The impact of the dependence on primary commodities for economic development is analysed within the framework of growth regressions. While there is no evidence of a generalized primary commodity curse, reliance on primary commodities does retard growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Which factors...

This paper argues that the most important question regarding the efficacy of development assistance is not how much but rather for what. Economic integration and subsidiarity provides the conditions necessary for ODA to produce higher rates of economic growth on a sustained basis.

An importance source of finance for poorer economies, is foreign aid; this paper examines some controversies surrounding its provision. The advanced economies have provided hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to the developing world over the last several decades; although this has done much...

This paper analyses the business cycles of selected European emerging market economies (EME) in terms of their statistical properties and degree of synchronization with the euro area, and discusses the associated policy implications. The evidence suggests that in these economies cyclical...

Despite the recent growth resurgence, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains the poorest region in the world. At the same time, it is a region that heavily relies on natural resources. In this paper we investigate the extent to which the second fact helps explain the first one. The distinctive feature...

We ask which economic policies can help a country create the most favourable conditions for development. We observe that the dynamics of several development indicators can be grouped into four clusters, each cluster corresponding to a different combination of growth and changes in inequality....

We study the nexus between natural resources and growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and find that SSA is indeed special: resources dependence retards growth in SSA, but not elsewhere. The natural resources curse is thus specific to SSA. We then show that this specificity does not depend on the...

We study whether financial openness facilitates the economic integration of formerly centrally planned economies with the EU-15. Two dimensions of economic integration are considered: cross-country convergence of per-capita incomes and bilateral trade in goods and services. We find that more...

We study the nexus between natural resources and growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and find that SSA is indeed special: resources dependence retards growth in SSA, but not elsewhere. The natural resources curse is thus specific to SSA. We then show that this specificity does not depend on the...