This study explains the emergence of the Sicilian mafia in the XIX century as the product of the interaction between natural resource abundance and weak institutions. We advance the hypothesis that the mafia emerged after the collapse of the Bourbon Kingdom in a context characterized by a severe...

This paper studies how comparative advantage and the political elites' endowments shape long-run performance in an economy with imperfect political institutions. In a capital-scarce economy, an autocrat catering to the needs of landowners favours openness to trade at an early stage of...

The capability approach developed by Sen represents a proposal for the evaluation of individual well-being and social development centered on people and away - but not exclusive - of materiality. In the present article describes the capability approach developed by Sen and examines the...

The aim of this paper is to create an indicator that compares the efficiency of countries in converting economic complexity into human development through the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method and econometric validation. The DEA will not only enable comparisons of efficiency across...

The objective of this article is to measure the efficiency of the Latin American and Asian countries in converting economic complexity into quality of life between 2010 and 2014. The method used was Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The results showed in 2014, all Asian countries were efficient...

The paper presents the dynamics of trade diversity with respect to stages of development in the European context. The analysis focuses on EU27 countries observed across the years 1988-2010 and compared to a sample of 136 international economies at all levels of income per capita. We use product...

In the paper we run an exhaustive study of the magnitude socio-economic exclusion which affects large parts of societies in European countries. Social and economic exclusion – alternatively called as deprivation – are widely recognized as symptoms of human poverty. This implies obstacles in...