This research advances the hypothesis that cross-country variation in the historical incidence of eye disease has influenced the current global distribution of per capita income. The theory is that pervasive eye disease diminished the incentive to accumulate skills, thereby delaying the...

We advance the hypothesis that cultural values such as high work ethic and thrift, “the Protestant ethic” according to Max Weber, may have been diffused long before the Reformation, thereby importantly affecting the pre-industrial growth record. The source of pre-Reformation Protestant...

This paper studies the role of US political factors in the allocation of World Bank concessional lending, where US political interests are proxied by voting similarity in the United Nations General Assembly on issues identified as important by the US Department of State. In contrast to previous...

Empirically, a higher frequency of lightning strikes is associated with slower growth in labor productivity across the 48 contiguous US states after 1990; before 1990 there is no correlation between growth and lightning. Other climate variables (e.g., temperature, rainfall and tornadoes) do not...

We hypothesize that the spread of the Internet has reduced corruption, chiefly through two mechanisms. First, the Internet facilitates the dissemination of information about corrupt behavior, which raises the detection risks to shady bureaucrats and politicians. Second, the Internet has reduced...

A number of empirical studies have investigated the hypothesis that cross-border flows of goods (international trade) and capital (FDI) lead to international technology diffusion. The contribution of the present paper consists in examining an as yet neglected vehicle for technology diffusion:...

The political factors, which shape IMF lending to LDCs, have attracted much attention. The same goes for the role and influence of the US. However, formal modelling is scant. In this paper, we assume that the US is principal within the IMF and seeks to maximize its impact on the policy stance of...

This paper explores the empirical association between internet use, e-government and corruption in a large panel of countries covering the 1998-2003 period. We show that higher numbers of internet users and higher levels of e-government are associated with significantly lower levels of...