According to the Washington Consensus, developing countries’ growth would benefit from reductions in barriers to trade. However, the empirical basis for judging trade reforms is weak. Econometrics are mostly ad hoc; results are typically not judged against models; policies are poorly measured;...

This article seeks to explain Africa's current quot;period of unparalleled economic success,quot; following decades of economic stagnation. Using newly available data, we investigate whether international commodity price increases (our quot;metalsquot; hypothesis) or policy reforms (our...

Across the world, a structural growth slowdown is underway: at current trends, the global potential growth rate - the maximum rate at which an economy can grow without igniting inflation - is expected to fall to a three-decade low over the remainder of the 2020s. The slowdown could be even more...

The extant literature has produced mixed evidence on the relationship between financial development and ecological sustainability. This work addresses this conundrum by investigating financial development's direct and indirect consequences on ecological quality utilizing the environmental...

The argument over fiscal decentralization and carbon dioxide emission (CO2) reduction has received much attention. However, evidence to back this claim is limited. Economic theory predicts that fiscal decentralization affects environmental quality, but the specifics of this relationship are...

The BRICS nations have made environmental sustainability a top priority in their policies due to concerns about the negative impact of fossil fuel reliance on the environment. Their dependence on fossil fuels, both for energy production and imports, has led to a steady increase in greenhouse gas...