Transfers to the rural land-poor are widely advocated and used in attempts to reduce rural poverty. Such transfers are believed to be productive, in that the final gain to the poor exceeds the initial transfer. The evidence cited most often to support this view is the negative correlation...

Why does income inequality differ among countries? Using a sample of 80 countries from the 1980s, the author shows that two types of factors explain variations in income inequality. The first are factors that are, in the short term, independent of economic policies and are included in the...

The author presents a simple endogenous growth model (with two types of capital) that shows the sizable long-run effects on growth of distortionary policies. The model applies to many different types of distortions of relative prices common in developing countries - for example, price controls,...

Economies benefit from international trade, but joining the world market also exposes them to external shocks. How can the government in Eastern European and developing countries reduce their vulnerability to such shocks? What are appropriate policy responses? The authors examine how external...

Soviet growth for 1960-89 was the worst in the world, after controlling for investment and human capital. And relative performance worsens over time. The authors explain the declining Soviet growth rate from 1950 to 1987 by the declining marginal product of capital. The rate of total factor...

The authorexamines a range of cross-sectional variation in performance and policies for evidence on what distinguishes successes from failures. At about 6 percent, the growth rate of the Four Tigers - Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan (China) - are among the largest...

Trade, aid, and investment are more inextricably linked in sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere else in the world, contends the author, whose survey of sub-Saharan Africa's prospects for trade, aid, and investment lead to the following broad conclusions. Developing an outward orientation, improving...

Tanzania embarked on a structural adjustment program in 1986 after a decade of protracted economic decline. Its program was supported by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and was accompanied by a substantial increase in foreign assistance. After seven years of adjustment the...

Few economic ideas are as intuitive as the notion that increasing investment is the best way to raise future output. This idea was the basis for the theory"capital fundamentalism."Under this view, differences in national stocks of capital were the primary determinants of differences in levels of...

The authors present new estimates of long-term total factor productivity (TFP) growth for 83 industrial and developing countries for 1960-87. These estimates are based on new data developed for the research project on total factor productivity growth (and available on diskette). Although based...