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
Political Centralization in Pre-Colonial Africa
TL;DR: This article investigated the explanatory power of the standard models of Eurasian state formation which emphasize the importance of high population density, inter-state warfare and trade as factors leading to political centralization.
Journal ArticleDOI
Immigration, integration and support for redistribution in Europe
TL;DR: The authors explored whether immigration's effects are mediated by the economic and social integration of immigrants and found that economic integration, more than sociocultural integration, softens the tendency of immigration to undermine support for redistributive policies.
Journal ArticleDOI
Technological Change and Economic Growth
TL;DR: In a globalizing world economy, the reason for differences in economic growth and inter-country income inequality is explained on the grounds of technological differences as mentioned in this paper, and the goal of science and technology is to enable enterprises and individuals to use technologies more efficiently, as this results in reduced costs and enhanced productivity gains.
Journal ArticleDOI
The role of social connections in charitable fundraising: Evidence from a natural field experiment
John A. List,Michael K. Price +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide a test of whether social connectedness (proxied via agent similarities in race and gender) influences giving to a charitable fundraiser, using data gathered from more than 2000 households approached in an actual door-to-door fundraising drive, finding limited evidence of the importance of such social connections.
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What determines financial development
TL;DR: In this article, two prominent tools for addressing model uncertainty, Bayesian Model Averaging and Automatic Model Selection using PcGets, are jointly applied to investigate the financial development effects of a wide range of variables taken from various sources.
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.