This paper presents and critically discusses a vast array of evidence on the determinants of mortality reductions in developing countries. We argue that increases in life expectancy between 1960 and 2000 were largely independent from improvements in income and nutrition. We then characterize the...

Trade reform conditions are common in IMF supported programs. Of the 99 countries that had IMF programs during 1993-2003, 77 had conditions on trade reforms in their programs. Since the WTO has not been found especially effective in promoting trade openness for most developing countries, it is...

Computer and Internet use, especially in developing countries, has expanded rapidly in recent years. Even in light of this expansion in technology adoption rates, penetration rates differ markedly between developed and developing countries and across developing countries. To identify the...

Without large increases in the number of health workers to treat HIV/AIDS (HAHW), most developing countries will be unable to achieve universal coverage with antiretroviral treatment (ART), leading to large numbers of potentially avoidable deaths among people living with HIV/AIDS. We use Markov...

This paper studies the impact of aid volatility in a two-period model where production may occur with either a traditional or a modern technology. Public spending is productive and quot;time to buildquot; requires expenditure in both periods for the modern technology to be used. The possibility...

Recently collected data show that, within any manufacturing industry, vertically integrated firms tend to have larger, higher productivity plants, account for the bulk of sales, and also sell externally most of the inputs they produce. In a weak contracting environment characteristic of...

This paper argues that openness to new, unconventional and disruptive ideas has a first-order impact on creative innovations-innovations that break new ground in terms of knowledge creation. After presenting a motivating model focusing on the choice between incremental and radical innovation,...