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
Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Sub-Saharan Africa
TL;DR: The authors examined the sources of macroeconomic fluctuations in sub-Saharan Africa by comparing the CFA franc countries with the non-CFA-franc countries and found that external shocks, especially terms of trade shocks, appear to have a greater influence on fluctuations of output and the real exchange rate in CFA Franc countries.
Dissertation
Ancient Polities, Modern States
TL;DR: The authors examines the legacies of precolonial polities in India, during the period from 1707 to 1857, and shows that districts of India that lie narrowly within the boundary lines of historically centralized states perform significantly better today on a wide variety of district-level indicators of state effectiveness than those narrowly outside these boundaries, despite the fact that these borders largely ceased to exist in the early nineteenth century.
Journal ArticleDOI
Why Many Developing Countries Just Aren't
John Talbott,Richard Roll +1 more
TL;DR: More than 80% of the cross-country variation in per capita income can be explained by mutable determinants, such as property rights, black market activity, regulation, civil liberties, press freedom, government spending, trade barriers, inflation, and political rights.
Journal ArticleDOI
Guiding principles on civil service reform in Africa: an empirical review
TL;DR: The Guiding Principles on Civil Service Reform were endorsed by the Special Programme of Assistance for Africa (SPA) as a tool for better co-ordination of donor support as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Corruption in nigeria: a challenge to sustainable development in the fourth republic
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argued that unless good governance is in place with accountability carefully observed, sustainable development cannot be realized, unless this phenomenon is fought with every decorum it deserves by the Federal government of Nigeria, the sustainable development will be a mirage with dare consequences on the economy, the citizenry and on our collective image globally.
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.