Since 1950, there has been considerable diversity in developing country experiences. Some countries and some regions have experienced rapid growth and catch up, others have fallen behind. At a global level there is an increasing inequality of per capita incomes. However, within the framework of...

This paper provides a review and synthesis of the findings of the second phase of a research project on institutions and long-run economic performance. It discusses research findings in five areas, namely (1) the relationship between institutional characteristics and the duration of economic...

Public capital investment plays an important role in long run growth through enhancing productivity and complementing the accumulation of private inputs. Under appropriate conditions, public capital could also have important implications for income distribution dynamics. When the credit market...

How much does public capital matter for economic growth? How large should it be? This paper attempts to answer these questions, taking the case of SSA countries. It develops and estimates a model that posits a nonlinear relationship between public investment and growth, to determine the...

"Innovation is good for you" appears actually the common feature of most science, technology and innovation studies over the last decades. This appears, however surprising given the fact that innovation failure rather than innovation success appears a much more common feature. Hence the simple,...

We use 29 OECD countries data spanning over 1960-2000 to study the growth strategy when countries are close to the technology frontier. Relying on a semi-parametric generalized additive model, we estimate labor productivity equations. We find that the number of agents enrolled in higher...

For a better understanding of development, we are interested in why in the long run some countries or societies forge ahead, while others stagnate or fall behind. We are especially interested in the conditions under which growth and catch- up can be realised in developing countries. In section 1...

We consider a stochastic environment to study interactions among pollution growth, demographic changes, and economic growth. Drawing on the empirical findings of slow convergence patterns of pollution shocks (viz., with a long-memory), we build an analytical framework where stochastic...

In this paper, a simple general equilibrium model à la Solow is developed to capture the impact of AIDS on economic growth. To this end, a benchmark model due to Cuddington and Hancock (1994) is extended in various directions. In particular, the sharply declining life expectancy patterns are...

This paper examines the emergence of manufacturing in developing countries in the period 1950-2005. It presents new data on structural change in a sample of 63 developing countries and 16 advanced economies. Industrialisation is seen as a single global process of structural change, in which...