The paper is based on a scenario workshop held on January 20, 2009, where leading financial and private sector development experts from IFC, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank discussed the unfolding crisis. This paper is a product of the staff of the Financial and Private...

In "The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy", Robert D. Woodberry (2012) claims that the emergence of stable democracies around the world was influenced by conversionary Protestantism. While Woodberry's historical analysis is exhaustive, the accompanying empirical evidence suffers from severe...

Institutions, defined as "the rules of the game in society", drive economic growth and prosperity. Institutions often arise from long-term processes influenced by geography, major historical events, culture, and, less commonly, religion. This chapter reviews the available evidence to demonstrate...