Should developing countries focus on diversifying their export basket or should they instead specialize their exports according to their existing comparative advantage? In this paper we attempt to answer this question by reviewing the literature on export diversification and specialization, by...

We provide an assessment of the state of scholarly and policy debates on migrant entrepreneurs in development. They are often described as super-entrepreneurs who contribute to development through (i) being more entrepreneurial than natives; (ii) providing remittances that fund start-ups in...

African agriculture's importance for sustainable development is well appreciated. Indeed, recent years have seen a thorough reappraisal of the sector. What are less well understood, however, are the drivers that reallocate scarce human and physical resources across occupations and space, and...

Geography causes African countries to experience a ‘proximity gap’. To overcome this gap a ‘big push’ may be needed in infrastructure. The cross-border nature of such infrastructure requires regional cooperation in at least four issues: transport infrastructure, trade facilitation,...

Support for entrepreneurship is widely seen as a mechanism to facilitate prosperity and peace in a growing number of post-conflict states. In this paper I critically evaluate this view. I argue that entrepreneurship is a ubiquitous quality in post-conflict states but not necessarily always for...

Following the financial crisis that broke in the US and other Western economies in late 2008, there is now serious concern about its impact on the developing countries. The world media almost daily reports scenarios of gloom and doom, with many predicting a deep global recession. This paper...

This paper outlines the impact of the global economic crisis on Africa. Recovery requires coordinated and consistent efforts to assist individual countries in mitigating (reducing) the risk, coping with the impact, and reducing risk over the longer term. Care should be exercised to maintain and...

We extend Lazear's theory of skills variety and entrepreneurship in three directions. First, we provide a theoretical framework linking new business creation with an entrepreneur's skill variety. Second, in this model we allow for both generalists and specialists to possess skill variety. Third,...

The instability and informality that characterize hybrid political orders and its effects on entrepreneurs remains largely unexplored in the scholarly literatures. In this paper we provide initial findings from the case of entrepreneurs' access to electricity in Lebanon. Using quantitative and...

Building on a Lewis-type model of structural change and entrepreneurship we show how a global economic crisis consisting of a financial and a trade shock can undermine structural change in developing countries via the start-up and innovation activities of entrepreneurs. The model analytics...