This study data are based on several sources including official documents that are statistical or economical, as well as specialized literature and fieldwork investigations in collaboration with national university research teams. The present reflection reports on few western African countries...

Historically, episodes of rapid growth are accompanied by significant structural change. In this paper we therefore aim to quantify the extent to which factor accumulation induces structural change and productivity growth in industrializing economies. We present an extension of a standard growth...

This paper shows how the analytical framework developed in Lal-Myint (1996) and Lal (1998) can be used to think rigorously about the role of culture and politics in addition to traditional economic factors like factor-proportions in explaining divergent e

The data used in this study provides individual-level information about the population’s participation in social organizations and its willingness to trust members of their community. Argentina’s participation rate is close to 20%. The country’s trust rat

Fiscal policy triggers three distinct effects on the economy such as (1) interest rate effect (2) price effect and (3) exchange rate effect. A VAR system was developed to capture these effects in five South Asian countries. Empirical results suggest that budgetary action does not have any...

The hallmark of the recent development and growth literature is a quest to identify institutions that explain a significant portion of the observed differences in living standards across countries. Empirical work in the area focuses almost exclusively on either the global sample or on developing...

Research on income distribution in South Africa has, for obvious reasons, focused on inter-racial (inter-group) income distribution. Quite dramatic changes have occurred in inter-racial income distribution patterns since the 1970s, with the black share of income rising for the first time and at...

Using a constructed data series and another data series based on AMPS (the All Media and Products Survey), this paper explores trends in poverty and income distribution over the post-transition period. To steer clear of an unduly optimistic conclusion, assumptions are chosen that would tend to...

Research has shown a positive correlation between extractive colonisation and low post-colonial economic growth. This paper provides case study research to explore the possibility that post-colonial extractive institutions were already present in pre-colonial times. In Zambia’s case this is...

The extremely large disparities in employment rates across Italian regions, and the bad performance of the Italian economy in terms of job creation in the 80's and early 90's make job creation a top-priority in the economic policy agenda. This paper uses data on employment from 784 Local Labor...