This paper continues my research program on violence and terrorism started 15 years ago. It presents in the first part through empirical exercises, the suitability of The Beveridge and Nelson decomposition of economic time series for pointing out the occurrence of terrorist attacks. It presents...

Notably, the 20th century was dominated by the legacy of devastating global wars, colonial struggles, and ideological conflicts as well as effort s to establish international systems that would foster global peace and prosperity. Yet, insecurity and corruption not only remain, they have become...

This essay analyzes the long-run economic effects of HIV/AIDS in Kenya, with emphasis on fertility, education and child labor. Human capital, which is built up through formal education and parental child-rearing, is the only input in production. Two aspects are central to the analysis: First, a...

Abstract: I apply the Beveridge-Nelson business cycle decomposition method to the time series of murder in the United States (1900-2004). Separating out “permanent” from “cyclical” murder, I hypothesize that the cyclical part coincides with documented waves of organized crime, internal...

This work is a PhD dissertation, written at the Department of Economics, McGill University. The thesis offers a new framework for inflation as a process of restructuring. Contrary to existing theories of inflation, which tend to take structure and institutions as given for the purpose of...

There is substantial evidence that cost-sharing in medical care constrains total health spending. However, there is relatively little (and unclear) evidence on its health effects, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This paper re-evaluates the link between outpatient cost-sharing...

According to Kaldor (1970), regional growth patterns arise from a cumulative causation process as broadly combining two substantial mechanisms i.e. a productivity regime, known as the “Kaldor-Verdoorn” law, and a demand regime due to the expansion of exportations. This paper attempts to...

Over the decade of the 1990s, Africa has experienced a rise in tourist arrivals from 8.4 million to 10.6 million and receipts growth from $2.3 billion to $3.7 billion, respectively. According to the World Tourism Organization (WTO, 2006), the tourism industry in Sub-Saharan Africa enjoyed a...

From 1995-2007, worldwide tourist arrivals increased about 68.2 percent (or an average annual growth rate of about 5.2 percent) from 534 million to 898 million (UNWTO, 2008). Over the same period, Latin America countries (Central and South America) have experienced a rise in tourist arrivals...

The demographic transition from high to low mortality and fertility rates was one of the most important structural changes during the twentieth Century in most Latin American economies. This paper uses a simple economic framework based on Galor and Weil (2000) for understanding the main forces...