The claim of globalization critics that the income gap to industrial countries is bound to widen for essentially all developing countries as a consequence of economic globalization is in conflict with empirical evidence. Economic performance differs tremendously across developing countries. We...

For FDI to help achieve the international development goal of halving absolute poverty, two conditions have to be met. First, poor developing countries need to be attractive to foreign investors. Second, the host-country environment in which foreign investors operate must be conducive to...

Conclusive evidence supporting the widely held view that developing countries should draw on foreign direct investment (FDI) to spur economic development is surprisingly hard to come by. We raise the proposition that results on the growth impact of FDI are ambiguous because highly aggregated FDI...

It continues to be heavily disputed whether foreign aid promotes economic growth in developing countries. In most cross-country regressions, aid is considered effective only if it shifts recipient countries to a significantly higher and sustainable growth path. We apply an alternative approach...

Similar to most other developing countries, almost all Arab countries failed to catch up economically with advanced industrial countries. This paper discusses three possible explanations of the disappointing growth performance: (i) an insufficient reformmindedness of developing country...