The paper aims to examine how trade rules affect a much greater array of domestic policies and institutions than ever before. The expanding scope of trade policy places an additional strain on policymaking and institution-building, especially for developing countries. By analysing WTO accession...

The paper aims to examine the role of institutions relative to economic policy and geography in explaining the differential level of development across countries over time. To that end, it attempts to construct a Development Quality Index (DQI) and an Institutional Quality Index (IQI) using...

Abstract According to the Pollution Haven Hypothesis (PHH), weak environmental policies improve a country's comparative advantage in the polluting sector, thus promoting its expansion. In this paper, we develop a neo-classical general equilibrium model with two goods and two factors and show...

The paper uses nonparametric methodology to examine the role of institutions in understanding differential levels of development across countries. This technique estimates first order derivatives for every country allowing a deeper look into the impact of institutions on development. The...

"Aid to developing countries has largely neglected the population-wide health services that are core to communicable disease control in the developed world. These mostly non-clinical services generate "pure public goods" by reducing everyone's exposure to disease through measures such as...