This study focuses on the city of São Paulo, Brazil and examines the ways in which irregular and illegal growth have influenced the collective action of social movements of the urban poor. The study describes how São Paulo grew as a socially segregated city during the twentieth century due to...

Infrastructure plays a key role in promoting and sustaining rapid economic growth. Properly designed infrastructure can also make growth more inclusive by sharing its benefits with poorer groups and communities, especially by connecting remote areas and small and landlocked countries to major...

The current account surplus of the Republic of Korea (henceforth Korea) increased significantly in the immediate recovery period after the 1997 - 1998 Asian financial crisis. Since then the surplus has gradually diminished, and from 2006 to 2008, the current account was close to being balanced....

In this paper we examine the mathematical relationship between growth and distributional change on absolute (i.e. percentage point) changes in FGT poverty measures assuming a log-normal income distribution, which we argue to be a conceptually superior and more policy-relevant measure than the...

In the context of production linkages in which downstream producers require freight services provided by transport operators, I show that the strategic choice of using an alternative transport mode does not necessarily induce lower access charges, relative to the standard transport mode....

This essay explores the role of the state in promoting exports and industrialization in the quest for transformation of African economies. It does this by exploring the role of trade in African economies followed by a brief look at the East Asian Developmental state. This is followed by an...

This paper empirically studies the impact of decentralization and inter-jurisdictional competition on foreign aid effectiveness. For this purpose we examine a commonly used empirical growth model, considering different measures of fiscal decentralization. Our panel estimations reveal that...

Africa has come a long way since the economic turmoil of the 1980s, the decade of "structural adjustment". Growth has been strong, yet poverty remains high. Underlying the shortage of good livelihoods and high social inequality is the lack of diversification in Africa's economies-in contrast to...

This paper focuses on the role of institutions in poverty alleviation, where both poverty and institutions are interpreted broadly. The broadening of the poverty notion is important at least from the policy perspective. Even if one were convinced that higher growth would reduce income poverty to...

This paper discusses the role that finance plays in promoting the capital development of the economy, with particular emphasis on the current situation of the United States and the United Kingdom. We define both "finance" and "capital development" very broadly. We begin with the observation that...