This paper presents estimates of the relationship between the share of income accruing to the middle class and gross domestic product per capita of economies from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The increase in gross domestic product per capita that these economies experienced during...

This paper estimates the effect of income inequality on real gross domestic product per capita using a panel of 104 countries during the period 1970?2010. The empirical analysis addresses endogeneity issues by using instrumental variables estimation and controlling for country and time fixed...

This paper estimates a panel model in which the relationship between inequality and gross domestic product per capita growth depends on countries' initial incomes. Estimates of the model show that the relationship between inequality and gross domestic product per capita growth is significantly...

To what extent has Sub-Saharan Africa's slow economic growth over the past five decades been due to price and trade policies that discouraged production of agricultural relative to non-agricultural tradables? This paper uses a new set of estimates of policy induced distortions to relative...

In the 1990s the mainstream consensus was that trade causes growth. Subsequent research shed doubt on the consensus view, as evidence suggested that the identification of the effect of trade on growth was problematic in the existing literature. This paper contributes to this debate by focusing...

This paper explores the effect of market orientation on (known) natural resource wealth using a novel dataset of world-wide major hydrocarbon and mineral discoveries. Consistent with the predictions of a two-region model, the empirical estimates based on a large panel of countries show that...

This paper examines the role of monetary policy in fossil fuel exporters at different horizons. The main argument is that central banks in these economies need to look beyond the horizon of the business cycle. In the short run, (independent) monetary policy should flexibly target inflation. In...

This paper documents the existence of a "middle-income trap" for the Middle East and North Africa region. It argues that the economic woes of the Middle East and North Africa offer new insights into the debate on the trap which has thus far focused on the East Asia and Pacific region. The...

This paper argues for a novel approach to financing infrastructure needs in Arab countries. It first describes the context of rising public debt in the region, contrasting it with the vast infrastructure needs. It then discusses the challenges in meeting these needs with traditional financing....

The paper deals with the economics of sustainability associated with the transformation of energy markets. It emphasizes the interrelations between technical changes and energy markets and how in turn the resulting transformations alter the sustainability of economic systems that are dependent...