Staatliche Banken können eine wichtige Rolle bei der Sicherung der Funktionsfähigkeit von Finanzsystemen und für die gesamtwirtschaftliche Entwicklung spielen. Dies gilt offenbar vor allem dann, wenn die Bankenregulierung schwach ist und Banken nicht ausreichend überwacht werden. Die...

We show that previous results suggesting that government ownership of banks is associated with lower long run growth rates are not robust to adding more 'fundamental' determinants of economic growth. We also present new cross-country evidence for 1995-2007 which suggests that, if anything,...

With complementary Chinese data sets and alternative corruption measures, we explore the consequences of corruption. Adopting a novel approach we provide evidence that corruption can have both, positive and negative effects, on economic development. The overall impact of corruption might be the...

Are natural resources a "curse" or a "blessing"? The empirical evidence suggests either outcome is possible. The paper surveys a variety of hypotheses and supporting evidence for why some countries benefit and others lose from the presence of natural resources. These include that a resource...

We put forward a modern version of the ‘developmental’ view of government-owned banks which shows that the combination of information asymmetries and weak institutions creates scope for such banks to play a growth-promoting role. We present new cross-country evidence consistent with our...

Sub-Saharan Africa economies introduced extensive reforms of their tax systems in the last two decades. In most of these countries taxes are now remitted through the self-assessment system that relies on quasi voluntary compliance and audit selection by risk. However, the revenues from direct...

This paper analyzes the existing relationship between economic growth and the monitoring of corruption and examines the possible outcome of the implementation of a State reform in order to weed out corruption. Growth is always higher when monitoring is high and therefore corruption eradicated....

The paper intends to contribute to a better understanding of the interactions between criminality, economic performance and social cohesion. We try to achieve this aim by evaluating the existing economic and criminological research and by carrying out own empirical investigation on the basis of...

This paper assesses the relevance of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the knowledge economy (KE)-finance nexus using the four variables identified under the World Bank's knowledge economy index (KEI) and seven financial intermediary dynamics of depth, efficiency, activity and size. Three...

Corruption has long been endemic in Indian telecommunications. Individuals and small contractors must pay bribes or "facilitation fees" to obtain a fixed line or to release a payment for a contract or, even, a pension. Investigation of complaints about the government and state-owned operators...