his is the third in a series of papers concerned with the intellectual history of the 'informal economy' and its relevance to current concerns in Papua New Guinea (PNG; the eastern half of the island of New Guinea). Proceeding from the observation that monetized informal economic activity in PNG...

International pressure to revalue China's currency stems in part from the expectation that rapid economic growth should be associated with a real exchange rate appreciation. This hinges on the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis under which economic growth, stemming from improvements in traded sector...

The end of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka in 2009 generated widespread expectations of a period of sustained economic growth, building on the achievements of the liberalisation reforms sustained over three previous decades. However, recent developments have dampened that optimism, rekindling...

This study examines the impact of two dimensions of the government, namely, size and quality, on two dimensions of the financial sector, size and efficiency, in a cross section of 71 economies. The study finds that while increased quality of the government as measured by governance and legal...

The objective of this paper is to examine whether financial development leads to economic growth or vice versa in the small open economy of Malaysia. We argue that the results obtained from cross-sectional studies are not able to address this issue satisfactorily and highlight the importance of...

This study shows that despite a strong empirical association between gender differentials in enrolment ratios and democracy, that democracy alone does not explain gender differentials in education in Africa and Asia. The results indicate that income, employment in agriculture, religious...

Fiji is in the midst of a consultation process for a new Constitution on which General Elections are scheduled to be held in 2014. The new Constitution is going to be the fourth one for Fiji. During the first decade of independence, FijiÕs economy grew at a rate of more than 5% per annum....

The Washington Consensus emphasizes the economic costs of real exchange rate distortions. However, a sizable recent empirical literature finds that undervalued real exchange rates help countries to achieve faster economic growth. This paper shows that recent findings are driven by inappropriate...

Until very recently and despite human capital’s pre-eminent and empirically established contribution to economic growth, Indian policymakers planning for economic development concentrated largely on issues of capital, labour and, to a lesser extent, technology. This paper argues that India’s...

This article investigates whether female political representation affects economic growth. Panel estimates for 119 democracies using fixed effects specifications and a system generalized method of moments approach suggest that, over recent decades, countries with higher shares of women in...