Nelson and Startz (Econometrica, 58, 1990), Maddala and Jong (Econometrica, 60, 1992) and Wolgrom (Econometrica, 69, 2001) have shown that the density of the two-stage least squares estimator may be bimodal in a just identified structural equation. This paper further investigates the conditions under which bimodality may arise in a just/over-identified model. JEL Classification C30

In this paper we estimate the effect of agricultural electricity subsidies in India on groundwater extraction and agricultural output. Our empirical approach exploits changes in state electricity prices over time controlling for aggregate annual shocks and fixed district unobservables. Electricity subsidies meaningfully increase groundwater extraction, where the implied extensive margin price e...

We explore heat-related labor impacts both for their own interest and to understand the role of adaptation in responding to climate change. Focusing on non-agricultural sectors in the United States, we find that hot temperatures exert a causal negative impact on county-level payroll – reducing payroll by several percentage points in a 2◦C hotter year – with larger impacts in highly exposed indu...

We examine the interaction between risk (uncertainty) and production efficiency in determining pay-performance sensitivity in optimal executive compensation. Particularly, we show that the risk-incentive trade-off is exacerbated (attenuated) as production efficiency increases when the efficiency level is greater (less) than the level of compensation risk. This result suggests that the optimalit...

Connecting private dwellings to the water main is expensive and typically cannot be publicly financed. We show that households’ willingness to pay for a private connection is high when it can be purchased on credit, not because a connection improves health but because it increases the time available for leisure and reduces interand intra-household conflicts on water matters, leading to sustaine...

I analyze the effect of inequality on economic growth in Latin America, where inequality is measured as the area of family farms as a percentage of the total area of agricultural holdings. Using data from 18 Latin American countries between 1960 and 2004, I find that inequality has a nonlinear effect on economic growth. Overall, for the countries included in this analysis, the share of family f...

Labor Supply, Home Production and Welfare Comparisons We consider the collective model of labor supply with marketable domestic production. We first show that, if domestic production is mistakenly ignored, the “collective” indirect utilities that are retrieved from observed behavior will be unbiased if and only if the profit function is additive. Otherwise, in the non-additive case, the directi...

This papers analyses the causes behind Africa’s unfortunate transformation into the source of the world’s slaves over the early modern period. We discuss the economic and technological forces leading to it, and address questions such as why were most slave buyers Europeans and most slave sellers Africans. We then relate the discussion to the long-term determinants of African underdevelopment, a...

The analysis of land investment and tenure security usually assumes land scarcity. However, some developing countries have communities with land abundance. This article therefore examines the effects of land abundance for investment and tenure security. The paper develops a formal test of land abundance and estimates a system of three simultaneous equations. The empirical analysis uncovers sign...

This paper reports on my replication of the 1997 Sachs and Warner resource curse working paper. Exact pure replication is achieved. A test for statistical replication shows that some of the Sachs and Warner results attempting to determine the cause of the resource curse are not robust to the country sample. A test for scientific replication shows that findings of the resource curse are not sens...