Crude oil prices have been fluctuating over time and by a large range. It is the disorganization of oil price series that makes it difficult to deduce the changing trends of oil prices in the middle- and long-terms and predict their price levels in the short-term. Following a price-state...

With a large pool of engineers and scientists, the presence of over 9300 technology-based startups and its strengths in exports of information technology/information technology-enabled services (IT/ITeS), India is uniquely placed to become a global technology and innovation hub. Yet there is a...

The positive association between the service sector share of output and per capita income is one of the best-known regularities in all of growth and development economics. Yet there is less than complete agreement on the nature of that association. Here we identify two waves of service sector...

This research examines the economic origins of Islam and uncovers two empirical regularities. First, Muslim countries, virtual countries and ethnic groups, exhibit highly unequal regional agricultural endowments. Second, Muslim adherence is systematically larger along the pre-Islamic trade...

The increased interconnection among local and global players induced by globalization, as well as the need for a complete application of the “subsidiarity principle”, calls for a re-thinking of the “corporate social responsibility” concept. This new concept broadens the perspective of...

Geography has long been considered as a fundamental prerequisite for economic development and growth. In recent years, a growing number of papers have considered the role of physical geography as a determinant of regional growth and development by considering it as a source of "intrinsic...

Among fast growing developing countries, India is distinctive for the role of the service sector. However, sceptics have raised doubts about both the quality and sustainability of the increase in service sector activity and its implications for economic development. Using National Accounts...

Over the last two decades in OECD countries an increasing number of firms are obtaining certification as Socially Responsible (CSR is the acronym for Corporate Social Responsibility). Several studies (including Preston and O'Bannon, 1997; Waddock and Graves, 1997; McWilliams and Sieger, 2001; Ullman, 1985)...

Do intermediate goods help explain relative and aggregate productivity differences across countries? Three observations suggest they do: (i) intermediates are relatively expensive in poor countries; (ii) goods industries demand intermediates more intensively than service industries; (iii) goods...

This is an update and revision of our 2009 study. Using a broad dataset and an original methodology, this paper reports composite development gaps across economic, social and institutional sectors. We define development gap as the distance between the observed and the expected development level...