The transition from plan to market has hinged on the development of a dynamic private sector that would serve as the engine of growth and employment creation. This paper examines the link between the availability of skilled workers and the creation of new private firms. Using a dynamic search...

The new Central European members of the EU have been characterized by low employment rates, especially among unskilled workers, despite the GDP recoveries and large private sector shares in output and employment. Evidence points at skill shortages in Central Europe as a key impediment to faster...

Dictatorships do not survive by repression alone. Rather, dictatorial rule is often explained as an "authoritarian bargain" by which citizens relinquish political rights for economic security. The applicability of the authoritarian bargain to decision-making in non-democratic states, however,...

The authors examine the impact of public infrastructure on private capital formation in three countries of the Middle East and North Africa-Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia. They highlight various channels through which public infrastructure may affect private investment. Then they describe their...

The September 11 terrorist attacks ignited global interest in the Middle East. Observers in the region and abroad were quick to highlight the development "deficits" in Middle Eastern countries which have been linked to everything from structural economic imbalances to deficient political...

Following a period of rapid growth in the late 19th century, Egyptian real per capita income stagnated in the first half of the 20th century. This widely accepted belief is based on trends in agricultural productivity but a fragmented body of evidence on aggregate output. In particular, no...

Recent academic and policy discussions have emphasized the poor growth performance of MENA's economies since the mid 1980s. It has been argued that the expanding global economy presents MENA with the opportunity to augment its limited pool of national savings with private capital inflows....