(September 2016) 5 papers... in 5 minutes!

Air traffic and economic growth: the case of developing countries - François Bourguignon and Pierre-Emmanuel Darpeix
Air traffic is both catalyst and indicator of a country’s economic development. It contributes to the integration of domestic space as well as to links with other countries. The rate of growth of air traffic also reflects the dynamism of a country’s economic activity, its attractiveness, and the wealth of its inhabitants...
Short link: http://bit.ly/2dvZ9DG

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Building connections: Political corruption and road construction in India - Jonathan Lehne, Jacob N. Shapiro and Oliver Vanden Eynde
The Indian government spends a large share of its budget on rural infrastructure development. Whether it be road construction, electrification, or the provision of drinking water, such programmes create new opportunities for economic growth and clearly enhance citizen wellbeing. But, these programs also create opportunities for contractors and officials to engage in corruption...
Short link: http://bit.ly/2d5Vcaw

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Teaching accreditation exams reveal grading biases favor women in male-dominated disciplines in France - Thomas Breda and Mélina Hillion
Women are greatly under-represented in scientific professions and in certain academic disciplines (mathematics, physics, philosophy). Discrimination, in schools and in hiring, has long been evoked as one of the possible causes of this phenomenon. Nevertheless, recent “testing” experiments...
Short link: http://bit.ly/2d2GFfQ

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Wages and Human Capital in Finance: International Evidence, 1970-2011 - Hamid Boustanifar, Everett Grant and Ariell Reshef
The 2007-2008 crisis sparked a growing interest in understanding what explains increasingly high wages in finance, due to the perceived centrality of finance as the cause, catalyst or propagator of the Great Recession. There are four underlying reasons for this...
Short link: http://bit.ly/2doqhnw

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The Fickle Fringe and the Stable Core: Exporters’ Product Mix Across Markets - Lionel Fontagné, Angelo Secchi and Chiara Tomasi
An overwhelming share of international trade is conducted by a relative small group of large firms that export a broad variety of products to different destinations. In Italy and France, for example, multiproduct exporters typically ship more than five products (HS6) and account for 96% and 95% of total export flows, respectively...
Short link: http://bit.ly/2cHMrCW

Read the previous “5 papers... in 5 minutes!” (since November 2013)