"Drawing on the recent literature on economic institutions and the origins of economic development, the authors offer a political economy explanation of why institution building has varied so much across transition economies. They identify dependence on natural resources and the historical...

"The relationships among competition in the financial sector, access of firms to external financing, and associated economic growth are ambiguous in theory. Moreover, measuring competition in the financial sector can be complex. In this paper Claessens and Laeven first estimate for 16 countries...

This chapter introduces the main issues associated with population aging, many of which will be investigated in detail throughout the volume. The next section describes the demographic transformation that Brazil has been experiencing and highlights its specific features, including a very rapid...