The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of remittances on Latin America`s economic growth thorough 1976-2007 controlling the potential endogeneity of the regressors through system GMM estimators for dynamic data panel model. The main conclusion is that remittances had a negative and...

Railways are usually considered as one of the most important innovations that fostered the transition of Latin America to economic growth before 1914. The social saving estimates that are available for several Latin American countries seem to confirm that view. However, the interpretation of the...

This paper uses time-series data from nineteen Latin American countries and the U.S. to test for income convergence using two existing definitions of convergence and a new testable definition of β-convergence. Only Dominican Republic and Paraguay were found to pair-wise converge according to...

In the absence of substantial differences in the growth rates of per capita GDP across countries, what are the factors that explain the rapid spread of the HIV infection within a nation? This is an empirical question that needs to be explained. In order to elucidate the correlation between HIV...

Both theoretical and empirical literature has identified several channels through which FDI influence economic growth in Latin America. This study however examines the impact on economic output growth using aggregate production function augmented with FDI inflows, policy reforms and the...

The concept of club convergence has been widely used in empirical analysis to group countries in clubs with similar development paths. However, there is no unified agreement on how to identify the clubs in the first place. In this paper, I argue that economic history can guide us to identify...

This article investigates the analytical line of reasoning in D. North’s, J. Wallis’ and B. Weingast’s research project “Violence and Social Orders”, which unifies in an institutional explanation scheme the control over violence in human societies, the equilibrium of interests among...

The movement of New Institutional Economics (NIE), born in the seventies, followed the Institutional Economics of John R. Commons by putting the notion of ‘transaction’ in the centre of its study. The seventies were a period of appearance of an absolute authority of neoclassical economics...

This paper discusses the ethical void in Capitalism which does not look prominent in welfare societies and states. But, its effects become more eminent in tough economic conditions. Unbridled pursuit of self interest, moral relativism, incentive-led economic choices and apathy to communal...

This paper draws on institutional and evolutionary economics and contributes to an approach to environmental policy which diverges from mainstream prescriptions. The 'socio-technical system' is the core concept: this is a complex made of co-evolving institutions, technologies, markets and actors...