The relationship between globalization and economic growth in the developing countries remains controversial. Liberals argue that globalization will lead to higher economic growth and prosperity. Skeptics contend the opposite, where globalization processes might lead to increased inequality and...

The seminal and controversial work of Burnside and Dollar (2000) has been the basis for many subsequent empirical works on the growth effects of overseas development aid. This paper argues that the specifications used in these works are not consistent with the data and techniques used. We...

The relationship between globalization and economic growth, especially in the poorer developing countries, is controversial. Many previous studies have used single globalization indicators such as the ratio of exports plus imports to GDP. This paper uses a comprehensive measure of a...

This paper compares more direct measures of the institutional environment with both the instability proxies used by Barro (1991) and the Gastil indices, by comparing their effects both on growth and private investment. The results provide substantial support for the position that the...

This paper makes two contributions to the literature. First, it introduces a new, easily accessed and objective measure of the enforceability of contracts and the security of property rights. Second, it uses this measure to provide additional and more direct evidence about the importance of...

This paper examines the determinants of economic growth in Guatemala, with a particular focus on the schooling level. Results based on an error-correction methodology show a better educated labour force has a positive and significant impact on economic growth. Consistent with micro evidence for...

We reconstruct a dataset used by Persson and Tabellini (AER, 1994) to test the robustness of their finding that inequality reduces income growth, but only in democracies. We find that their result is highly sensitive to the use of data sources on both democracy and inequality. When we substitute...