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The economic history of Argentina presents one of the most dramatic examples of divergence in the modern era. What happened and why? This paper reviews the wide range of competing explanations in the literature and argues that, setting aside deeper social and political determinants, the various...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011083510
Credit market imperfections have been blamed for the depth and persistence of the Great Depression in the US. Could similar mechanisms have played a role in ending the East Asian miracle? After a brief account of the nature of the recent crises, we use Kiyotaki and Moore’s (1997) model of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005792127
Natural and agricultural resources for which there is a substantial black market, such as coca, opium, and diamonds, appear especially likely to be exploited by the parties to a civil conflict. On the other hand, these resources may also provide one of the few reliable sources of income in the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005124245
Africa and Latin America secured their independence from European colonial rule a century and half apart: most of Latin America after 1820 and most of Africa after 1960. Despite the distance in time and space, they share important similarities. In each case independence was followed by political...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005136542
Though models of political economy suggest that changes in political institutions, such as democratization, should have large effects on policies and economic outcomes, the empirical literature finds ambiguous results. It is important, however, to ‘unbundle’ democratic reforms into more...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008861910
In this essay we analyze the relation between long-term growth and institutional development. Relative backwardness has been a constant feature of the history of Latin America. In the wake of Independence the gap between Latin America and the industrializing world was already wide and widened...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008468602
The idea that income differences between rich and poor nations arise through multiple equilibria or ‘poverty traps’ is as intuitive as it is difficult to verify. In this Paper, we explore the empirical relevance of such models. We calibrate a simple two-sector model for 127 countries, and...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005504352
This Paper reviews the relationship between natural resource dependence and economic growth, and stresses how natural capital intensity tends to crowd out foreign capital, social capital, human capital, physical capital, and financial capital, thereby impeding economic growth across countries....
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005504445
This paper develops empirical growth models suitable for dual economies, and studies the relationship between structural change and economic growth. Structural change matters because, if the marginal product of labour varies across sectors, changes in the structure of employment can raise...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005504477
The Central and Eastern European countries' prospects of becoming EU members depend heavily on, among other things, their per capita GDP levels. It is shown that the neoclassical growth model does not yet adequately describe the growth process in these countries. This makes a direct growth...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005504515