Journal ArticleDOI
Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions
William Easterly,Ross Levine +1 more
TLDR
This article showed that ethnic diversity helps explain cross-country differences in public policies and other economic indicators in Sub-Saharan Africa, and that high ethnic fragmentation explains a significant part of most of these characteristics.Abstract:
Explaining cross-country differences in growth rates requires not only an understanding of the link between growth and public policies, but also an understanding of why countries choose different public policies. This paper shows that ethnic diversity helps explain cross-country differences in public policies and other economic indicators. In the case of Sub-Saharan Africa, economic growth is associated with low schooling, political instability, underdeveloped financial systems, distorted foreign exchange markets, high government deficits, and insufficient infrastructure. Africa's high ethnic fragmentation explains a significant part of most of these characteristics.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Financial education and behavioral finance: new insights into the role of information in financial decisions
TL;DR: In this paper, the importance of information in financial decisions may be reduced or eliminated by psychological aspects of the individual, such as a state of overconfidence that is individual or shared with a group, or by the individual's limited ability to process complex and abundant information.
Journal ArticleDOI
Does ethnicity determine support for the governing party? the structural and attitudinal basis of partisan identification in 12 African nations
TL;DR: In this paper, the Afrobarometer, a cross-national representative survey of political and social values conducted in twelve nations in Sub-Saharan Africa, ranging from Botswana to Zimbabwe, was used to analyze the influence of ethnicity on identification with the governing party in a dozen African states.
Posted Content
Law and Finance: Why Does Legal Origin Matter?
TL;DR: Beck, Demirguc-Kunt, and Levine as mentioned in this paper assess two theories of why legal origin influences financial development: political and adaptability, and conclude that legal systems that adapt quickly to minimize the gap between the contracting needs of the economy and the legal system's capabilities will foster financial development more effectively than would more rigid legal traditions.
Posted Content
Do Multiculturalism Policies Erode the Welfare State
Keith G. Banting,Will Kymlicka +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, a taxonomy of multiculturalism policies and their relationship with the erosion of the welfare state is presented. But the authors do not find any evidence that there is a consistent relationship between the adoption of MCPs and the degradation of the Welfare State.
References
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The mechanics of economic development
Abstract: This paper considers the prospects for constructing a neoclassical theory of growth and international trade that is consistent with some of the main features of economic development. Three models are considered and compared to evidence: a model emphasizing physical capital accumulation and technological change, a model emphasizing human capital accumulation through schooling, and a model emphasizing specialized human capital accumulation through learning-by-doing.
Journal ArticleDOI
On the mechanics of economic development
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider the prospects for constructing a neoclassical theory of growth and international trade that is consistent with some of the main features of economic development, and compare three models and compared to evidence.
Posted Content
Law and Finance
Rafael La Porta,Rafael La Porta,Florencio Lopez de Silanes,Florencio Lopez de Silanes,Andrei Shleifer,Andrei Shleifer,Robert W. Vishny,Robert W. Vishny +7 more
TL;DR: This paper examined legal rules covering protection of corporate shareholders and creditors, the origin of these rules, and the quality of their enforcement in 49 countries and found that common law countries generally have the best, and French civil law countries the worst, legal protections of investors.
ReportDOI
Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries
TL;DR: For 98 countries in the period 1960-1985, the growth rate of real per capita GDP is positively related to initial human capital (proxied by 1960 school-enrollment rates) and negatively related to the initial (1960) level as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
Finance and Growth: Schumpeter Might Be Right
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined a cross-section of about 80 countries for the period 1960-89 and found that various measures of financial development are strongly associated with both current and later rates of economic growth.