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As the world approaches the target year of the Millennium Development Goals and passes into the new, post-2015 era, the development community has made a call for a new international development goal of eradication of extreme poverty by 2030. How feasible is that? For most of the developing...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010886738
This paper finds that shareholder-friendly corporate governance is positively associated with bank insolvency risk, as proxied by the Z-score and the Merton's distance to default measure, for an international sample of banks over the 2004-08 period. Banks are special in that"good"corporate...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010903281
Trafficking is an emerging concern in West Africa. In 2011, 17 percent of all cocaine consumed in Europe -- 21 tons -- passed through the region, for a retail value of US$1.7 billion. This paper discusses the evolution of trafficking in the region and provides estimates of the size and value of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010942469
Loening investigates the impact of human capital on economic growth in Guatemala during 1951-2002 using an error-correction methodology. The results show a better-educated labor force having a positive and significant impact on economic growth. Consistent with microeconomic studies for...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005079491
The authors investigate whether firms'access to external financing, to fund growth differs between market-based, and bank-based financial systems. Using firm-level data for forty countries, they compute the proportion of firms in each country that relies on external finance, and examine how that...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005079516
The link between economic growth, and better provision of infrastructure services may be unproven, but it is clear that reforms to make infrastructure services more competitive (where possible), and to provide strong, and independent economic regulation of natural monopolies, do create an...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005079518
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...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005079532
Economists often argue that the level and structure of a country's trade barriers and the quality of its governance policies (for example, regulating foreign investment or limiting commercial activity with red tape) have a major influence on its economic growth and performance. One problem...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005079533
Governance is central to development outcomes in infrastructure, not least because corruption (a symptom of failed governance) can have significantly negative impact on returns to infrastructure investment. This conclusion holds whether infrastructure is in private or public hands. This paper...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005079562
This paper contains abstracts of Policy Research Working Paper series, numbers 2934-3008.
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005079568