Using cross-country differences in the degree of isolation before the advent of technologies in sea and air transportation, we assess the relationship between geographic isolation and financial development across the globe. We find that pre-historic geographical isolation has been beneficial to...

Are there contemporary development effects of African resistance to European domination? This question is the primary issue addressed by this inquiry. We establish that African resistance has had adverse effects on post-colonial African development and discuss possible channels of such...

This study assesses the role of foreign aid in reducing the hypothetically negative impact of terrorism on trade using a panel of 78 developing countries with data for the period 1984-2008. The empirical evidence is based on interactive GMM estimations with forward orthogonal deviations....

A 2015 World Bank report on attainment of Millennium Development Goals concludes that the number of extremely poor has dropped substantially in all regions with the exception of Sub-Saharan Africa. We assess if poverty is in the African gene by revisiting the findings of Ashraf and Galor (2013,...

We assess the correlations between intelligence and financial development in 123 countries using data averages from 2000-2010. Human capital is measured in terms of IQ, cognitive ability & cognitive skills, while financial development is appreciated both from financial intermediary and stock...

Using cross-country differences in the degree of isolation before the advent of technologies in sea and air transportation, we assess the relationship between geographic isolation and financial development across the globe. We find that pre-historic geographical isolation has been beneficial to...