This research explores the origins of the distribution of time preference across regions. It advances the hypothesis, and establishes empirically, that geographical variations in natural land productivity and their impact on the return to agricultural investment have had a persistent effect on...

This paper investigates how telecommunications infrastructure affects economic growth. This issue is important and has received considerable attention in the popular press concerning the creation of the 'information superhighway' and its potential impacts on the economy. We use evidence from 21...

Egypt needs to diversify exports further in order to emerge from its isolation and to draw the maximum advantage from the growth potential offered by trade globalization. To what extent does the bilateral free trade agreement with the European Union encourage the transition from a rentier...

The paper explores the evolution of export diversification patterns along the economic development path. Using a large database with 159 countries over 17 years at the HS6 level of disaggregation (4’998 product lines) we look for action at the “intensive” and “extensive” margins...

We use a sample of 140 countries to study empirically how a country's characteristics are associated with its choice of an exchange rate regime. When countries are classified according to their current exchange rate arrangements, we observe that small countries with low diversification of...

This paper argues that the contribution of trade preferences to economic development needs to be reappraised in light of the growth of globalized trade in manufactures. Trade preferences may be able to act as a catalyst for manufacturing exports, leading to rapid growth in exports and...

Using a dataset of 104 countries over a period from 1966 to 2004, this paper analyses the relevance of country specific shocks for income volatility in open economies. We show that exposure to country specific shocks has a positive and significant impact on GDP volatility. In particular, we find...

We use a North-South model with property right differences and resource dynamics to study the effects of trade on resource use and welfare. Autarky is likely to Pareto-dominate free trade in the long run when the environment is quite fragile, and the result is reversed when the environment is...

The debate about the long-term economic development of China compared with Europe has taken a new turn with the publication of Kenneth Pomeranz’ book on ‘The Great Divergence’, in which he maintains that before the Industrial Revolution the most advanced parts of China (in particular the...