The revival of economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is all the more welcome for having followed one of the worst economic disasters since the industrial revolution. Six of the world's fastest growing economies in the 2000s were African. But with the exception of Ethiopia and Rwanda, the growth...

This paper examines alternative hypotheses concerning the determinants of success in the transition from Communism to the market. In particular, we look at whether speed of privatization, legal institutions or initial conditions are more important in explaining the growth of the transition...

The revival of economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is all the more welcome for having followed one of the worst economic disasters since the industrial revolution. Six of the world's fastest growing economies in the 2000s were African. But with the exception of Ethiopia and Rwanda, the growth...

This paper assesses the role of ideas in economic change, combining economic and historical analysis with insights from psychology, sociology and anthropology. Belief systems shape the system of categories ("pre-confirmatory bias") and perceptions (confirmatory bias), and are themselves...