"Drawing on the recent literature on economic institutions and the origins of economic development, the authors offer a political economy explanation of why institution building has varied so much across transition economies. They identify dependence on natural resources and the historical...

"The relationships among competition in the financial sector, access of firms to external financing, and associated economic growth are ambiguous in theory. Moreover, measuring competition in the financial sector can be complex. In this paper Claessens and Laeven first estimate for 16 countries...

The size, resources, and location of the Democratic Republic of Congo have an impact on all of Central Africa. The country has unexplored mining resources, massive agricultural potential, and a population of more than 60 million inhabitants. The second largest country in Sub-Saharan Africa, the...