Rapid growth of internet use in high-income economies has raised the spectre of a “digital divide” that will marginalize developing countries because they can neither afford internet access nor use it effectively when it is available. Using a new cross-country data set, this paper...

The post-cold war emergence of Private Military Companies (PMCs) is part of a larger phenomenon, the privatization of violence in general and warfare in particular. While a minority of scholars argue that once legalized and regulated, PMCs could turn into facilitators of development through the...

This paper examines economic growth and structural change in Indonesia during the period 1975-2000 using an input-output-based structural change decomposition method. The analysis focuses on the sources and pattern of growth during three phases of economic development: the inward-oriented phase...

The trade and governance literature suggest a link between the openness of an economy to international trade and the quality of its governance. The paper tests this link using a data set on governance that is multidimensional and broad in cross-country coverage. The results provide evidence that...

Amartya Sen's capability approach to development considers individual agency as central in promoting human well-being. The paper argues that the capability approach would need to include more explicitly collective and historical dimensions in order to offer better insights for understanding the...

Most studies find that AIDS has a relatively weak impact on economic growth because they assume that it affects only one flow variable and only in the short term (the flow of labour available and capable of working at a time t in the economy). But AIDS also has a long-term impact on stock...

Nepal, the poorest country in South Asia with a high incidence of income poverty and markedly low levels of human development, has experienced violent civil conflict over the past 7 years. The “People's war” launched by Maoist guerrillas against the state has led to widespread loss of lives...

This paper seeks to build on theory, to develop new methods for understanding the nature and basis of sectoral and national competitive advantage, and to do so with a temporal perspective. Neo-Schumpeterian and evolutionary economics perspectives (which place innovation at the forefront of...

In this article it is argued that, although the study of ethnicity in Nigeria bears the imprint of almost all the different perspectives that have been deployed towards the study of ethnicity; perspectives that privilege the role of the state and critical elites in ethnic mobilization have...

Private sector activity—including both licit and illicit trade and business—is a significant factor influencing the shape and intensity of many conflicts. With a few significant exceptions, however, there has, to date, been little effort (from public, private and civil society sectors alike)...