There is a long-standing debate on the relationship between economic development and environmental quality. From a sustainable development viewpoint there has been a growing concern that the economic expansion of the world economy will cause irreparable damage to our planet. In the last few...

This paper examines the causes of Taiwan's exceptional economic performance, focusing on the influence of organizational and policy choices and how Taiwan's example differs from those of more typical less-developed countries. After briefly citing cultural factors as proposed by his late...

This paper examines the effect of agricultural development on a country's overall development and growth experience. In most poor countries, large fractions of land, labor, and other productive resources are devoted to producing food for subsistence needs. This 'food problem' can delay a...

This paper seeks to examine the interdependence between economic growth (EG) and human development (HD). It is concerned with changes in per capita income and its two-way relationship with the basic societal objective of human development. Regressions across various Latin American countries are...

This paper discusses the recent literature on the role of the state in economic development. It concludes that government incentives to enact sound policies are key to economic success. It also discusses the evidence on what happens after episodes of economic and political liberalizations,...

This paper argues that openness to goods trade in combination with an unequal distribution of political power has been a major determinant of the comparatively slow development of resource- or land-abundant regions like South America and the Caribbean in the nineteenth century. We develop a...

We consider two channels via which foreign inputs into industrial production may lead to productivity effects. The first one concerns dynamic externalities between firms which share technical and organizational knowledge which is vital for the productivity growth of a particular industry. We...

Economic theory has proposed and discussed a lot of possible factors or explanations that promote or foster economic development. One of these gathers specific discussions from other Social Sciences, incorporating social, cultural, religious, institutional and political dimensions - and among...