Rapid growth since 1980 has transformed India from the world's 50th ranked economy in nominal U.S. dollars to the 10th largest in 2005. The growth of per capita income has helped reduce poverty. At the same time, evidence suggests that income inequality is rising and that the gap in average per...

This paper analyzes the role of the leadership in the economic growth in Rwanda, a country that was seriously affected by civil war and the 1994 genocide. It appears that the will and the clear vision of the leadership in Rwanda were one of the central pillars of the very good economic and...

The paper focuses its analysis on the last three decades of the twentieth century. The basic assumption is that Egypt's economic performance during this period was less than satisfactory compared with the most successful examples in the far East and elsewhere. The paper also assumes that Egypt's...

All countries have a formal economy and an informal economy. But, on average, in developing countries the relative size of the informal sector is considerably larger than in developed countries. This paper argues that this has important implications for housing policy in developing countries....

This paper reviews the evidence about the effects of urbanization and cities on productivity and economic growth in developing countries using a consistent theoretical framework. Just like in developed economies, there is strong evidence that cities in developing countries bolster productive...

In this paper authors argue that the main determinants of differences in prosperity across countries are differences in economic institutions. To solve the problem of development will entail reforming these institutions. Unfortunately, this is difficult because economic institutions are...

The real exchange rate was not at the center of the first generation of neoclassical growth models, nor was it prominent among the policy prescriptions that flowed from those models. Recent analyses, in contrast, have paid it more attention. This paper analyzes the role of the real exchange rate...

This paper argues that cumulative causation processes are fundamental to understanding growth and development. Such processes derive from spatially concentrated increasing returns to scale including thick market effects, knowledge spillovers, sectoral and urban clustering, and self-reinforcing...