Urban concentration differs across countries. One determinant of these differences is economic development, which first increases and subsequently decreases urban concentration. I condition the degree of urban concentration on the potential of countries to develop a balanced urban system. These...

This paper is intended to provide an assessment of the impact of the silent revolution (decentralization reforms) of the last three decades on moving governments closer to people to establish fair, accountable, incorruptible and responsive governance. To accomplish this, a unique data set is...

A fiscal rule imposed when the budget is not transparent yields more creative accounting to circumvent it and less fiscal adjustment, generating hidden deficits/debts in public sector. This study focuses on creative accounting practices of governments and adds to the literature by measuring...

Unlike in Asia, the manufacturing sector has not (yet) become a driver of structural change in Africa. One common explanation is that the natural resource-focus of many African economies leads to Dutch disease effects. To test this argument for the case of newly found oil in Ghana we develop a...

Political proximity between donor and recipient governments may impair the effectiveness of aid by encouraging favoritism. By contrast, political misalignment between donor and recipient governments may render aid less effective by adding to transaction costs and giving rise to incentive...

We analyze the aid portfolio of various bilateral and multilateral donors, testing whether they have prioritised aid in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In doing so, we combine sectorally disaggregated aid data with indicators reflecting the situation of recipient countries...

We find a U-shaped relation between happiness and religiosity in cross-country panel data after controlling for income levels. At a given level of income, the same level of happiness can be reached with high and low levels of religiosity, but not with intermediate levels. A rise in income causes...

We analyze the aid portfolio of various bilateral and multilateral donors, testing whether they have prioritised aid in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In doing so, we combine sectorally disaggregated aid data with indicators reflecting the situation of recipient countries...

The paper is a survey of theoretical and empirical approaches applied to analyze the impact of financial system on economic growth. The key issues of the modern theories of the finance-growth nexus are discussed and the theories are classified on the basis of the methodology they rely on. The...

This paper provides compelling evidence that equity market liberalization, the most efficient way to smooth financial market frictions such as credit constraints, can alleviate persistent cross-dynastic income inequality through increasing the accumulation of human capital. We examine the impact...