I reconsider the primacy of institutions over geography as an explanatory factor of cross-country differences in economic performance, which has recently been postulated by Acemoglu et al. (2001) and others. My estimates show that the reported missing direct performance effects of a measure of...

The two-sector specific factor model is typically used in the theory of international trade where it helps to clarify the principle of comparative advantage. Instead, we use this model as explicit theoretical framework to explain major trends of long-run economic development. Combined with...

Some recent empirical studies deny any direct performance effects of measures of geography and conclude that institutions trump all other potential determinants of development. For given effects of institutional quality, our empirical results indicate quantitatively important direct negative...

Joseph A. Schumpeter is one of the most famous economists of the 20th century and the 'patron saint' of the finance and growth literature. We have discovered that the prevailing literature has, however, misinterpreted Schumpeter, which leads to puzzling empirical results and difficulties in...

This study investigates the impact of institutional quality on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows using panel data for low, lower-middle, upper-middle and high-income countries for the sample period of 1996-2016 using the system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). The empirical results...

This paper proposes an endogenous growth model in which gender inequality in employment has an important role in explaining different development dimensions such as socio-political participation, educational attainments, and working hours, in developed countries. Starting from a theoretical...

The focus on human capital as a driver of economic growth for developing countries has led to undue attention on school attainment. Developing countries have made considerable progress in closing the gap with developed countries in terms of school attainment, but recent research has underscored...

Does capital flow from rich to poor countries? We revisit the Lucas paradox to account for the role of capital account openness. We find that, when accounting for such openness, the prediction of the neoclassical theory is empirically confirmed: among financially open economies, less developed...

This study was carried out to investigate the relationship between refugees and development in host economies from a macroeconomic point of view. The results obtained show that this relationship is non-linear. The empirical results demonstrate that refugees have a positive and significant direct...

Using cross-country and panel regressions, we investigate to what extent gender gaps in education and employment (proxied using gender gaps in labor force participation) reduce economic growth. Using the most recent data and investigating an extended time period (1960-2000), we update the...