This article describes a new Stata routine, xtcsd, to test for the presence of cross-sectional dependence in panels with many cross-sectional units and few time-series observations. The command executes three different testing procedures-namely, Friedman's (Journal of the American Statistical Association 32: 675-701) (FR) test statistic, the statistic proposed by Frees (Journal of Econometrics 69: 393-414), and the cross-sectional dependence (CD) test of Pesaran (General diagnostic tests for cross-section dependence in panels [University of Cambridge, Faculty of Economics, Cambridge Working Papers in Economics, Paper No. 0435]). We illustrate the command with an empirical example.

The spike in international food prices between 2005 and the first half of 2008 drew much attention to the vulnerability of the poor to such shocks. This paper provides a formal assessment of the direct and indirect impacts of higher prices of agricultural goods on global poverty using a representative sample of 63-93% of the developing world's population. To assess the direct effects, the paper uses domestic food price data between January 2005 and December 2007-when the relative price of food staples rose by an average of 5.6%-to find that the number of individuals living under the extreme poverty line increased by 155 million, with almost three-quarters of this increase taking place in East Asia. To take the second-order effects into account, the paper links household survey data with a global general equilibrium model, finding that the same increase in consumer prices of agricultural goods (modeled by increasing demand for first-generation biofuels) would raise the number of individuals living under extreme poverty by 32 million, with nearly the entire increase occurring in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper describes in detail the analytical structure of the Global Income Distribution Dynamics (GIDD) model, a global macro-micro modelling framework, and provides some examples of its recent applications. GIDD is the first macro-micro global simulation model focused on long-term, global growth and distribution dynamics. GIDD has been applied in analyzing the effects of multilateral trade liberalization or mitigation of climate change damages, among others. It also explicitly considers long term time horizons during which changes in the demographic structure are crucial components of both growth and distribution dynamics. The challenges of assessing plausible worldwide distributional implications of growth, large shocks, and policy changes are daunting. Although addressing these issues in a macro-micro framework is subject to great uncertainty, a clearly superior alternative is not yet available.

Over the past 20 years, aggregate measures of global inequality have changed little even if significant structural changes have been observed. High growth rates of China and India lifted millions out of poverty, while the stagnation in many African countries caused them to fall behind. Using the World Bank's LINKAGE global general equilibrium model and the newly developed Global Income Distribution Dynamics (GIDD) tool, this paper assesses the distribution and poverty effects of a scenario where these trends continue in the future. Even by anticipating a deceleration, growth in China and India is a key force behind the expected convergence of per capita incomes at the global level. Millions of Chinese and Indian consumers will enter into a rapidly …/.

Competition Commission, Mexican Merger Policy, L51, D43, C35,