In this paper, we empirically assess how economic sanctions imposed by the UN and the US affect the target states' GDP growth. Our sample includes 68 countries and covers the period 1976-2012. We find, first, that sanctions imposed by the UN have a statistically and economically significant...

In the decade leading to the recent commodity boom, which peaked in 2007-08, several resource-rich, low-income countries displayed high rates of gross domestic product (GDP) growth while social indicators did not improve significantly. It is well known that, in itself, the widely tracked GDP may...