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
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
How does the global order harm the poor
TL;DR: More than 20 percent of the world population lives in abject poverty, on less than $1 per day, and about 50 percent of them are illiterate, according to as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Why ethnic fractionalization? Polarization, ethnic conflict and growth
TL;DR: This paper argued that the index of ethnic fractionalization is not an appropriate measure of potential ethnic conflict and showed that the RQ index of polarization can be derived from a simple rent seeking model and it is the only discrete polarization measure that satisfies the basic properties of polarization.
Journal ArticleDOI
Conflict and Development
TL;DR: This paper examined the links between economic development and social conflict and found that conflict is principally organized along economic differences rather than similarities, and that conflict most especially in developing countries is driven by ethnic motives.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Effect of Diversity on Turnover: A Large Case Study
Jessica Leonard,David I. Levine +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined how workplace diversity and employee isolation along the dimensions of gender, race, and age affected employee turnover and found no consistent evidence that diversity itself increased turnover.
Journal ArticleDOI
Is the Future American? Or, Can Left Politics Preserve European Welfare States from Erosion through Growing ‘Racial’ Diversity?
TL;DR: The authors showed that the model used fails to take into account the significance of left politics in European countries and that the left substantially counteracts the impact of greater diversity on welfare states in Europe.
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.