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
Natural resources, governance and institutional quality: The role of resource funds
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the relationship between resource funds, governance and institutional quality in resource-rich countries and found that resource funds may be associated with governance and quality improvements.
Journal ArticleDOI
Growth aspirations and social capital: Young firms in a post-conflict environment
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the growth aspirations of owners and managers of young firms in a post-conflict economy by focusing on social capital, studying the effects of discussion network characteristics, trust in institutions, generalised trust in people and local ethnic pluralism.
Journal ArticleDOI
Corruption and Openness
TL;DR: The authors found that the relationship between corruption and output depends on the economy's degree of openness: in open economies, corruption and GNP per capita are strongly negatively correlated, but in closed economies there is no relationship at all.
Journal ArticleDOI
Culture, Conflict and Cooperation: Irish Dairying Before the Great War
TL;DR: In this article, the authors look for a link between Catholicism and the propensity to cooperate in the pre-1914 Irish dairy industry and find that the propensity for cooperation was higher in Denmark than in Ireland, and in Ulster than elsewhere in Ireland.
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.