We study the importance of the local elite as a determinant of the effectiveness of foreign aid in developing countries. The local elite serves as an intermediary between aid donors and aid recipients through its control of the government and major firms. The likelihood of misusing aid is large...

Abstract This paper evaluates the welfare consequences of implementing intellectual property rights in developing countries. The protection of intellectual property in poor countries promises to increase world innovation, but this would not come without costs. Higher prices for consumers in that...

This paper evaluates the welfare consequences of implementing intellectual property rights in developing countries. The protection of intellectual property in poor countries promises to increase world innovation, but this would not come without costs. Higher prices for consumers in that part of...

This paper studies the apparent inconsistency between the evolution of GDP per capita and real wages in pre-industrial Europe. We show that these two measures will diverge when any of the three following factors are present: changes in income distribution, changes in labour supply per capita and...