Why it is so hard to find a robust effect of aid on the long-term growth of poor countries, even those with good policies. A possible offset to the beneficial effects of aid is examined using a methodology that exploits both cross-country and within-country variation.

The authors examine the effects of aid on the growth of manufacturing using a methodology that exploits the variation within countries and across manufacturing sectors and that corrects for possible reverse causality. They find that aid inflows have systematic adverse effects on a...

As a result of the Asian crisis, relationship-based economic systems are now under attack for corruption and inefficiency. Yet, until recently, they were held up as an alternative (and in some respects superior) form of capitalism to the arm's-length, market-based, Anglo-Saxon systems of the...

How does the development of the financial sector affect industrial growth? What effect does it have on the composition of industry, and the size distribution of firms? What is the relative importance of financial institutions and financial markets, and does it depend on the stage of economic...

When citizens in a poor constrained society are unequally endowed, they are likely to find it hard to agree on reforms, even though the status quo hurts them collectively. Each citizen group or constituency prefers reforms that expand its opportunities, but in an unequal society, this will...