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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Culture, Ethnicity and Diversity
TL;DR: The authors investigated the empirical relationship between ethnicity and culture, defined as a vector of traits reflecting norms, attitudes and preferences, and found that ethnic identity is a significant predictor of cultural values.
Journal ArticleDOI
Ecology, Trade, and States in Pre-Colonial Africa
TL;DR: This paper found that African societies in ecologically diverse environments had more centralized states, and that trade supported class stratification between rulers and ruled, and pointed out the importance of ethnic institutions and informed our knowledge of the effects of trade on institutions.
Book
Segregation and Mistrust: Diversity, Isolation, and Social Cohesion
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss trust, diversity, and segregation in a segregated society, including the United States, Canada, Sweden, Australia, and New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
Book
The Quest for Good Governance: How Societies Develop Control of Corruption
TL;DR: The road to Denmark: historical paths to corruption control 4.1. Understanding control of corruption 2. Diagnosis and measurement 3. Structure and agency: determining control ofcorruption 5. Understanding contemporary achievers 6. Domestic collective action capacity 7. International agency and its anticorruption impact 8. From critical mess to critical mass: some tentative policy conclusions as mentioned in this paper
Journal ArticleDOI
Government effectiveness and support for democracy
TL;DR: The authors found that government effectiveness is the strongest macro-level predictor of support for democracy in democratic regimes and negatively related in non-democracies, under some model specifications, negatively related.
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.