The main purpose of this study is to analyze the influence of country-level governance on business environment and entrepreneurship for an international large sample of countries for a period of six years (2007-2012). The dimensions of country-level governance at macroeconomic level will be...

As the world approaches the target year of the Millennium Development Goals and passes into the new, post-2015 era, the development community has made a call for a new international development goal of eradication of extreme poverty by 2030. How feasible is that? For most of the developing...

This paper finds that shareholder-friendly corporate governance is positively associated with bank insolvency risk, as proxied by the Z-score and the Merton's distance to default measure, for an international sample of banks over the 2004-08 period. Banks are special in that"good"corporate...

This research paper empirically investigates the extent to which the quality of governance measured through six dimensions developed by World Bank has a positive influence on the corporate ethics, or in other words, the ethical behaviour of firms in their interaction with public officials,...

Trafficking is an emerging concern in West Africa. In 2011, 17 percent of all cocaine consumed in Europe -- 21 tons -- passed through the region, for a retail value of US$1.7 billion. This paper discusses the evolution of trafficking in the region and provides estimates of the size and value of...

The 2008 financial crisis has served as a catalyst for re-examining the forces of systemic financial crisis, the leading of which was perceived to be the inaccurate credit ratings. Although sovereign credit ratings constitute a small part of the credit rating industry, the impact of unexpected...

This Selected Issues paper reviews the extent to which growth in Ethiopia has translated into higher living standards. A key feature of the economic strategy has been an explicit commitment to poverty reduction and structural transformation. This is underpinned by the vision of a...

Loening investigates the impact of human capital on economic growth in Guatemala during 1951-2002 using an error-correction methodology. The results show a better-educated labor force having a positive and significant impact on economic growth. Consistent with microeconomic studies for...

The authors investigate whether firms'access to external financing, to fund growth differs between market-based, and bank-based financial systems. Using firm-level data for forty countries, they compute the proportion of firms in each country that relies on external finance, and examine how that...