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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Posted Content
War and Poverty
TL;DR: This paper explored the economic channels through which war may simultaneously affect and be affected by the economic status and responses of individuals and their immediate relations in areas of violent conflict to cope with and adapt to changes to livelihoods and economic status during civil wars.
Journal ArticleDOI
Improving Policy Credibility: Is There a Case for African Monetary Unions?
TL;DR: The authors analyzes experience with monetary policy in Africa, focusing on countries that have participated in rule-based regional monetary agreements (CFA Zone, East African Currency Board and Rand Monetary Area), and argues that monetary unions can provide an alternative means of credible commitment to sound macroeconomic policies, but only under certain conditions.
Journal ArticleDOI
Exploring the Links Between Corruption and Growth
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors model the transmission channels through which corruption indirectly affects growth and find that corruption hinders growth through its adverse effects on investment, human capital, and political instability, while fostering growth by reducing government consumption and increasing trade openness.
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Economic Roots of Political Conflict: The Case of Sri Lanka
TL;DR: In this article, a case study of the twin political conflicts in Sri Lanka is presented, with an emphasis on its economic roots, showing that fundamental contradictions in the national development policy in the restrictive trade regime of Sri Lanka were at the heart of the country's twin political conflict.
BookDOI
How inadequate provision of public infrastructure and services affects private investment
TL;DR: This paper found that poor public capital, proxied by an unreliable and inadequate power supply, significantly reduces productive private investment in Uganda, and that firms substitute for inadequate provision of public capital by investing in it themselves.
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.