Third DIAL Conference on barriers to development. Introduction to the special section

The DIAL Conference on Development Economics, held every two years since 2011, is attended by over 150 researchers meeting to discuss recent contributions from research in development and international economics. This special section focuses on three papers presented at the third edition of the DIAL Conference jointly held by the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement and the Université Paris-Dauphine in Paris. The edition featured presentations of theoretical and empirical research on barriers to development and how to overcome them. The conference covered a wide array of barriers ranging from unfair trade and financial constraints through lack of human capital and poor infrastructure to corruption and poor governance. The papers selected for this special section take a new and original look at three major challenges faced by developing countries: access to international markets, access to finance, and access to education. Gaelle Balineau revisits the challenge of access to international markets, examining how fair trade goods consumption varies by French consumer income and characteristics. Second, although literature is abundant on migration as a risk-coping strategy, there is still little evidence regarding how access to credit affects migration decisions. Cecilia Poggi’s paper investigates this relationship based on a case study of a Village Fund scheme in Thailand. Last but not least, Liyousew Borga reconsiders the impact of child labour from the angle of cognitive and non-cognitive skills achievements rather than learning outcomes.