The new growth literature, using both endogenous growth and neoclassical models, has generated strong claims for the effect of national policies on economic growth. Empirical work on policies and growth has tended to confirm these claims. This paper casts doubt on this claim for strong effects...

This is an attempt to derive broad, strategic lessons from the diverse experience with economic growth in last fifty years. The paper revolves around two key arguments. One is that neoclassical economic analysis is a lot more flexible than its practitioners in the policy domain have generally...

The aim of this chapter is to analyze the economic properties and the institutions governing the start-up and evolution of cultural districts. Cultural districts are a good example of economic development based on localized firms and local culture. The first part of the chapter (Sections 1–2)...

Extension of factual and analytical work to policy issues has been a feature of agricultural economics from its beginnings, but only in recent decades have these efforts become part of the scientific core of what agricultural economists do. At the same time, the range of policy analysis has...

In recent years, significant advances have been made in better understanding the complex relationships between health and development. This reflects the combined effects of methodological innovations at both the theoretical and empirical level, the integration of insights from the biological and...

This chapter reviews the experience of computable general equilibrium (CGE) models from the perspective of how they have, or have not, influenced public policy in developing countries. The paper describes different classes of empirical models from small, stylized to large, multisectoral applied...

This chapter develops a unified analytical framework, drawing on and extending the existing literature on the subject, for studying the role of property rights in economic development. It addresses two fundamental and related questions concerning the relationship between property rights and...

We examine the impact of foreign corruption regulation on economic development in highcorruption-risk areas. We find that, after a mid-2000s increase in enforcement of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), economic activity (measured by nighttime luminosity) in African communities within...