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
Ethnicity and Trust: Evidence from Russia
TL;DR: The authors found that high ingroup or particularistic trust is no barrier to faith in another ethnic group, and proposed a broader model to identify the factors that give rise to cross-ethnic trust.
Book
Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities
TL;DR: Trounstine et al. as mentioned in this paper explored how local governments generate race and class segregation, and argued that city governments have pursued these policies to enhance the wealth and resources of white property owners at the expense of people of color and the poor.
Journal ArticleDOI
Ethnicity, Governance and the Provision of Public Goods
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the behaviour of ethnic groups and specifically on their impact on the provision of public goods and show that ethnic heterogeneity results in under-provision of non-excludable public goods.
Journal ArticleDOI
Social Distance and Self-Enforcing Exchange
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors model social distance as endogenous to the choices of individuals and show how large numbers of socially heterogeneous agents can use signals that reduce social distance to capture the gains from widespread trade.
Journal ArticleDOI
The quality of institutions: A genetic programming approach
TL;DR: In this article, the determinants of the quality of institutions using a non-parametric and non-linear approach were analyzed using a Genetic Program (GP) and compared with those employing a parametric perspective (Ordinary Least Square Regression).
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.