and Son Preference

Robin Burgess and Juzhong Zhuang

Read more...

December 2000

The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India

Gaps in welfare attainment between boys and girls in China have attracted international attention. In this paper demand analysis is used to try and uncover the factors which may be driving the emergence of the gender gap... Read more...

Keywords: modernisation ; son preference ; intra-household allocation ; demand analysis ; china.

Commodity Taxation and Social Welfare: The Generalised Ramsey Rule

David Coady and Jean Dreze

Commodity taxes have three distinct roles: (1) revenue collection, (2) interpersonal redistribution, and (3) resource allocation. The paper presents an integrated treatment of these three concerns in a second-best genera... Read more...

September 2000

Keywords: commodity taxation ; efficiency ; redistribution ; shadow prices

Is Child Work Necessary?

Sonia R Bhalotra

This paper investigates why children work by studying the wage elasticity of child labour supply. Incorporating subsistence constraints in to a model of labour supply, we show that a negative wage elasticity favours the ... Read more...

August 2000

Keywords: child labour ; education ; poverty ; gender ; intertemporal labour supply.

Private Investment and Political Uncertainty

Recent theoretical and empirical work has demonstrated a clear negative link between macroeconomic and political uncertainty and levels of private investment across countries. This result raises the question what institu... Read more...

Keywords: political institutions ; private investment ; credible commitment ; quantile regression.

Child Farm Labour: Theory and Evidence

Sonia R Bhalotra and Chris Heady

This paper presents a dynamic model of child labour supply in a farming household. The model clarifies the roles of land, income and household size, allowing labour and credit market imperfections. If labour markets are ... Read more...

Keywords: child labour ; poverty ; female education ; agricultural households ; ghana ; pakistan.

The Rise of Mass Consumption Societies

Kiminori Matsuyama

This paper develops a model to understand mechanisms behind the rise of mass consumption societies. The development process depicted in the model follows the Flying Geese pattern, in which a series of industries takes of... Read more...

November 2000

Keywords: income distribution ; earning-by-doing ; endogenous technological changes ; nonhomothetic preferences ; demand complementarity ; the domino effect ; cooperative dynamical systems.

Valutation and Evaluation: Measuring the Quality of Life and Evaluating Policy

Partha Dasgupta

This paper is about measuring social well-being and evaluating policy. Part I is concerned with the links between the two, while Parts II and III, respectively, are devoted to the development of appropriate methods of me... Read more...

Keywords: externalities ; market imperfections ; growth ; multiple equilibria ; sunspot equilibrium

Financial Intermediation, Variability and the Development Process

Luis Carranza and Jose E. Galdon-Sanchez

In this paper we have built a model of financial intermediation that explains the GDP variability pattern of an economy during the development process. In our model, per capita is more volatile in the middle-income econo... Read more...

Keywords: externalities ; market imperfections ; growth ; multiple equilibria ; sunspot equilibria

Fertility, Education and Development: Further Evidence from India

Jean Dreze and Mamta Murthi

There has been a significant decline in fertility in many parts of India since the early 1980s. This paper reexamines the determinants of fertility levels and fertility decline, using panel data on Indian districts for 1... Read more...

January 2000

Keywords: fertility ; demographic transition ; female literacy ; india

On the Structure of Tenancy contracts: Theory and Evidence fron 19th Century Rural Sicily

This paper analyses the empirical determinants of contract length, a key and yet neglected dimension of contractual structure. I use data on tenancy agreements signed between 1870 and 1880 in the district of Siracusa, It... Read more...

Keywords: contract duration ; incentives ; tenancy agreements.

School Participation in Rural India.

Jean Dreze and Geeta Gandhi Kingdon

This paper presents an analysis of the determinant of school participation in rural north India, based on a recent household survey which includes detailed information on school characteristics. School participation espe... Read more...

August 1999

Keywords: education ; india ; child labour ; school quality

Public-Private Partnership for the Provision of Public Goods: Theory and an Application to NGOs

Timothy Besley and Maitreesh Ghatak

This paper analyzes the role of public and private responsibility in the provision of public goods. We emphasise that a typical public good will require many different inputs which raises the possibility of partnerships ... Read more...

Keywords: public goods ; non-governmental organizations ; incomplete contracting ; partnerships.

Minority Representation and Policy Choices: The Significance of Legislator Identity.

Rohini Pande

Disadvantaged groups tend also to constitute population minorities. One consequence of this is that the policies implemented by electorally accountable governments often fail to reflect minority interests. A policy solut... Read more...

Keywords: political economy ; minorities ; electoral law ; india ; panel data.

The Economics of Non-Governmental Organisations.

R. Hopkins and C.D. Scott

The purpose of this paper is to identify the organisational comparative advantage of NGOs, and to develop a model which explains the set of circumstances uder which they emerge and dominate other types of firms. It is ar... Read more...

Keywords: miroeconomic analyses of economic development ; formal and informal sectors ; non-governmental organisations ; institutional arrangements ; non-profit institutions ; altruism

Ethnic Diversity, Mobility and School Funding: Theory and Evidence From Kenya

Edward Miguel

This paper explores the relationship between ethnic diversity and local school funding in Kenyan primary schools. The empirical results paint a picture of pervasive local collective action problems in ethnically diverse ... Read more...

Keywords: education ; ethnicity ; kenya ; mobility ; public growth

Land Reform, Poverty Reduction and Growth: Evidence from India

In recent times there has been a renewed interest in relationships between redistribution, growth and welfare. Land reforms have been central to strategies to improve the asset base of the poor in developing countries th... Read more...

October 1998

Keywords: land reform ; political economy ; poverty ; growth ; india

Decentralization Schemes, Cost-Benefit-Analysis, and Net National Product as a Measure of Social Well-Being

Partha Dasgupta and Karl-Goran Maler

This paper is about net national product (NNP). We are concerned with what NNP means, what it should include, what it offers us and, therefore, why we may be interested in it. We show that NNP, properly defined, can be u... Read more...

Keywords: allocative efficiency ; cost benefit analysis ; capital ; investment ; project evaluation

Intrahousehold Resource Allocation in Rural Pakistan: A Semi-parametric Analysis

Cliff Attfield and Sonia R Bhalotra

We estimate semiparametric Engel curves for rural Pakistan using a large household survey. This allows us to obtain consistent estimates of the effects of household size and composition on consumption patterns even when ... Read more...

February 1998

Keywords: semiparametric estimation ; intrahousehold resource allocation ; gender bias ; engel curves.

Investigating Rationality in Wage-Setting

This paper investigates the efficiency wage hypothesis and derives a tractable expression for the profit loss incurred by deviations from the efficiency wage. The extent of the wage deviation can be inferred from product... Read more...

Keywords: efficiency wage ; near-rationality ; panel data ; india.

The Economics of Poverty in Poor Countries

This article examines the links that have recently been studied between poverty, high fertility and undernourishment, on the one hand, and degradation of the local environmental-resource base and civic disconnection, on ... Read more...

January 1998

Keywords: poverty traps ; positive feed-back ; undernourishment ; property rights ; fertility ; the commons ; local democracy ; civil liberties

Hunger in the Contemporary World

Amartya Sen

Economic analysis of hunger calls for an informationally broad approach that takes adequate account of the distinct interdependences involved. This paper examines the interdependences between (1) income and food consumpt... Read more...

November 1997

Keywords: hunger ; food ; undernourishment ; entitlement ; women empowerment ; intrafamily distribution ; fertility ; political incentives ; military expenditure

Inequality, Unemployment and Contemporary Europe

Inequality of incomes can differ substantially from inequality in other 'spaces' such as well-being, freedom, health, longevity, and quality of life. Given the massive sclae of unemployment in contemporary European econo... Read more...

Keywords: unemployment ; individuality ; social exclusion ; ageging population ; self-help ; social responsibility.

Credit in Rural India: A Case Study

Jean Dreze, Peter Lanjouw and Naresh Sharma

This paper presents a case study of credit transactions in Palanpur, a north Indian village. Drawing on detailed informtion from all borrowers and lenders in the village, we examine a number of issues related to the func... Read more...

September 1997

Keywords: india ; palanpur ; rural credit markets.

Population, Consumption and Resources: Ethical Issues

This article is about the concept of optimum population and consumption. Even though it is primarily concerned with foundational issues, the various ideas that have been discussed in the literature are tested in the cont... Read more...

Keywords: potential people ; actual people ; utilitarianism ; generation-relative ethics

The Economics of Food

In this article I argue that, in contrast to what is implicitly assumed in many popular writings on food security in the future, the interface that connects the problems of population growth, poverty, environmental degra... Read more...

Keywords: food composition ; environmental resources ; photosynthesis ; future population ; undernourishment ; poverty traps ; world hunger ; property rights.

What's the Point of a Development Strategy?

Standard indicators of economic success leave out many aspects of development that are crucial to the well-being and freedom of citizens. We have to examine critically the ends as well as the means involved in developmen... Read more...

Keywords: economic development ; capabilities ; valuational weights development indicators ;

Development and Thinking at the Beginning of the 21st Century

There has been a shift, in recent years, in the understanding of the process of development. It is not a switch (as often portrayed) from a state-dependent view of development to a market-reliant view. Rather, it involve... Read more...

Keywords: economic development ; capabilities ; hard states ; political incentives ; role of public discussion ; valuational weights.

Does the Labour Market Explain Lower Female Schooling in India?

Geeta Gandhi Kingdon

Labour market discrimination against women and parental discrimination against daughters are two of the most commonly cited explanations of the gender gap in education in developing countries. This study empirically test... Read more...

January 1997

Keywords: returns to education ; gender ; labour force participation ; earnings function ; selectivity correction ; india.

Browse Econ Literature

• Working papers
• Software components
• Book chapters
• JEL classification

More features

• Subscribe to new research

RePEc Biblio

Author registration.

• Economics Virtual Seminar Calendar NEW!

World Institute for Development Economics Research

Research paper.

• Publisher Info
• Serial Info

Corrections

Contact information of world institute for development economics research, serial information, impact factors.

• Simple ( last 10 years )
• Recursive ( 10 )
• Discounted ( 10 )
• Recursive discounted ( 10 )
• H-Index ( 10 )
• Euclid ( 10 )
• Aggregate ( 10 )
• By citations

More services and features

Follow serials, authors, keywords & more

Public profiles for Economics researchers

Various research rankings in Economics

RePEc Genealogy

Who was a student of whom, using RePEc

Curated articles & papers on economics topics

Upload your paper to be listed on RePEc and IDEAS

New papers by email

Subscribe to new additions to RePEc

EconAcademics

Blog aggregator for economics research

Cases of plagiarism in Economics

About RePEc

Initiative for open bibliographies in Economics

News about RePEc

Questions about IDEAS and RePEc

RePEc volunteers

Participating archives

Publishers indexing in RePEc

Privacy statement

Found an error or omission?

Opportunities to help RePEc

Get papers listed

Have your research listed on RePEc

Open a RePEc archive

Have your institution's/publisher's output listed on RePEc

Get RePEc data

Use data assembled by RePEc

Published on Development Impact

What’s the latest in development economics research a round-up of 140+ papers from neudc 2017, david evans, this page in:.

Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development

David Evans, thank you so much for putting these short summaries together of the latest research. This is fantastic!

Yes - this is really time saving. Is there a link to similar summaries from previous years ?

Thanks, Charlie! I did a similar round-up in 2015, and one for PacDev (the West coast version of NEUDC) in 2014. Earlier this year, Markus Goldstein and I posted a round-up for CSAE, the big conference on African Economic Development. 

Thank you, Dave! This is very useful :)

Very useful economic research report. There are many reputed organizations like Art of Living foundation doing noteworthy work in the field of development in rural areas. https://www.artofliving.org/in-en/rural-development

Thanks for the summaries. Great effort

Skipping the macro papers speaks volumes about the current dismal status of development economics

Journal of Economic Growth

The Journal of Economic Growth serves as the principal outlet for research in the fields of economic growth and comparative economic development. The journal publishes high quality research that explores the growth process in the contemporary period as well as over the entire course of human history. In particular, the journal encourages the submission of research that explores the role of income distribution, the demographic transition, human capital formation, technological change, and structural transformation in the growth process, as well as the role deeply-rooted geographical, cultural, institutional and human characteristics in the comparative economic development.

The Journal of Economic Growth is currently ranked 3rd (Web of Science) and 5 th (RePEc) among all economic journals, based on impact factor.

Submission related to the field of population economics , that will be not found by the editorial board suitable for publications in the Journal of Economic Growth, may be transferred by the Editor, with referee reports, for further consideration in the Journal of Population Economics.

Officially cited as: J Econ Growth

• Publishes theoretical and empirical research in economic growth and dynamic macroeconomics
• Features an editorial board consisting of prominent researchers in economic growth, dynamic macroeconomics, international economics, urban economics, migration, and development
• Ranked #5 among all journals in the RepEc (Research Papers in Economics) journal ranking

Journal information

Journal metrics, latest issue.

Issue 4, December 2023

Latest articles

Women legislators and economic performance, authors (first, second and last of 4).

• Thushyanthan Baskaran
• Sonia Bhalotra
• Yogesh Uppal
• Content type: OriginalPaper
• Open Access
• Published: 07 November 2023

Human capital, self-esteem, and income inequality

• Mark Gradstein
• Luigi Ventura
• Published: 09 October 2023

Social mobility and economic development

• Guido Neidhöfer
• Matías Ciaschi
• Joaquín Serrano
• Published: 13 September 2023

Automation and unemployment: help is on the way

• Hideki Nakamura
• Joseph Zeira
• Published: 11 September 2023

Missions, fertility transition, and the reversal of fortunes: evidence from border discontinuities in the emirates of Nigeria

• Dozie Okoye
• Roland Pongou
• Published: 08 September 2023

Journal updates

Open access articles.

Read recently published open access articles in the  Journal of Economic Growth .  

For authors

Working on a manuscript.

Avoid the most common mistakes and prepare your manuscript for journal editors.

About this journal

• ABS Academic Journal Quality Guide
• Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Journal Quality List
• Current Contents / Social & Behavioral Sciences
• EBSCO Business Source
• EBSCO Discovery Service
• Google Scholar
• Journal Citation Reports/Social Sciences Edition
• Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals and Series
• OCLC WorldCat Discovery Service
• ProQuest ABI/INFORM
• ProQuest International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS)
• ProQuest-ExLibris Primo
• ProQuest-ExLibris Summon
• Research Papers in Economics (RePEc)
• Social Science Citation Index
• TD Net Discovery Service
• UGC-CARE List (India)

Rights and permissions

Springer policies

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature

Journal of Economic Development Economic Research Institute, Chung-Ang University

ISSN: 0254-8372 | eISSN: 2636-0578

• Aims and Scope
• Editorial Board
• Publication Ethics
• Peer Review Policies
• Guide for Authors
• Submit Your Papers
• Subscription

Current Issue : 2023, Vol.48, No.3

An Empirical Evaluation of the Middle-Income Trap and Immiserizing Growth in BRICS Countries

ESelection or Tunneling? An Explanation for the Agency Problems in Chaebol Firms

Measurement of Inequality-Adjusted Human Development at the Sub-National Level for the United States in 2015 And 2020

Household Income Dynamics and Wage Inequality In Bangladesh: Evidence From Hies 2010 And 2016

Tax Compliance Attitudes in Africa: Does Foreign Aid Promote Human Development? Evidence from South Asian Countries

The Influence of E-Service Quality on Food Online Purchase Intention in Vietnam

Do Lawyers Inhibit Economic Growth? New Evidence from the 50 U.S. States?