Little cross-cutting conclusions emerge from comparative studies on the impact of structural adjustment on Sub-Saharan African agricultural performance. This paper aims to illuminate this long-standing debate by adopting a novel quantitative, sectoral and long-term approach controlling for...

This paper studies the existence of middle-income growth traps in a two-period overlapping generations model of economic growth with two types of labor and endogenous occupational choices. It also distinguishes between"basic"and"advanced"infrastructure, with the latter promoting design...

This paper studies the role of public policy in promoting industrial transformation from an imitationbased, low-skill economy to an innovation-based, high-skill economy, where technological progress now occurs through the domestic invention of ideas. Industrial transformation is measured by...

According to T.W. Schultz, the returns to human capital are highest in economic environments experiencing unexpected price, productivity, and technology shocks that create"disequilibria."In such environments, the ability of firms and individuals to adapt their resource allocations to...

This paper argues that the increased flow and management of knowledge permitted by knowledge-based capital, supported by appropriate policies, can be an important factor in reducing the decision risk facing enterprises due to uncertainty and imperfect information, helping improve the resilience...

This paper investigates the link between export survival of agri-food products and financial development. It tests the hypothesis that financial development differentially affects the survival of exports across products based on their need of external finance. The authors test whether exports of...

The Republic of Congo, an oil rich country in Central Africa, has made substantial progress in the past decade in stabilizing the economy and achieving high growth rates. However, despite reaching middle-income country status in 2006, the economy is not diversified, poverty remains pervasive,...

They are being hailed as the new Holy Grail of economic development. The success of special economic zones (SEZ) in general and specialized ones in particular (industrial and technology parks) in countries as diverse as Australia, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, Japan, the United...

This paper analyzes the role of labor market institutions in explaining the development of shadow economies in European countries. The analysis uses several alternative measures of the shadow sector, and examines the effects of labor institutions on the shadow sector in two specific regions: new...

This paper looks into institutional and other macro determinants of prevalence of informal dependent employment, as well as informal self-employment, in European countries, using European Social Survey data on work without legal contract in on 30 countries, covering years 2004-2009. Consistently...