This research section is organized along topical lines listed in the menu on the left (e.g. Growth, Trade, Education, etc.)  

Within each topic in the menu are all papers of mine (published and unpublished) on that topic.  Each section also includes a section with recent puzzles and ideas I am working on. 

Here are the very latest papers (across a variety of topics):

The Future of Migration:  Accommodating Irresistible Forces and Immovable Ideas.  This is a manuscript, in preparation for publication by the Center for Global Development, that argues that the "development community" should be much more active in putting labor mobility on the international agenda along side trade, aid and debt. 

Who is not poor?  Dreaming of a World Truly Free of Poverty.  This paper, forthcoming in the World Bank Research Observer, argues that the World Bank should measure global poverty using its traditional poverty line of a 'dollar a day' as a lower bound (perhaps labeled "destitution') but also use an upper bound poverty line of roughly 'ten dollars a day' to measure "global poverty."  This would imply poverty, measured on a consistent basis globally, is a much more pervasive phenomena--including 2-3 billion people as poor by a global standard.

The quest continues.  This is a brief article for the IMF's magazine Finance and Development that reviews the connection between growth research in the economics profession and the needs of policy makers--with particular emphasis on the mis-match in the experience of the 1990s. 

Scenes from a Marriage:  World Bank Economists and Social Capital.  This is a chapter from a forthcoming book edited by Tony Bebbington, Michael Woolcock, and Scott Guggenheim, and E. Ostrom about the concept of social capital.  Together with Jeffrey Hammer we look at it from the economist's view.

Economic Growth in the 1990s:  Learning from a Decade of Reforms. 

This project, led by Roberto Zagha, produced a World Bank volume to which I contributed.

(in the context of this, see Dani Rodrik's review of this book for the Journal of Economic Literature)

(this is a paper coming out of this project):

Reform is like a box of chocolates: Understanding the growth disappointments and surprises.  This paper addresses the question of why some countries have done a great deal of reform and had little to show for it--a particularly pressing issue in Latin America--while other, seemingly more modest, reformers have enjoyed rapid growth.

Boomtowns and Ghost Countries:  Geography, Agglomeration and Population Mobility (November 2003).  This paper suggests that the combination of negative geographic shocks and forces of agglomeration could lead to 'ghost countries' in the world.  By analogy with "ghost towns" these are countries in which the current desired population is a small faction of its previous peak (or current).  

Does learning to add up add up?  The returns to schooling in aggregate data.  (July 2003)This is a draft chapter for the forthcoming Handbook of Education Economics and addresses the question of whether the cross national data on the growth of output (GDP per worker) are consistent with the microeconomic (Mincer regression) data on the returns to schooling. (This is now BREAD working paper #53)

Chapter 3:  Analytical Framework in the World Development Report 2004. 

Chapter 7:  Education, in the World Development Report 2004.

Educational Quality and Costs: A Big Puzzle and Five Possible Pieces.  (June 2003) This is a "think piece" on the explanation for why all of the OECD countries have had dramatic increases in spending per student with very modest (if any) increase in measured learning. 

Voice Lessons: Local Government Organizations, Social Organizations, and the Quality of Local Governance with Vivi Alatas and Anna Wetterberg. October 2002.  An empirical examination of the connection between household's social activities and their perceived quality of local (village) government in Indonesia.  

Targeted Programs in an Economic Crisis: Empirical Findings from the Experience of Indonesia with Asep Suryahadi and Sudarno Sumarto, September 2002 (see also the SMERU Research Institute and Center for International Development Working Papers).  A comprehensive empirical assessment, using a combination of cross section and panel data, of the targeting of the "Social Safety Net" programs launched to mitigate the impacts of the crises in Indonesia 1998-2000.  

"When will they ever learn":  Why all Governments Produce Schooling.  February 2002.  Solves the puzzle of why all governments produce (as opposed to "provide") basic education--because they care about socialization and direct production is the only way to control it.

What's the Big Idea? with David Lindauer.  June 2002.  Charts the changing strategies for growth and how they have grown naturally out of the obvious "lessons" of experience--but failed.