Many scholars have argued that once basic needs have been met, higher income is no longer associated with higher in subjective well-being. We assess the validity of this claim in comparisons of both rich and poor countries, and also of rich and poor people within a country. Analyzing multiple...

I reconsider the primacy of institutions over geography as an explanatory factor of cross-country differences in economic performance, which has recently been postulated by Acemoglu et al. (2001) and others. My estimates show that the reported missing direct performance effects of a measure of...

In this paper, I discuss the reasons for Costa Rica's economic performance over the last quarter of a century. Three complementary sets of policies (investments in human capital, careful stabilization, and an intelligent and aggressive integration into the world economy) explain the successful...

Paper reviews India's growth performance since independence. Phrases suchas "Hindu Rate of Growth," sometimes make a telling comment and expose obscureeconomic data to a wider audience, but they can just as readily obscure reality byfocussing attention on the wrong issue. There is nothing in the...

In many developing and transition economies Mafia-like activities are rampant. Extortion and other forms of predation lower profitability in private businesses and distort investment incentives. Incorporated in a model of industrialization, bimodal club convergence may result. Economies may get...

The international effort to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 has given fresh prominence to the idea of poverty traps, a notion that was widely current in the 1950s. This idea, most actively promoted by economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute and...

Many scholars have argued that once “basic needs” have been met, higher income is no longer associated with higher in subjective well-being. We assess the validity of this claim in comparisons of both rich and poor countries, and also of rich and poor people within a country. Analyzing...

In many developing and transition economies Mafia-like activities are rampant. Extortion and other forms of predation lower profitability in private businesses and distort investment incentives. Incorporated in a model of industrialization, bimodal club convergence may result. Economies may get...

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are widespread all around the world and represent more than 90% of the total enterprises on most of the places. These enterprises play a key role for the economic development, through the new employment opportunities and the producing of goods and...