New Zealand ranks highly on most indicators of well-being, but incomes are below the OECD average due to low labour productivity. Low labour productivity is only partly explained by the industry composition of the NZ economy and is primarily a consequence of sustained low multi-factor...

The impact of remittances on households left behind by migration is ambiguous a priori due to competing income and substitution effects. We offer new evidence on the effect of remittances on household investment decisions. We enrich our analysis using microdata from five sub-Saharan African...

This paper studies how comparative advantage and the political elites' endowments shape long-run performance in an economy with imperfect political institutions. In a capital-scarce economy, an autocrat catering to the needs of landowners favours openness to trade at an early stage of...

Lack of adequate infrastructure is a significant inhibitor to increased trade of the countries of the Mediterranean region. Bringing their transport infrastructure to standards comparable with countries of a similar per capita GDP will be costly but worthwhile. We compare the current quantities...

The economic success story of the 1990s has been Ireland, with GDP per capita nearly doubling over the decade. In this article Pierre Fortin from the Université du Québec à Montréal and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research provides a detailed examination of the factors behind the...

This article by Edward N. Wolff of New York University examines trends in convergence in OECD countries toward U.S. productivity levels during the postwar period and finds strong evidence for this phenomenon up to 1990, with rapid growth in investment, education, and R&D in OECD countries...

We provide theoretical and empirical evidence that policy uncertainty can significantly affect firm level investment and entry decisions in the context of international trade. When market entry costs are sunk, policy uncertainty can create a real option value of waiting to enter foreign markets...

This paper discuses the role of USAID in the development process in Egypt. It discusses the USAID role in Egypt in some sectors with more focus on USAID/Egypt economic growth, more specifically the Technical Assistance for policy Reform II (TAPRII). I will discuss the items of the program that...

This paper examines the link between the real exchange rate volatility and domestic investment by using the panel data cointegration techniques. In the first part of the paper, we study the theoretical link between the exchange rate, its volatility and the investment in a small open economy. The...

This paper examines the link between the real exchange rate volatility and domestic investment by using the panel data cointegration techniques. In the first part of the paper, we study the theoretical link between the exchange rate, its volatility and the investment in a small open economy. The...