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...

Trust among individuals of a society is an important dimension of social capital and may have different economic and development implications. The present study is an attempt to investigate the relationship of trust with economic growth and human development. It is unique in at least two...

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...

The Indian software industry has often been cited as an example of a 'role model' for other developing countries trying to catch up, or leapfrog certain stages of industrial development. Having started with basic programming services India has climbed the value chain in IT industries. The...

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 majority of the world's poor, by income poverty and multi-dimensional poverty, now live in countries officially classified by the World Bank as middle-income countries. Of course nothing happens when a country crosses a (somewhat) arbitrary threshold in per capita income but it does matter...