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...

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the issues, policies, and political economy of infrastructure investment, and a review of empirical literature of the relationship between growth and infrastructure. Empirical estimations using the growth accounting framework for a panel of 123...

While the worldwide spread of smartphones continues, developing countries have become important markets for these devices. Smartphones’ independence of landline networks qualifies them for communication and Internet access in rural areas of developing countries. Drawing upon rural Southeast...

This paper contributes to the understanding of the long-run consequences of Roman rule on economic development. In ancient times, the area of contemporary Germany was divided into a Roman and non-Roman part. The study uses this division to test whether the formerly Roman part of Germany show a...

Many cross-country studies acknowledge the indispensable role of institutions in promoting economic growth and in sustaining economic development. So, their emphases have shifted to determine the most influential institution(s) in order to be specific. While these papers are widespread in the...

Developing countries have seen a rapid rise in population urbanization in the past decades. At the same time, they have participated actively in the process of globalization. However, possible interlinks between population urbanization and trade openness in developing economies have been ignored...

This paper uses a general equilibrium trade framework to estimate the contribution of transport infrastructure to regional development. I apply the analysis to India, a country with a notoriously weak and congested transportation infrastructure. I first analyze the development effects of a...

The commonly-used satellite images of nighttime lights fail to capture the true brightness of most cities. We show that night lights are a reliable proxy for economic activity at the city level, provided they are first corrected for top-coding. We present a stylized model of urban luminosity and...

This paper offers a Spatial Computable General Equilibrium Model (SCGE) to evaluate the potential regional economic impacts of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Program (CAREC) corridors and the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR). We base our model on spatial...

The paper discusses Georgia's transit potential as a regional development actor and Georgia as a transit hub. The focus of the research is on the functioning of transit flows and logistics infrastructure as an attractive determinant of foreign investment. It also analyzes the financial and...