Recently, there has been an upsurge of empirical studies that test the convergence prediction of the neoclassical growth theory at the country, regional, state or provincial levels. These studies examine whether poorer economies will eventually catch up with richer ones in terms of both income...

Do countries with lower policy-induced barriers to international trade grow faster, once other relevant country characteristics are controlled for? There exists a large empirical literature providing an affirmative answer to this question. We argue that methodological problems with the empirical...

This paper draws some lessons for the Egyptian economy from recent crisis episodes in Latin America and East Asia. Egypt is striving to achieve higher sustainable growth rates to increase the welfare of its population. Opening up the capital account presents both opportunities and dangers....

Recent academic and policy discussions have emphasized the poor growth performance of MENA's economies since the mid 1980s. It has been argued that the expanding global economy presents MENA with the opportunity to augment its limited pool of national savings with private capital inflows....

The paper investigates the issue in the case of Tunisia for which a 1996 World Bank published report recommended shrinking the size of its government on the basis of conclusions from cross-country growth studies. Analysis of the causal impact of government size on growth in this country proves...