In the developing world, the population is frequently faced with numerous natural, economic, institutional and market risks. Because of these uncertainties, many individuals and households experience difficult periods of unexpected reduction in income. Using panel data from the Indonesian Family...

It is widely recognized that many developed countries have established democratic institutions, while the majority of developing countries are far from being democratic states (e.g. Acemoglu, 2008). One argument for this discrepancy is that there exists a strong relationship between democracy...

This paper provides a brief but comprehensive overview of microfinance academic literature with emphasis on recent innovations, trends and efficiency. In particular, we focus on controversial issues of microfinance, such as commercialization, regulation, interest rate policy and the balance...

This paper is devoted to the analysis of evolution of innovation concepts, aspect and types. First emergence and evolution of different aspects and concepts of innovation are analysed, then the development of innovation concepts from a historical perspective and finally an overview given of...

Over the last years, microloans to small and medium-sized enterprises have grown in significance in many countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Empirical evidence on the economic and social impact of microfinance is, however, scant. In trying to shed more light on this important issue, this...

The paper attempts to indentify the constraints to growth in Guyana using the Hausmann et al (2005) methodology. Although Guyana suffers from low domestic savings and high interest rate spreads, the paper argues that high cost of finance is a non-binding constraint on entrepreneurial activity....

We set up a theoretical framework to analyze the possible role of economic growth and technical progress in the erosion of social capital. Under certain parameters, the relationship between technical progress and social capital can take the shape of an inverted U curve. We show the circumstances...

This paper questions the existing notion of competition prevalent in economic theory. It is shown that the prevalent idea of competition is incompatible with economic development. Fair competition, this paper argues, ought to be understood in context. The paper ends by providing some preliminary...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the processes of polarization and agglomeration, to explain the mechanisms and causes of these phenomena in order to identify similarities and differences. As the main implication of this study should be noted that both process pretend to explain the...

Conventionally, it is presumed that restructuring of industrial composition of employment only modestly affects the average wage. This is because in a partial equilibrium setting such a restructuring affects the calculation of the average wage only through changes in employment shares of...