We empirically investigate the hypothesis that when democracies are young, or still fragile and unconsolidated, the size of government (in terms of consumption, debt and share to GDP) tends to increase in an attempt to buy out the electorate, so that democracy becomes acceptable and ?the only...

We investigate in this paper what are the main determinants of government and external debt in Latin America. Our sample includes nine Latin American countries that re-democratised in the last 30 years or so, and the data cover the period between 1970 and 2007. The results, based on principal...

In this paper we investigate the role of financial development, or more wide-spread access to finance, in generating economic growth in four Latin American countries between 1980 and 2007. The results, based on panel time-series data and analysis, con.rm the Schumpeterian prediction which...

In this paper we investigate the role of financial development, or more widespread access to all sorts of finance, in generating economic growth in four Latin American countries between 1980 and 2007. The results, based on panel time-series data and analysis, confirm the Schumpeterian prediction...

We investigate in this paper whether income growth has played any role on inequality in all nine young South American democracies during 1970-2007. The results, based on dynamic panel time-series analysis, suggest that income growth has played a progressive role in reducing inequality during the...

In this paper I investigate whether democracy in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has had any effect on education during the 1980-2009 period. The results, based on panel time-series analysis (I use the Pooled OLS and Fixed Effects estimators in order to deal with heterogeneity...

In this paper we investigate the role of inflation rates in determining economic growth in fifteen sub-Saharan African countries, which are all members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), between 1980 and 2009. The results, based on panel time-series data and analysis, suggest...