Evidence suggests that foreign aid does not promote economic growth. Institutions which promote entrepreneurship do promote growth. Understanding where these institutions come from is paramount to success. This essay analyzes and summarizes theory and evidence regarding the relationship between...

This study provides formal theoretical evidence that an agenda for economic development of a `Village' that is built around an aggressive foray into provision of Microfinance is more likely to fail, than to succeed. The Microfinance strategy fails, because any businesses formed by `Villagers'...

Autocracies in developing countries are more likely to collapse during economic crises. Some influential works and popular media extend this argument to oil-rich autocracies, but cross-national empirical studies find little evidence to support this view. Yet, while the causes of their stability...

Using price discounts government officials receive when buying new housing units as a measure of corruption in China, we examine the effect of the anti-corruption campaign launched by the Xi Jinping administration in 2012. We find that the discounts decrease sharply after the campaign. On the...

In an effort to spur economic growth and to burnish their job-creation bona fides, policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels often dispense targeted economic development subsidies. These selective incentives include targeted tax relief, targeted regulatory relief, cash subsidies, and...

This paper empirically explores how fiscal policy - represented by changes in government spending- exerts asymmetric effects on economic growth in the context of a developing country, Egypt in particular. By allowing for the theoretical plausibility of asymmetric effects of fiscal policy on...

We show the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on world's affected countries (Complete or Partial Locked Down countries) mainly transmitted through social and economic factors. In this regard, we assess the effects of covid-19 on Investments, remittances, Trade, Tourism, Oil Prices, Production, Health,...

The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought havocs on economies around the world. Yet, barely any evidence currently exists on the distributional impacts of the pandemic. We provide the first study that offers new theoretical and empirical evidence on the distributional impacts of the pandemic on...

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in income and employment loss in many countries around the world. Yet, hardly any formal study exists on household finance and future economic expectations in poorer countries. To fill in this gap, we implemented and analyzed a web-based rapid assessment survey...

This paper quantifies the impacts of transport infrastructure investments on economic activity in Haiti, using satellite night-light luminosity as a proxy measure. Our identification strategy exploits the differential timing of rehabilitation projects across various road segments of the primary...