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This synthesis paper draws together the salient elements emerging from the RA4 case studies research, and from three thematic synthesis papers written by members of the RA4 Scientific Committee, Jean Marie Baland and Catherine Guirkinger, Dilip Mookherjee, and Christopher Woodruff….

This paper serves as a companion paper to the Economic Development and Institutions’ (EDI) White Paper “At the Intersection: A Review of Institutions in Economic Development” (Dal Bó and Finan, 2016). The White Paper reviewed nearly 200 publications from economics…

The state, bureaucracy, and judiciary synthesis paper finds that the research conducted under this theme makes an important contribution to the literature discussing the issue that formal institutions cannot be created at will, and that they require a suitable cultural…

The EDI research programme has generated significant policy impacts, including changes to laws and national policies as a result of close engagement between researchers and government officials. This report by the Centre for Effective Global Action (CEGA) details the impact of our work throughout the globe.

One puzzling question that arises in connection with the spread of the virus SARS-CoV2 is why there are so large variations in its incidence (the infection rate) and its lethal consequences (the death-toll) across countries and across regions within countries….

Abstract: We investigate the historical origins of female genital cutting (FGC), a harmful practice widespread across Africa. We test the hypothesis -substantiated by historical sources – that FGC was connected to the Red Sea slave trade route, where women were…

The vital importance of institutions for economic development is widely acknowledged in both the theoretical and empirical literature. Yet the precise nature of the relationship between the two is unclear: do ‘good’ institutions produce development, or does development lead to…

This paper presents the introduction from the Handbook of Economic Development and Institutions published by Princeton University Press in January 2020. The book can be purchased online from Princeton University Press. Authors: Jean-Marie Baland, Francois Bourguignon, Jean-Philippe Platteau, and Thierry…

The Judiciary, through providing protection of property rights, constraining government abuse, and enforcing contracts, plays a key role in institutional, political, and economic development. Religion, too, has largely influenced institutions, politics, and economic development. Yet not much is understood on…

This research elucidates the willingness of an autocrat to push through institutional reforms in a context where traditional authorities represented by religious clerics are averse to them and where the military control the means of repression and can potentially make…

We test the hypothesis that the slave trade was one of the contributing factors for the spread of female genital cutting (FGC). In the Red-Sea route female slaves were sold as concubines and infibulation was used to ensure chastity. We…

Countries where courts are weak, and rights are poorly enforced, tend to be countries with worse economic outcomes (Pande and Udry, 2006; Rodrik, 2000, 2005). To better understand the relationship between the functioning of judicial systems and economic growth, Dal…

Abstract: This paper reviews the literature on aspirations in economics, with a particular focus on socially determined aspirations. The core theory builds on two fundamental principles: (a) aspirations can serve to inspire, but still higher aspirations can lead to frustration…

Sylvie Lambert (Paris School of Economics), Garance Genicot (Georgetown University), and Markus Goldstein (World Bank) discuss the significance of ensuring land rights to economic activity in the agricultural sectory in the Congo Basin, how securing land rights for women is…

Economic Development & Institutions programme is developing a diagnostic framework that will help identify the institutional challenges a country faces in boosting development and economic outcomes, and as such highlights where efforts should be spent to enhance development activities. Francois…

How can artificial intelligence help understand the decisions of judges to improve the quality of judiciary systems? Francois Bourguignon (Paris School of Economics, Research Director EDI) and Bilal Siddiqi (University of California, Berkeley) explain how randomised control trials can be…

More than a billion people currently live without access to electricity in their homes. As policymakers push for increased electricity access, Susanna Berkouwer (University of California, Berkley) examines the work EDI is doing to answer the key question: how can…

This paper elucidates the willingness of an autocrat to push through institutional reforms in a context where traditional authorities represented by religious clerics are averse to them and where the military, who have their own preferences about reforms, control the…

There is a fast-growing literature on socially determined aspirations, and the implications of this concept for the study of goal-setting, interpersonal inequality, economic mobility, risk-taking, fertility decisions and social conflict. This EDI Research Insight briefly outlines the major themes emerging…

Federico Finan, Associate Professor of Economics and Business at UC-Berkeley, introduces the EDI convening conference titled, “Sharing Strategies, Sharing Solutions: A Policy Institute for Innovations in Public Services.” The main goals of the event are to identify ways in which…

Bilal Siddiqi from the World Bank presents his research on “Using administrative data systems to improve court efficiency (India, Kenya, Tanzania)”. Questions reviewed through this research include: How do disputes get reported? How is the quality of adjudication affected by…

Ernesto Dal Bó, Professor in Management Philosophy and Values at UC Berkeley, and Benjamin Klooss, EDI Programme Manager at Oxford Policy Management, reflect on the EDI conference “Sharing Strategies, Sharing Solutions: A Policy Institute for Innovations in Public Services.” They…

A presentation by Ernesto Dal Bó and Federico Finan, University of California, Berkeley This presentation was part of the convening event hosted by CEGA at the University of California, Berkeley, in August 2018. Read a summary of the event.  

A presentation by Bilal Siddiqi, DIME, World Bank This presentation was part of the convening event hosted by CEGA at the University of California, Berkeley, in August 2018. Read a summary of the event.

“Using administrative data systems to improve court efficiency (India, Kenya, Tanzania)” A presentation by Bilal Siddiqi, DIME, World Bank This presentation was part of the convening event hosted by CEGA at the University of California, Berkeley, in August 2018. Read…

A presentation by Eric Arias, William & Mary This presentation was part of the convening event hosted by CEGA at the University of California, Berkeley, in August 2018. Read a summary of the event.

This video provides an overview of the first year of the programme, where 23 path-findings papers were produced by world class academics that identified the research gaps and set the priorities for the remaining four years of EDI.

Where does the evidence stand on institutions, development and growth? This paper explores the empirical evidence on institutions and growth. The empirical evidence on institutions ranges from historical studies to econometric analyses, with different studies making very different theoretical commitments…

This policy brief reflects on the EDI Path-Finding Paper, “The dynamics of family systems: lessons from past and present time,” written by Catherine Guirkinger and Jean-Philippe Platteau. It exposes the main lessons from salient studies that have estimated the effects…

This paper provides an overview of the literature on political clientelism  and its relation to economic development. It starts by describing the range of mechanisms used by political operatives to monitor how specific voters vote in order to target clientelistic…

A Policy Brief Prepared for the World Bank’s 2017 Law, Justice and Development Week October 2017. Economic inequalities divide men and women around the world. Women on average earn just 60-70% of what their male counterparts earn. They are less likely to participate…

This brief, based on Klasen’s path-finding paper titled ‘Gender, Institutions and Economic Development: Findings, Open Research and Policy Issues’ focuses on the way he treats gender gaps as the outcome of institutional features, formal and informal.  And on how formal institutions, informal…

This paper reviews and discusses the literature on formal institutions and development. We first discuss the mapping from institutions to economic development, with the main emphasis on the effect on economic growth. We thereafter discuss two main literatures on endogenous…

Market exchange involves many cognitive and non-cognitive processes, e.g., search, inference, prediction, negotiation. Much attention has been devoted to these issues both in theory and in experimental economics. I focus on the enforcement of market transactions against opportunistic behavior. I…

This paper presents a survey of the literature on culture in economics, emphasizing the effects of culture as well as the origins of cultural development. Research finds culture to have a large set of effects on economic behaviors, outcomes and …

This paper reviews the economic literature on how family systems respond to changes in resource endowments, outside economic opportunities, the development of markets, and surrounding institutions. On topics where economic contributions are scarce, we also provide insights from other disciplines,…

A next step forward in examining economic growth and institutions is examining the frequency, timing and magnitude of “growth episodes”—discrete accelerations and de-celerations in medium to long run growth.  This will be challenging as to the extent that very long-run…

The paper surveys the very heterogeneous economic literature on the scope and limits of efforts to match institutional constraints and needs, on the one hand, and infrastructure policy and project designs, on the other, to increase the odds of improving…

This paper reviews and synthesizes current knowledge on the role of institutions on firm financing and growth in developing countries. First, the paper presents stylized facts on the different institutional constraints under which firms in developing countries operate. Next, the…

This paper takes stock of and provides a critical review of several literatures, notably the theoretical and empirical work on finance and growth and studies on the determinants of financial development. These two literatures are linked as the sustainable expansion…

This paper provides a selective review of evidence from labor markets in low-income countries. The aim is to synthesize this literature to consolidate what is known about the key drivers of worker outcomes (including those of micro-entrepreneurs), firm behavior, and the interaction between…

The paper discusses Marx’s view on the relationship between technological change and institutional change as presented in the famous preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy.  What Marx meant by a contradiction between the base and the…

This paper surveys the literature on the two-way relationship between development aid and the quality of institutions in developing countries. Aid may improve institutions, e.g. when conditionality succeeds, but it can also have unintended effects that are typically negative, e.g….

In this review, we examine the links between economic development and social conflict. By economic development, we refer broadly to aggregate changes in per-capita income and wealth, or in the distribution of that wealth. By social conflict, we refer to…

Gender relations are a key institution governing important aspects of production and reproduction of societies. They are guided by formal institutions as well as informal norms and values. As this survey shows, there is great regional heterogeneity in gender inequality…

Environmental problems may be classified by the scale of the relevant externalities. Some externalities are primarily local, for example, those concerning the management of resources like forests, pastures and inland fisheries, or local air and water pollution. Others are mainly regional…

I ask what clues do historical and contemporary data provide for theory building and empirical work to enhance our understanding of the relationship between institutions and inequality. The survey begins with a brief overview of the role of institutions in…

Group inequality is a prominent feature of many modern democracies. The purpose of this paper is to take stock of what we know about the ways in which major democracies have viewed social groups and addressed inequalities between them. Countries…

This survey examines the relationship between community networks and migration. Adding networks to the Roy model, the workhorse model of migration in economics, is shown to reconcile key stylized facts on migration with the theory. This addition is supported by…

This paper reviews the channels through which the media can be a tool of institutional development, building the argument in two parts. First I focus on the media as a tool for accountability: by providing information on candidates ex ante,…

We present accepted basic arguments on the role of institutions in development and then discuss the corresponding empirical evidence in support (or not) of those arguments. Methodologically, our emphasis is on experimental evidence wherever available, and thematically we focus on…

Louis Kasekende (Deputy Governor, Bank of Uganda) discusses the role of formal and informal institutions in the financial sector. He refers to recent EDI path-finding research papers to focus on the transition from informal to formal institutions and its effect…

Joan Esteban (Institute for Economic Analysis) and Debraj Ray (New York University) explain how civil wars are the major impediments to growth, and offer three lessons from existing research. Watch our Spotlight on Conflict and Development below:

Kaivan Munshi (University of Cambridge) explores how labour movements and development are linked, and provides insight into the role of policy around this area. Watch the video below for his overview:

Sam Bowles of the Santa Fe Institute explains how institutions are the rules of the game, that regulate how we interact with each other. “If we don’t understand how institutions work, we can’t possibly understand how economies change,” he says….