"Voxi Heinrich Amavilah examines the factors and forces that explain the unexpectedly good performance of Sub-Saharan African countries just before the 2008 global recession, including newer technologies, globalization, governance, and conventional determinants of economic performance."

I struggle with a simple question, but one that may have liberating implications. The question is: How has African music been a nearly 'imperialistic' force on the global scale whereas African non-music goods and services, besides raw materials and slaves, have had limiting effects? The answer...

I estimate the effects of national symbols and globalization on the well-being of 88 countries. I find that conventional determinants of production affect national well-being, measured as human development index (HDI). The effects on HDI of national symbols like national flag colors are...

Using a simple production function approach I show that conventional factors and forces of production, national identity, and globalization are important to national well-being, but in varying ways. Whereas investment in capital and globalization, especially social globalization, affect national...

I estimate and compare the effects of globalization, governance, and conventional factors and forces on the economic performance of Sub-Saharan African countries. The analysis finds that both physical and human capita as well as unexplained technical residuals affect economic performance,...

This paper pulls together into one practical model two strands of economic theory to assess the impact of baseball player exports on the aggregate economic performance of the Dominican Republic. On one hand, foreign trade theory predicts a strong correlation between a country’s exports and...

African countries may have fared poorly compared to some countries in other regions, but relative to their own performance history some African countries have done quite well over the past eight years. In particular 2004 and 2005 were especially good years. How can such performance be made to...

There is sufficient microeconomic evidence that holidays are important to economic life. Is there similar support at the macroeconomic level? This exploratory paper uses a simple approach to assess the impacts of holidays on the economic growth rates of 182 nations in 2002. It finds that the...

An easy way of observing and predicting changes in the structure and behavior of any freemarket economy is to track changes in its circular flow model of economic activity. Using book titles as a literature review in combinations with a few classics, I describe how the circular flows of free...