Africa's economic history since 1960 fits the classical definition of tragedy: potential unfulfilled with disastrous consequences. The authors use one mehthodology - cross-country regressions - to account for sub-Saharan Africa's growth performance over the past 30 years and to suggest policies...

The authors evaluate whether the level of development in the banking sector exerts a causal impact on economic growth and its sources-total factor productivity growth, physical capital accumulation, and private saving. They use (1) a pure cross-country instrumental variable estimator to extract...

The authors empirically evaluate the relationship between stock market development and long-term growth. The data suggest that stock market development is positively associated with economic growth. Moreover, instrumental variables procedures indicate a strong connection between the...

This paper reviews the conceptual, methodological, and statistical problems associated with drawing inferences from cross-country regressions. The authors elaborate on the particular problems associated with empirical attempts to link particular policies with long-run growth. They hope to...

A vast amount of literature uses cross-country regressions to find empirical links between policy indicators and long-run average growth rates. The authors study whether the conclusions from existing studies are robust or fragile when small changes in the list of independent variables occur....

The authors explore the relationship between the relative size of the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector, economic growth, and poverty using a new database on the share of SME labor in the total manufacturing labor force. Using a sample of 76 countries, they find a strong association...

While substantial research finds that financial development boosts overall economic growth, the authors study whether financial development is pro-poor: Does financial development disproportionately raise the income of the poor? Using a broad cross-country sample, the authors find that the...

What has the profession learned from cross-country regressions about the links between long-run growth and indicators of fiscal, monetary, trade, financial, and exchange-rate policies? The authors find that: indicators of financial development are strongly associated with long-run growth; other...

The authors suggest that there are important opportunities to empirically evaluate the theoretically predicted channels from policy to growth. They propose a research agenda based on the endogenous growth literature, designed to address the questions: How do national policies affect long-run...

Joseph Schumpeter argued in 1911 that the services provided by financial intermediaries - mobilizing savings, evaluating projects, managing risk, monitoring managers, and facilitating transactions -stimulate technological innovation and economic development. The authors present evidence that...