This paper extends the growing literature on knowledge economy by investigating the effect of intelligence on economic diversification. Using a battery of estimation techniques that are robust to endogeneity, we find that human capital has positive correlations with export diversification,...

The debate on the need for Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries to foster inclusive growth has intensified following the coming into force of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), and the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic. A conspicuous lacuna in the literature is a lack of...

In developing countries, banks play a major role by acting as a conduit for the effective mobilization of funds from the surplus sectors of an economy for onward lending to the deficit sectors for productive investments that will in turn increase the level of employment and economic growth....

This study complements the inclusive growth literature by examining the determinants and consequences of the middle class in a continent where economic growth has been relatively high. The empirical evidence is based on a sample of 33 African countries for a 2010 cross-sectional study. OLS,...

This paper assesses how legal origin influences financial development through regulation quality and the rule of law. It employs all the dimensions identified by the Financial Development and Structure Database of the World Bank. The law channels are instrumented with legal origins to account...

This paper proposes and empirically validates four theories of why legal origin influences growth and welfare through finance. It is a natural extension of "Law and finance: why does legal origin matter?" by Thorsten Beck, Asli Demirgüç-Kunt and Ross Levine (2003). We find only partial support...

The main objective of this paper is to contribute to in-depth literature on the relationship between growth and the informal sector in the presence of corruption. The impact of the interaction between growth and corruption on economic performance (increase or decrease of the informal sector)...

This paper is interested in explaining the causes of the simultaneous evolution between economic growth and informality. Using a large annual panel of African countries with a time series of 25 years, ours results show that when the corruption rate is above (below) a threshold of 1.3577,...

This study explores the relationship between social media and democracy in a cross- section of over 125 countries around the world. We find the evidence of a strong, positive correlation between Facebook penetration (a proxy for social media) and democracy. We further show that the correlation...

The purpose of the chapter is to analyze Africa's economic successes in the past half century, to understand not only what made it possible but also and more importantly what risk factors may eventually bring it to an end or compromise it. While it may not be possible for Africa to alter, for...