The authors rely on a series of growth accounting exercises to determine whether the growth rate of total factor productivity (TFP) or the unexplained portion of GDP growth (after controlling for the accumulation of capital per worker) in 18 Latin American and Caribbean economies has benefited...

After years of poor economic performance, many Latin American countries undertook ambitious programs of macroeconomic stabilization andstructural reform in recent years. This change in policy created high expectations for the region, and some observers have questioned whether actual growth...

Africa's economic history since 1960 fits the classical definition of tragedy: potential unfulfilled with disastrous consequences. The authors use one mehthodology - cross-country regressions - to account for sub-Saharan Africa's growth performance over the past 30 years and to suggest policies...

The Harrod-Domar growth model supposedly died long ago. But for more than 40 years, economists working on developing countries have applied -and still apply- the Harrod-Domar model to calculate short-run investment requirements for a target growth rate. They then calculate a financing gap...

The authors evaluate whether the level of development in the banking sector exerts a causal impact on economic growth and its sources-total factor productivity growth, physical capital accumulation, and private saving. They use (1) a pure cross-country instrumental variable estimator to extract...

Joining the European Union (EU) is perhaps the key political and economic objective of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries as they approach the 21st century. But how successful the CEE countries are in achieving this goal depends not only on how well and quickly they adapt their legal...

There has been much debate recently about the role of international development institutions, such as the World Bank in middle-income countries. Some observers have suggested that middle-income countries have reached a stage in their economic development that calls into question the rationale...

The causal link between finance and growth is one of the most striking empirical macroeconomic relationships uncovered in the past decade. As this branch of the literature matures, the focus shifts from growth to other aspects of economic prosperity, and from financial depth to multidimensional...

Fundamentally, poverty reduction is about bringing growth processes to poor areas. Because poor areas can benefit from technical and organizational innovations made elsewhere in the world, it is possible today to create productive jobs faster and in greater quantity than ever before. The puzzle...

Trade does not stimulate growth in economies with excessive business and labor regulations. The authors examine the effect of openness on growth using cross-country regressions in both levels and changes. Results from the levels regressions imply that increased openness is associated with a...