This research explores the effects of culture on technological diffusion and economic development. It shows that culture's direct effects on development and barrier effects to technological diffusion are, in general, observationally equivalent. In particular, using a large set of measures of...

We examine the impact of geo-referenced World Bank development programs on subnational development using equally sized grid cells with a spatial resolution of 0.5 decimal degrees latitude x longitude as the unit of investigation. The proposed grid cell approach solves a number of endogeneity...

This paper develops a framework (a) to examine whether or not the African business e nvironment hinders or promotes the knowledge economy (KE), (b) to determine how the KE affects econom ic performance, and (c) how economic performance relates to the inequality-adjusted human socioeconomic...

This paper provides a systematic review of challenges to doing business in Africa. It complements the extant literature by answering two critical questions: what are the linkages between the ease of doing business and economic development; and what are the challeng es to doing business in...

The Middle East, as a region, contributes proportionally less to new knowledge generation than other parts of the world. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has sought to correct this imbalance through efforts to promote a knowledge-based economy and through educational investment. In light of these...

Over the last year the world experienced the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with unprecedented policy responses. In this paper we examine the determinants of COVID-19 infections and fatalities in a cross-country analysis. We find that countries with greater income, less dense and greater elderly...

This paper assesses the role knowledge economy (KE) in African business in 53 countries for the period 1996-2010. The four KE components of the World Bank are employed, notably: education, innovation, economic incentives & institutional regime and information & communication technology. The...

Successive governments in Nigeria have introduced reforms aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the civil service. Still, the service remains inefficient and incapable of reforming itself, let alone the rest of the economy. Corruption has become an endemic feature of public...

The move towards multiparty democracy in Zambia in the early 1990s was heralded as the beginning of a new era of more pluralist politics in Africa. The new government’s willingness to adopt economic reforms and policies, hitherto resisted, was also seen as a sign that henceforth African...