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Publications (24)
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– A systematic literature review
This paper provides a systematic review of quantitative literature investigating the success of affirmative action policies in addressing socio-economic inequalities between ethnic groups in education and employment. We focus on two of the most influential national experiences: caste-based...
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– Lessons from 19th-century America and 21st-century China
How do modern fiscal states arise? Perhaps the most dominant explanation, based on the European experience, is that democratic institutions that limited the extractive power of states—exemplified by the 1688 Glorious Revolution in England—paved the way for the rise of fiscal capacity and subsequent...
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There are sound theoretical reasons to expect clientelism to suppress economic growth: politicians who garner support by offering employment to voters and grassroots party members can do so more effectively when the voters’ participation constraint is met with low wages. Hence, clientelism can...
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This paper analyses how inequality across counties in the United States of America has shaped the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence of protests. The empirical analysis combines weekly data between January and December 2020 on levels of COVID-19-related policy stringency and protest...
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Understanding the relationship between income inequality and economic growth is of utmost importance to economists and social scientists. In this paper we use a Bayesian structural vector autoregression approach to estimate the relationship between inequality and growth via growth and inequality...
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– Evidence from changes in the occupational structure of employment in the USA and Mexico
The decline of employment in middle-wage, routine task intensive jobs has been well documented for the USA. Increased offshoring towards lower-income countries such as Mexico has been proposed as a potential driver of this decline. Our analysis provides a unique and new approach to address the...
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– Different economic models but similarly low levels of socioeconomic mobility
The United States and China are the world’s largest economies. Together they are responsible for about one-third of the world’s economic output. This paper aims to examine whether the two economic giants are also lands of opportunity where resources are allocated in a way that minimizes unrealized...
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Using 1990 5% Census and American Community Survey data, we examine the economic integration of Afghan refugees to the US, focusing on employment rates and income levels. First-wave Afghan refugees (those arriving 1980–90) have made significant income and employment gains, while poverty rates and...
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– The case of Vietnamese refugee resettlement in the United States
In this study, we examine the Vietnamese population of the United States as a case study in the integration of a refugee group in a host country. We approach this case in three parts. We first offer a brief review of Vietnamese refugee resettlement in the US and the making of a new ethnic community...
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We extend the conventional framework for measuring segregation to consider stratification of occupations by gender, i.e. when women or men are predominantly segregated into low-paying jobs. For this, we propose to use concentration curves and indices. Our empirical analysis using this approach shows...
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Since 2006, global prices and price volatility for foodgrain commodities have spiked frequently and dramatically. Such spikes have had the heaviest economic and social impact on developing nations, where agriculture accounts for a sizable portion of economic activity. We demonstrate how US public...
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Particular sets of institutions, once they become established in a society, have a strong tendency to persist. In this paper I argue that understanding how elites form and reproduce is key to understanding the persistence of institutions over time. I illustrate this idea with a simple political...
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– US FDI in Emerging Economies
The paper investigates the impact of exchange rates on US foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to a sample of 16 emerging market countries using annual panel data for the period 1990-2002. Three separate exchange rate effects are considered: the value of the local currency (a cheaper currency...
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The aim of this paper is to examine the concentration of wealth among the group of top wealth holders, defined as those with wealth in excess of a high cut off. The paper begins by considering the definition of this cut off, analogous to the definition of a poverty line at the other end of the...
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By 2000, over one-third of Silicon Valley’s high-skilled workers were foreign-born, and overwhelmingly from Asia. These US-educated engineers are transforming developmental opportunities for formerly peripheral regions as they build professional and business connections to their home countries. In a...
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Food insecurity and hunger have traditionally been measured by aggregate food supplies or by variables correlated with food insecurity. Because these measures often poorly reflect individuals’ true deprivation, economists have turned to surveys with direct questions about food insecurity. Using...
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