We use the establishment of Special Economic Zones in China to estimate the effect of economic reforms on GDP. A panel of 270 Chinese cities from 1988 to 2010 allows us to exploit the variation in the establishment of zones across time and space. The results from our baseline...

This paper is part of a larger project aiming at revitalizing high development theory". It examines the roots of development economics, tracing it back to the seminal contributions of European émigrés to the UK and the US in the 1930s. Developed mainly by German speaking economists it became...

The paper is an attempt to observe the effects of the development of rent-seeking or lobbying groups on the growth pace of a number of countries. The relationship between the policy suggestions of competing interest groups, and economic policies implemented both at micro and macro level after...

This paper presents estimates of six dimensions of governance covering 199 countries and territories for four time periods: 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002. These indicators are based on several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 25 separate data sources...