This paper presents an integrated overview of the literature linking institutions, financial development and economic growth. From the large body of research on institutional development, the paper first selects those contributions that make it possible to study the role of institutional...

The relationship between the abundance of natural resources and socio-economic performance has been a main object of study in the economic development field since Adam Smith. Dominated by the verification of the so called curse of natural resource, the mainstream literature on the topic has been...

In this paper we document the stylized facts about the relationship between international oil price swings, sovereign risk and macroeconomic performance of oil-exporting economies. We show that even though being a bigger oil producer decreases sovereign risk–because it increases a...

Is tourism an opportunity for lagging countries in the elusive quest for growth (Easterly, 2002)? Recent empirical evidence suggests that the answer is a cautious yes. Aggregate cross-country data show that tourism specialization is likely to be associated with higher per capita GDP growth rates...