Special economic zones (SEZs) have been touted as “tools for development”, and yet their results have often been disappointing. We explain how SEZs can be used to reform a country from a system dominated by rent-seeking to a liberalized economy, where officials derive their revenues from...

The Indian economy is presently gripped by the dual phenomenon of an unprecedented slowdown as well as financial fragility. What has triggered this? Is this simply a random exogenous shock to an otherwise well-functioning economy? Or, is there anything structural about the present slowdown? What...

We examine whether aid affects recipient countries’ economic freedom. The existing empirical literature examining this relationship has found conflicting results. However, all of these existing studies have struggled to employ plausible identification strategies to find a causal relationship...

As a result of debt enforcement problems, many high-productivity firms in emerging economies are unable to pledge enough future profits to their creditors and this constrains the financing they can raise. Many have argued that, by relaxing these credit constraints, reforms that strengthen...

During the last few decades, many emerging markets have lifted restrictions on cross-border financial transactions. The conventional view was that this would allow these countries to: (i) receive capital in flows from advanced countries that would finance higher investment and growth; (ii)...

As a result of debt enforcement problems, many high-productivity firms in emerging economies are unable to pledge enough future profits to their creditors and this constrains the financing they can raise. Many have argued that, by relaxing these credit constraints, reforms that strengthen...

The purpose of this study is to identify a series of development constraints for Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries and to revisit the importance of governance quality that offsets the negative impacts of development constraints on economic growth in SSA. Over the last decade, SSA countries...

This paper explores the impact of foreign aid on economic growth using variation in aid inflows from natural disasters. Because using a country's own disaster exposure as an instrument for aid inflows violates exogeneity assumptions, I instead use the disaster exposure of a country's "aid...

During the last few decades, many emerging markets have lifted restrictions on cross-border financial transactions. The conventional view was that this would allow these countries to: (i) receive capital inflows from advanced countries that would finance higher investment and growth; (ii) insure...