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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Posted Content
Bank Regulation and Supervision: What Works Best?
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assess two broad and competing theories of government regulation: the helping hand approach, according to which governments regulate to correct market failures, and the grabbing-hand approach according to where government regulates to support political constituency.
Journal ArticleDOI
Aid, Policies, and Growth: Comment
TL;DR: Easterly et al. as mentioned in this paper examined whether aid has a positive impact on growth in developing countries with good fiscal, monetary, and trade policies but has little effect in the presence of poor policies.
Journal ArticleDOI
Do Leaders Matter? National Leadership and Growth Since World War II
TL;DR: This article investigated the mechanisms through which leaders affect growth and found that autocrats affect growth directly, through fiscal and monetary policy, and also influence political institutions that, in turn, appear to affect growth.
Journal ArticleDOI
Why Doesn't the United States Have a European-Style Welfare State?
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider economic, political, and behavioral explanations for the differences between the United States and Europe and conclude that most of these theories cannot explain the observed differences.
Book
Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth Since the Eighteenth Century
TL;DR: A minimal theory of social transfers and a guide to the tests for accounting for social spending, jobs and growth in the OECD Appendices is given in this paper, along with an explanation of the rise of mass public schooling.
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.