Long-run trends in Africa’s well-being are provided on the basis of a new index of human development, alternative to the UNDP’s HDI. A sustained improvement in African human development is found that falls, nonetheless, short of those experienced in other developing regions. Within Africa,...

Long-run trends in Africa’s well-being are provided on the basis of a new index of human development, alternative to the UNDP’s HDI. A sustained improvement in African human development is found that falls, nonetheless, short of those experienced in other developing regions. Within Africa,...

The pessimistic flavour of the <i>Human Development Reports</i> appears to be in contradiction with their own numbers as developing countries fare comparatively better in human development than in per capita GDP terms. This paper attempts to bridge this gap by providing a new, 'improved' human...

Latin America’s economic performance is mediocre at best, despite abundant natural resources and flourishing neighbors to the north. The perplexing question of how some of the wealthiest nations in the world in the nineteenth century are now the most crisis-prone has long puzzled economists...

In this paper, new series of Spain’s capital stock and input are constructed for the last one-and-a-half centuries. Capital stock and input grew at average rates of 3.5 and 3.7 percent per year but not at a steady pace since rates accelerated dramatically during the ‘Golden Age’. Two major...