This paper investigates China's influence on local economic development in 37 African countries between 1997 and 2007. We compare the average changes in economic growth, migration, spatial inequality, and welfare of mineral-rich districts, both prior and after China's WTO Accession, to the...

Many low income countries in Africa are optimistic that producing biofuels domestically will not only reduce their dependence on imported fossil fuels, but also stimulate economic development, particularly in poorer rural areas. Skeptics, on the other hand, view biofuels as a threat to food...

The majority of the world's poor, by income poverty and multi-dimensional poverty, now live in countries officially classified by the World Bank as middle-income countries. Of course nothing happens when a country crosses a (somewhat) arbitrary threshold in per capita income but it does matter...

What makes elites developmental instead of predatory? We argue that Mozambique's elite was developmental at independence 35 years ago. With pressure and encouragement from international forces, it became predatory. It has now partly returned to its developmental roots and is trying to use the...

This paper discusses past and current social policy strategies in the international aid architecture. From the 1990s, aid strategy and policy shifted to put a stronger emphasis on human development. This accelerated with the Millennium Development Goals and will continue under the Sustainable...

The COVID-19 pandemic holds at least seven lessons for the relationship between data-driven decision making, the use of artificial intelligence, and development. These are that (1) in a global crisis, the shifting value of data creates policy pitfalls; (2) predictions of crises and how they play...

This paper outlines the contours of global economic development, since 1980, to analyse underlying factors and consider future implications. The increased economic significance of developing countries, reflected in their share of world output, manufacturing and trade, is striking. But...

This paper studies the political and economic evolution of trade and international relations of the nations and regions of Asia between themselves and the rest of the world over the past millennium, paying particular attention to: the Pax Mongolica and overland trade during the Middle Ages; the...