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
More filters
Book
Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India
TL;DR: In this paper, the electoral incentives for ethnic violence and the consociational explanation for Hindu-Muslim violence are discussed. But the authors do not discuss the role of race in the two types of violence.
BookDOI
Banking Systems Around the Globe : Do Regulation and Ownership Affect the Performance and Stability?
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors report cross-country data on commercial bank regulation and ownership in more than 60 countries and evaluate the links between different regulatory/ownership practices in those countries and both financial sector performance and banking system stability.
Journal ArticleDOI
Comparative Politics and Public Finance
TL;DR: The authors compare the public finance outcomes under a presidential-congressional and a parliamentary system and find that a presidential system has redistribution towards a majority, less underprovision of public goods, more waste and a higher burden of taxation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Small States, Small Problems? Income, Growth, and Volatility in Small States
William Easterly,Aart Kraay +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors test whether small states are any different from other states in terms of their income, growth, and volatility outcomes, finding that small states have higher per capita GDP than other states.
Posted Content
Law and finance: why does legal origin matter?
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assess two theories of why legal origin influences financial development: political and adaptation, and conclude that legal systems that adapt quickly to minimize the gap between the contracting needs of the economy and the legal system's capabilities will foster financial development more effectively than would more rigid legal traditions.
References
More filters
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.