The literature has shown that aid and trade or aid and migration are not independent from each other: aid can be provided for relaxing migration pressures or donors can tie aid in order to increase their exports to developing countries. This finding can be generalized to other donors' policies:...

The paper develops a simple model on the asymmetric role of credit markets in output fluctuations. When credit markets are underdeveloped and enterprise activity is financed by trade credit, shocks may induce a break-up of credit and production chains, leading to sudden and sharp contractions....

The paper provides an empirical analysis of the growth performance of transition countries in a comparative perspective, separating episodes of crises from those of growth. Performance is measured by the output response following recessions, rather than average rates of growth that aggregate...

We develop a political economy model that might explain the different environmental performance of countries, through educational choices. Individuals decide whether to invest in additional education according to their expectations regarding future environmental quality. They also vote on a tax...

Short-term increasing returns to production factors are usually found in empirical studies. We argue they can be due to omitted variables, particularly the intensity of factor utilisation. Thanks to original French firm-level data (1992-2008), we show how increasing returns to scale disappear...

In this paper, we first, perform a quantitative assessment of the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on growth. Second, we precisely account for the effects of the epidemic on income per capita through human and physical capital accumulations, population and labor force. That is, we disentangle the...

This paper documents the paradoxical short-term effects of training and job programmes implemented by oil companies in the region of Onelga, Rivers State (Nigeria). We use two multidimensional indexes as dependent variables: the UNDP's Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) and a ‘Relational...

Except for specialized resource economics models, economics pays little attention to the role of energy in growth. This paper highlights basic difficulties behind the mainstream analytical arguments for this neglect, and provides an empirical reassessment of this role. We use an error correction...

This paper deals with the effect of inequality on subsequent long run growth. Using a threshold regression analysis, we find two threshold variables, namely human capital and inequality. Three clubs are then identified. One of our results is that the estimated relationship exhibits multiple...

Although Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) are as important to the world economy as exports, the extensive literature on trade costs has no strong parallel for FDI. Data are hard to come by, and many of the barriers to FDI are unobservable. This paper circumvents the problem by inferring the...