Despite the many approaches of neoclassical and endogenous growth theory, economists still face problems explaining the reasons for income differences between countries. Institutional economics and the deep determinants of growth literature try to depart from pure economic facts to examine...

The Protestant Reformation is a vivid example of how religious transformation could set in motion institutional changes, leading to profound consequences for economic and political development. Although economists and other social scientists agree that there is a strong relation between the...

Thomas Piketty's widely-noted and bestselling book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, does much to advance our empirical understanding of rising high-end wealth concentration, which is one of the central issues of our time. But its theoretical approach and policy recommendations differ...

Sovereign nations grow faster than non-sovereign ones. When Pakistan ceded economic management to the IMF in the late 1980s, the turn to neo-liberalism led to 14 years of decline in long-run rate of investment and growth from which it hasn't recovered. This cost the economy an estimated $75.6...

The newly born, one year old State of Southern Sudan faces multiple challenges, economic, administrative, ethnic and most of all, civil conflicts with its previous mother country, Sudan. Building a state is an arduous mission and building a nation comprised of many ethnicities is the most...

Ever since the dire predictions of The Limits to Growth (Meadows & al. 1972) failed to come true on time, it's been all too easy to ridicule environmentally-based arguments against economic growth as pessimistic and "Malthusian." In contrast, this paper accepts, for the sake of argument, the...

In medieval times, most people identified with religious values and aggregate income and productivity grew at glacier speed. In the 20th century, religion played a much lesser role in daily life and income and productivity grew at high and unprecedented rates. The present paper develops a simple...

Societies in Western civilisation enforce their rules through formal institutions such as secularism (SES), whereas in less developed civilisations often rely on informal institutions such as religion (RES). The present paper attempts to explain the determinants of societies’ choice between...

This paper integrates a simple theory of identity choice into a framework of endogenous economic growth to explain how secularization can be both cause and consequence of economic development. A secular identity allows an individual to derive more pleasure from consumption than religious...

This paper integrates a simple theory of identity choice into a framework of endogenous economic growth to explain how secularization can be both cause and consequence of economic development. A secular identity allows an individual to derive more pleasure from consumption than religious...