Using a newly constructed data panel on U.S. locality attributes, this paper sketches four sets of empirical facts on economic growth across U.S. counties. A first set of facts focuses on the time series and cross-correlation properties of local economic growth as measured by net migration, per...

This paper provides a detailed characterisation of the structure and behaviour of African factor markets and the institutions that impact on their operations. It shows that the African factor markets are imperfect and inefficient, thus constraining economic growth. The paper posits that for the...

This paper investigates the relationship between economic reforms and constitutional transition, which has been neglected by many transition economists. It is argued that assessment of reform performance might be very misleading if it is not recognized that economic reforms are just a small part...

In this paper a general equilibrium model is constructed to explain the emergence of firms and change in firm size by the tradeoff between economies of specialization and transaction cost. We show that firms emerge from the development of division of labor if the transaction efficiency for labor...

The last ten years have seen an exponential increase in the volume of legal transplantation, the process by which laws and legal institutions developed in one country are then adopted by another. Although there is a small literature on the process of legal transplantation, most of that...

This paper models the dynamic interactions between growth and distribution in the analysis of the behavior of poverty over time. The model permits formal analysis of the factors that led to the growth collapse as well as the rise in poverty in Africa and other developing regions, except Asia,...

This paper develops a general equilibrium model with transaction costs and endogenous and exogenous comparative advantages. In the model, the governments are allowed to choose between tariff war, tariff negotiation, and laissez faire regimes. The model shows that the level of division of labor...

Civil wars impose substantial costs on the domestic economy. We empirically measure the economic impact of such internal wars. The paper contributes to the existing literature both theoretically and methodologically. First, it explores the economic channels through which civil war affects...

Ethnicity plays an ambiguous role in the great transformation. On the one hand, ethnicity creates: by providing incentives that organize the flow of resources across generations, it provides the capital for urban migration and the acquisition of skills for industrial employment. On the other...