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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Journal ArticleDOI
Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance
TL;DR: The authors survey and assess the literature on the positive and negative effects of ethnic diversity on economic policies and outcomes, focusing on communities of different size and organizational structure, such as countries, cities in developed countries, and villages and groups in developing countries.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Voracity Effect
Aaron Tornell,Philip R. Lane +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze an economy that lacks a strong legal-political institutional infrastructure and is populated by multiple powerful groups, and they show that a dilution in the concentration of power leads to faster growth and a less procyclical response to shocks.
Posted Content
Distance to Frontier, Selection, and Economic Growth
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse an economy where managers engage both in the adoption of technologies from the world frontier and in innovation activities, and show that relatively backward economies may switch out of the investment-based strategy too soon, so certain economic institutions and policies, such as limits on product market competition or investment subsidies, which encourage the investmentbased strategy may be beneficial, however, fail to converge to the world technology frontier.
Journal ArticleDOI
Aid and growth regressions
Henrik Hansen,Finn Tarp +1 more
TL;DR: This article examined the relationship between foreign aid and growth in real GDP per capita as it emerges from simple augmentations of popular cross-country growth specifications and found that aid in all likelihood increases the growth rate, and this result is not conditional on good policy.
Journal ArticleDOI
Ethnic Polarization, Potential Conflict, and Civil Wars
TL;DR: Montalvo and Reynal-Querol as discussed by the authors showed that there is no relationship between ethnic fractionalization, ethnic conflict, and civil wars, and that there are at least three alternative explanations for this: First, it could be the case that the classification of ethnic groups in the Atlas Nadorov Mira (henceforth ANM) is not properly constructed.
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.