We are increasingly cognizant of the limits to large cross-country empirical studies in trying to understand in-depth a particular country reality, in ways useful for advice. At the same time, merely relying on a single country account at a particular point in time ignores the historical and...

The Soviet Union and the nations of Eastern Europe are undergoing a historically unprecedented restructuring as they move inexorably from centrally planned economies toward market economies. This historic transition must be guided by a coherent set of stabilization policies to reduce the threat...

NIGERIA IS GOING THROUGH A DIFFICULT POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC TRANSITION AFTER FORTY YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE. YET, NIGERIA REMAINS A SOCIETY RICH IN CULTURAL, LINGUISTIC, RELIGIOUS, ETHNIC AND POLITICAL DIVERSITY. TODAY, THE AVERAGE NIGERIAN STRUGGLES HARD TO MAKE ENDS MEET; SEES HIMSELF OR HERSELF...

This paper examines the question of whether a communist nation, characterized by state ownership of the means of production and a centrally planned command system of allocation can be transformed into an efficient market oriented economy without fully compromising the socialist ideals of an...

This paper attempts to propose a methodology to combine different dimensions of governance indicators into a composite index. The governance index is computed as the weighted average of principal components of the standardized governance indicators, where weights are variances of successive...

We develop a model of costly technology adoption where the cost is irrecoverable and fixed. Households must decide when to switch from an existing technology to a new, more productive technology. Using a recursive approach, we show that there is a unique threshold level of wealth above which a...

Productive consumption enables the satisfaction of current needs and, at the same time, increases the productive potential of labour. Theoretical as well as empirical evidence suggests that productive consumption is primarily relevant to low-income countries. From the perspective of growth...

Views of the future China vary widely. While some believe that the collapse of China is inevitable, others see the emergence of a new superpower that increasingly poses a threat to the U.S. This paper examines the economic growth prospects of China over the next two decades. Extrapolating past...

In this paper we analyse the driving forces of the transition from plan to market in China. A two segments and two sectors model is constructed to take into account the particular economic situation in China during the transition process: a large agricultural sector and an industrial sector; a...

It is sometimes argued that political competition yields benefits to the citizens just as competition in economic markets yields benefits to consumers. We consider the economic costs and benefits of political competition and find that the story is somewhat more complicated. We first review the...