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Energy is pivotal for sustainable economic growth. Undoubtedly, the role of the composition of the export basket (measured as economic complexity) is one of the crucial variables influencing energy consumption. Despite its importance, the existing body of literature does not intensively study the relationship between economic complexity and total energy consumption. Therefore, this study's primary aim was to examine the effect of economic complexity on energy consumption in a case study of 21 developed and 44 developing countries for the period 1971–2014. In this context, economic complexity expresses the level of sophistication of a country's export basket. This paper considers energy prices and income as explanatory variables in Durbin‐H panel cointegration analysis and applies a cointegration test with structural breaks to check for the long‐run relationships. For the long‐run estimations, we employ the augmented mean group method and dynamic seemingly unrelated regression. The findings reveal that economic complexity increases energy consumption in developing countries while it decreases energy consumption in developed countries. This is an important insight for countries concerned about their energy dependence. The diversification of their production and export baskets can reduce energy needs. The paper finally presents policy recommendations based on the empirical estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low‐carbon transition involves achieving the coordinated development between economic development and carbon reduction. This paper utilises an integrated decomposition and econometric framework to reveal the influence mechanism and convergence evolution of carbon emission intensity (CEI) across 29 OECD countries in the period 1992–2018. The country‐level low‐carbon transition efforts are then investigated. The results imply that: (1) The reduction in CEI is primarily attributed to the changes in economic development and energy intensity. The carbon emission coefficient effect also negatively influences CEI. The impact of energy consumption per capita, however, is negligible. (2) According to econometric analysis, energy intensity, energy mix, carbon emissions per capita and energy use per capita have positive impacts on CEI. Specially, GDP per capita shows an inverted U‐shaped curve relationship with CEI. (3) There is evidence of convergence in CEI across developed countries. Energy intensity plays a crucial role in accelerating the CEI convergence process, implying a half‐life of 3 years. (4) Fifteen European countries have made strong low‐carbon transition efforts among all countries. Denmark has made the largest efforts, South Korea the least. This study provides important implications for low‐carbon economy transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a unique hand‐collected dataset of 1,251 European Union banks and 20,850 foreign affiliates hosted in 154 countries, this paper investigates how both host country and home country regulations affect the decision on where and how to go abroad in developing countries as opposed to developed countries. We find that banks prefer high‐income countries with numerous activity restrictions and weaker supervision but less developed countries with less restrictions and stronger supervision. In all cases, they avoid locations with stronger capital regulation than at home. Regarding the choice of foreign organizational form (branches versus subsidiaries), banks rather operate subsidiaries in both high and middle‐income countries with stringent entry requirements but prefer branches in developing countries with stringent capital requirements and greater supervisory power. Our findings contribute to the literature examining bank internationalization and have several policy implications for regulatory reforms in developing and developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to analyse the consequence of trade liberalization in agriculture in the developed countries on the incidence of child labour in a developing economy in terms of a three-sector general equilibrium model with informal sectors. Adult labour and child labour are substitutes for each other in the two informal sectors of the economy and are used together apart from capital in producing two exportable commodities. The interesting result that appears from the analysis is that agricultural trade liberalization in the developed countries may be effective in bringing down the incidence of child labour in the system. The paper substantiates the desirability of trade liberalization in agriculture in the developed nations from the perspective of the developing economies for reasons other than welfare improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we use the Kumar and Russell [ American Economic Review (2002) Vol. 92, pp. 527–548] growth-accounting procedure to examine cross-country growth during the 1990s. Using a data set comprising developed, newly industrialized, developing and transitional economies, we decompose the growth of output per worker into components attributable to technological catch-up, technological change and capital accumulation. In contrast to the study by Kumar and Russell, which concludes that capital deepening is the major force of growth and change in the world income per worker distribution over the 1965–90 period, our analysis shows that, during the 1990s, the major force in the further divergence of the rich and the poor is due to technological change, whereas capital accumulation plays a lesser and opposite role. Finally, although on average we find that transitional economies perform similar to the rest of the world, the procedure is able to discover some interesting patterns within the set of transitional countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how corporate social responsibility (CSR) is understood and perceived in Estonia – a post-socialist country that has recently become capitalist. In order to understand the importance of the context, this paper offers an overview of the main results of surveys conducted about the transition process in Estonia and presents the different development stages describing business purposes and perceived responsibilities in the last 20 years in Estonia. The purpose of business and corporate responsibility, or CSR, is a topic that has been widely discussed and debated in most developed countries of the world. Over the past 20 years, the field has grown rapidly, and it is still gaining importance every day.

This paper constructs a dynamic North–South trade model with outsourcing and endogenous innovation. Production of high quality goods is first performed in the North (Northern phase), then split between the North and the South (Outsourcing phase), and finally shifted to the South (Southern phase). This cycle is reignited whenever a Northern firm innovates a higher quality product. We find that an increase in the fraction of outsourced production raises the Northern skill premium unambiguously, while raising the Southern skill premium if and only if the skill intensity of outsourced production is higher than that of local Southern production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data from 19 African nations is used to investigate the hypothesis that monetary union—represented in this case by the CFA Franc Zone—augments the extent of macroeconomic integration. The paper covers two key dimensions of integration: the volume of bilateral trade, and the magnitude of cross-country business cycle correlation. Restricting our attention to a part of the world in which (for historical reasons) monetary union membership is exogenous to economic characteristics, we can test whether the large single-currency effects claimed by A. Rose apply within a sample of less developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the interactions between uncertainty, investment and economic growth. Utilizing panel data for a sample of 59 industrial and developing countries between 1966 and 1992, we estimate reduced form equations to explore the possible effects of uncertainty on economic growth and investments. Uncertainty reduces both investment and growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to reassess the relationship between economic growth and inequality using an up to date data set, 2003-2007, for a sample of seventy-four developed and developing countries. Average economic growth during this studied period is regressed against the 2003 values of inequality, growth, education, human development, inflation and governance quality using OLS cross-country models. The findings support a negative impact of inequality on economic growth for the entire sample. In particular, an increase (decrease) in inequality would lead to greater deterioration (expansion) in economic development in low-income countries than in high- and middle-income countries. Furthermore, improvement in governance does not either stimulate or hinder the economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a long tradition in the development literature that what a country exports matters for its growth prospects. Recent work has refocused on this issue by attempting to produce numerical scores for different types of product to identify the complexity or sophistication of a country's export basket. Based on the insight that the type of product an economy exports can have important implications for its economic performance and that goods exported predominantly by rich countries will have different characteristics from those exported by poor countries, Lall et al. (2006) put forward a means of classifying commodities based on the income levels of a product's main exporters. At around the same time, Hausmann et al. (2006), following a similar approach, put forward a slightly different form of product classification and Rodrik (2006) applied this specifically to an analysis of China. This paper highlights the difference between the approaches and its implications for the analysis of China, which appears less 'special' using the approach of Lall et al. It argues that the classification of products at a disaggregate level is a helpful starting point for assessing issues of trade competitiveness and that further work using either or both forms of classification is justified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether the impacts of financial development on growth convergence vary with the stage of real development. We implement this analysis through the instrumental variable threshold regression approach proposed by Caner and Hansen. Our empirical evidence shows that financial intermediary development leads to long-run convergence in growth of both economic activity and productivity. Moreover, such convergence-enhancing effects of financial intermediation are stronger for less-developed countries than for the more industrialized. In addition, the data reveal that stock market development assists growth convergence only in low-income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work on good governance implies a one-best-way model of effective government. This has isomorphic influences on development, whereby governments are influenced to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to get things done. This article challenges whether such an approach exists, proposing that models actually do not hold even for the so-called effective governments. Governments look different, even if they are similarly called models of good government. This proposition is examined through a study of public financial management practices in a set of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and non-OECD countries. The study shows that effective governments are not more likely to exhibit better practice characteristics implied in one-best-way models. Good public financial management means different things in different countries. The article concludes by suggesting that good governance models give way to menus and the development community invest more time in examining why different countries select different menu items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aid effectiveness literature (AEL) consists of empirical macroeconomic estimates of the effects of development aid. By the end of 2004, it comprised 97 econometric studies of three families of related effects. Each family has been analyzed in a separate meta-analysis. The AEL is an ideal subject for meta-analysis as it uses only a few formally similar models to estimate the same underlying effects. It is also an area with strong beliefs, often generated by altruism. When this whole literature is examined, a clear pattern emerges. After 40 years of development aid, the preponderance of the evidence indicates that aid has not been effective. We show that the distribution of results is significantly asymmetric reflecting the reluctance of the research community to publish negative results. The Dutch disease effect on exchange rates provides a plausible explanation for the observed aid ineffectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper provides evidence on the incidence of tariffs on products of export interest to developing countries by investigating the relationship between per capita incomes of US trading partners and tariff rates. It constitutes the first attempt to assess the incidence of tariffs imposed by the US on countries that span the entire range of per capita incomes. Average tariff rates are lower for the poorest and richest countries and higher for countries in the middle of the income distribution. This finding is not consistent with the widely held view that tariffs used by industrial nations bear more heavily on products of export interest to poorer developing countries than on imports from industrial nations. It is consistent with the tariff escalation pattern reported in earlier studies if advanced countries account for most products at the high end of the fabrication scale. Results show that poorest countries will find it difficult to escape tariffs by attaining higher levels of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a summary report of a conference regarding the South-North migration, and the developed and developing countries. It outlines the three objectives of the conference which include assessment of the characteristics of South-North migration, discussion of possible future developments in South-North migration with regards to the economic and "push" factors in developing countries, and evaluation of future labor demand in developing countries and confirmation of demographic trends in developed and developing countries. It says that the conference highlighted the rapidity of possible occurrence of migration flows. It states that the degree to which East-West migration may slow South-North migration is one of the most important issues dealt in the conference.

This paper examines the effect of the external debts of less developed countries (LDCs) on their exports to the United States. Specifically, the effect that manifests as pressure on the 48 most indebted LDCs to export to the US is investigated. Cross-sectional regression analysis and data for 1984 are used in the estimation. The estimates show that the burden of external debts put significant pressure on LDCs to export. The estimates also suggest that the LDCs are conscious of their creditworthiness in the international financial market. Furthermore, the results highlight the inadequacy of the current General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations that focus on trade in goods and services to the exclusion of the LDCs' debt problem. GATT negotiations should give LDCs' market access to industrialized countries greater weight on its agenda as an attempt at tackling the LDCs' debt problem. This is necessary for the long-term growth of these LDCs, a concern to which enough attention has not been paid. In addition. Western donor countries and their banks should provide more debt relief to these debtor countries. This will enable LDCs to retain a substantial part of their export earnings. Uncertainty is reduced, thus providing the much-needed impetus for entrepreneurs in these poor economies to commit themselves to long-term investments. This will guarantee long-term economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around the world, public-private partnerships have become increasingly popular to deliver large-scale transportation infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, railways, subways, seaports and airports. The aim of this article is to provide a framework to understand the global geography of projects built through this market-driven procurement model, which have been predominantly concentrated in a small number of developed countries and emerging markets. As is shown, within many countries, a governance and regulatory environment has been established that supports public-private partnerships over other alternative procurement approaches. Nevertheless, the production of public-private partnerships worldwide has been dominated by a relatively small number of highly globalized construction contractors, engineering firms, financiers, accountancies and consultants from developed countries, who have focused their activities in a narrow set of regions. The article concludes by reflecting on the implications of the high level of industry concentration, and emerging trends showing greater involvement from firms from developing countries. Resumé À travers le monde, les partenariats public-privé sont de plus en plus utilisés pour les projets d'infrastructure de transports de grande envergure, tels que routes, ponts, voies ferrées, métros, ports et aéroports. Cet article définit un cadre permettant de comprendre la géographie planétaire des projets bâtis selon ce modèle orienté par le marché, projets concentrés dans un petit nombre de pays développés et émergents. Les régimes de gouvernance et la réglementation mis en place dans de nombreux pays favorisent les partenariats public-privé au détriment d'autres approches de réalisation de projets. Néanmoins, la production de ces partenariats dans le monde a été dominée par un nombre relativement réduit d'entreprises de bâtiment et d'ingénierie, de bailleurs de fonds, de cabinets de comptabilité et de conseils, acteurs installés dans des pays développés et dont les activités internationalisées s'exercent sur un ensemble restreint de régions. La conclusion aborde les conséquences d'une forte concentration industrielle et l'apparition d'une implication croissante des entreprises des pays en développement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes are reverberating through the international development system. This article focuses on (re)emerging development actors in the South and their role in setting agendas, challenging current aid orthodoxies, and re-articulating development cooperation relationships between and within the North and South. Specifically, the article examines trilateral development cooperation, a significant new trend in foreign aid. The first aim is to examine the role of trilateral development cooperation in the changing geographies of development and global partnerships. The second aim is to foreground and critically evaluate the politics of trilateral development cooperation. The authors argue that trilateral development cooperation has potential to improve aid effectiveness, harness the energies and expertise of southern partners, and reshape development relations in more egalitarian ways. Alternatively, however, it may work to co-opt (re)emerging donors into a depoliticized and ineffective aid system. While this argument has been made by many critics with regard to North-South development relations, the authors also question the projection of shared interests and essentialized developing country identities in relation to the South-South element of trilateral development cooperation. The article concludes by emphasizing the need to extend critical perspectives to all elements of the new development partnerships emerging within a rapidly changing global landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an empirical explanation to the observed disparity in cross-border merger and acquisition inflows to developing and developed countries over the past two decades. We show two main results. First, the disparity can be attributed to the difference in the quality of institutions between the two groups of countries. Second, the gain from reforming institutions in developing countries is smaller than that in developed countries. These findings suggest that, with the current speed of institutional reforms in some developing countries, the disparity in cross-border merger and acquisition inflows is likely to persist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous papers have searched for empirical linkages between long run economic growth and a myriad of economic, socio-political and environmental factors. Most of these studies use ordinary least-squares regression or panel regression analysis on a sample of countries and therefore consider the behaviour of growth around the mean of the conditional distribution. We extend the literature by using quantile regression to analyse long-term growth at a variety of points in the conditional distribution. By using this approach, we identify the determinants of growth for under performing countries relative to those for over achieving countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a previous essay (Part 1), we examined the economic arguments for development policies that placed certain groups at the vanguard of development policy, making note of the place of the poor in these arguments. In this essay (Part 2), we look at the case for making the poor the central focus of development policy, following the principle in Catholic social thought of the "preferential option for the poor." That principle recommends evaluation of policies and outcomes first and foremost on how they affect the poor. In looking at the U.N. development agenda, from the first development decade to the millennium development goals and sustainable development goals, we can see a tension between economic growth and eradication of poverty. Over time, a shift in focus has occurred towards placing the poor at the center of development policy. By focusing on the poor and poverty eradication, development policy becomes more about human flourishing, which, ironically, produces higher levels of growth in developing countries. It does, however, lower the growth rate of developed countries, as it reduces their privileged position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mitigation of global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions has been the objective of successive negotiations and agreements between nations. At the same time, there is a consensus on the virtues of export diversification for the development of less advanced countries. This article investigates the effect of export diversification on CO2 emissions in the context of an environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis in 98 developed and developing countries during the period 1995–2013. Using short‐run (system Generalized Method of Moments) and long‐run (Pooled Mean Group) estimation methods, we find that the environmental Kuznets curve is valid and that export diversification has a positive effect on CO2 emissions. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After nearly two centuries of lagging behind the industrial countries, growth in many developing countries has surged since the early 1990s. This outperformance has major implications for almost all areas of agricultural economics and, if continued, will likely do so into the future. This article aims to identify the key ways in which the changes in rich and poor country growth rates matter for agricultural economists, as a basis for formulating better research agendas. A key impact arises through sharp increases in demand for agricultural resources as demand for livestock products increases. This changing structure of food demand has important implications for nutrition studies and policies, with the emergence of a double burden of malnutrition. On the supply side, growth in developing countries tends to increase domestic food supply, which is also boosted by increases in research and development spending. Growth in developing countries both stimulates and benefits from increases in infrastructure investment, evaluation of which requires new analytical tools. Negative impacts include the contribution of increased demand for livestock products to global greenhouse gas emissions. In terms of trade policy, growth in developing country is tending to lead to convergence of agricultural policies with the pattern of assistance seen in today's developed countries, raising concerns about the future need to deal with collective action problems, particularly those that increase the volatility of world prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Kaldor model describes the dynamics of economic growth over time. Many works showed that a large variety of qualitative dynamics can be produced depending on the economic assumptions. This work provides conditions to mark boundaries during boom and bust cycles, investigating how saving behaviors of workers and shareholders and elasticity of substitution between capital and labor influence the growth dynamics of non‐developed, developing and developed countries considering general and specific technologies of production. The results obtained can be used by policy‐makers to increase the lower level an economy can reach during boom and bust periods and reduce fluctuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the evolving relative importance of banks and equity markets during different stages of economic development. Unlike previous studies, we propose a demand‐side theory on the appropriate financial structure for an economy. We show that a bank‐based financial structure is more appropriate than a market‐based structure for developing countries, and that for developed countries, a market‐based financial structure is more appropriate than a bank‐based structure. This is due to the industrial structures of countries and the different advantages of banks and equity markets for serving the real economy. Our findings are consistent with recent empirical facts and provide new perspectives to understand the structural change of a country's financial system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes an unconventional participatory development approach carried out in an informal e‐waste hub in South‐West Hebron, an area that has collected and processed the bulk of Israeli e‐waste for over a decade. Our approach contributes to the critique and recovery of community representation in participatory development and the search for ways to facilitate representative community engagement. Specifically, we describe our use of a novel Delphi‐like method that allowed us to facilitate a broadly endorsed development trajectory within a heterogeneous and conflicted community. We show how the results yielded by this approach diverged from those that were likely to emerge from more facile forms of participation in ways that are important for other similar e‐waste hubs internationally, which face a destructive status quo on the one hand, or the economically ruinous international policies that ban e‐waste trade from "developed" to "developing" countries on the other. Despite real tensions and cleavages within the affected communities, the process described facilitated a shift from deadlocked environmental versus livelihood positions towards building capacity and regulating existing informal e‐waste trades to preserve livelihoods dependent on these. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to analyse publication trends from the anaesthetic literature of the G-20 countries. We performed a literature search in Medline to identify articles related to anaesthetic departments published between 2001 and 2015, by specific G-20 countries according to the affiliation field of the authors, and to three time periods 2001-2005, 2006-2010 and 2011-2015. The number of articles, number of original articles (vs. reviews, editorials or correspondence), articles per million inhabitants, and citations per article were analysed. In total, 96,920 articles were published between 2001 and 2015 in 74 anaesthetic and in 4117 non-anaesthetic journals, with an increase of +104% absolute (i.e. from 23,028 in 2001-05 to 46,887 articles ìn 2010-15) and +85% as articles per million inhabitants. Similarly, the number of original articles increased by 21%, but the anaesthetic specialty's share of original articles (as a proportion of total articles in biomedicine) decreased from 31% in 2001-2005 to 19% in 2011-2015 (-38%). The USA published most articles (2011-15 16,016; 31% of total), second came the EU as a whole and third Japan (from 2001 to 2005) or Germany (2006-2010) until 2011-2015 when China took over the third rank. In 2011-2015, Canada published most articles per million inhabitants (68.7 articles/million inhabitants). China and India exhibited the most publication growth 11- and 9-fold, respectively, and are now among the top five countries for the number of published articles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological innovations are by no means Pareto-improving. I build on the argument that incumbent innovators can use political means to block rival innovations by emphasizing that the competitiveness of political system and some political institutions may diminish their ability to do so. I specify an institutional mechanism of agenda power, which provides newcomers with an improved ability to enter the game. The number of agenda power holders varies significantly among political systems, electoral systems, and administrative structures. With a sample of about 100 countries and across 20 years I show that politically competitive regimes, majoritarian electoral rules, and federal structures supply more holders of agenda power in comparison to their counterparts and, other things being equal, produce more innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between national intellectual capital and economic performance in less developed countries. This study develops, measures, and tests a general model of the interrelationship among selected sub-components of national intellectual capital and its impact on economic performance in 148 developing countries. The results indicate that national intellectual capital explains 70 per cent of the variance in economic performance in developing nations. Findings also indicate that national relational capital is a critical component in achieving economic performance. A variety of sub-hypotheses were also tested and compared with those of the previous studies that focused on developed nations. The findings of this investigation contribute to the growing theory of national intellectual capital management by providing empirical evidence of the interrelationship among sub-components and their impact on economic performance. Investigating national intellectual capital provides insights into the derivative of economic performance in less developed countries. This helps policy makers to rethink the economic development drivers of their countries and to formulate strategies that leverage unique sources of competitiveness. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the sake of less developed countries, it is time to adjust the discussion of international development assistance on poverty reduction. This article attempts to do so by reviewing new and old literature explaining why some countries are rich and others are poor. History has repeatedly shown that building up capabilities in manufacturing and improving the productivity of agriculture are the keys to wealth creation and long-term sustained poverty reduction. Furthermore, industrialisation and increased agricultural productivity are interdependent processes. Discussion about ending world poverty needs to be shifted back to consideration of economic transformation and the role foreign aid can reasonably play in achieving these objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the relation between corporate saving and economic growth during the period from 1995 to 2006 in 7 developing countries and 16 developed countries. The results show that corporate savings generally add to the economic growth of developing countries regardless of legal origins. On the contrary, corporate savings generally do not contribute to the economic growth of developed countries. Developed countries with common law and Scandinavian civil law legal origins particularly see the negative relation between corporate saving and economic growth, while countries with other legal origins observe no such relation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary We exploit differences in the number and distribution of natural resources to estimate the presence of a curse of natural resources on economic growth. Building on a sample of 93 developing and developed countries covering the years 1980 to 2007, we show that, given the value of the resource endowment, the higher the number of resources is, the higher is a country's per-capita growth. This finding is robust to the addition of all usual controls and to the splitting of the dataset into subsamples such as non- OECD or non-African countries only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accountability movement in public policy hails a new programme for US foreign assistance - the Millennium Challenge Account established in 2004 with the aim of 'picking winners' for grants among developing countries based on their demonstrated quality of governance. This article uses the MCA's own rating system to dispute its claim to know in advance which countries are best positioned to meet major development goals. High governance scores alone bear little or no relationship to growth in national income or decline in poverty. Attempting to measure public-policy performance limits the range of choice available to policy-makers, and may inadvertently limit true performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insurance market activity may contribute to economic growth, both as financial intermediary and provider of risk transfer and indemnification, by allowing different risks to be managed more efficiently and by mobilizing domestic savings. During the last decade, there has been faster growth in insurance market activity, particularly in emerging markets, given the process of financial liberalization and integration, which raises questions about the overall impact on economic growth. This article tests whether there is a causal relationship between insurance market activity (life and nonlife insurance) and economic growth. Using the generalized method of moments (GMM) for dynamic models of panel data for 55 countries between 1976 and 2004, I find robust evidence for this relationship. Both life and nonlife insurance have a positive and significant causal effect on economic growth. For life insurance, high-income countries drive the results, and for nonlife insurance, both high-income and developing countries drive the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the effects of financial development on the sources of growth in different groups of countries. Recent theoretical work shows that financial development may affect productivity and capital accumulation in different ways in industrial versus developing countries. This hypothesis is tested with panel data from 74 countries using GMM dynamic panel techniques. Results are consistent with the hypothesis: finance has a strong positive influence on productivity growth primarily in more developed economies. In less developed economies, the effect of finance on output growth occurs primarily through capital accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers information exchange as an essential element in international cooperative arrangements. It examines in some detail the information systems of the United Nations and its specialized agencies and their impact on and contribution to international cot operation. The library, archives, and information programs of Unesco are described. The article considers recent trends observed in the establishment of a global information network, under the auspices of the United Nations, in order to facilitate a more equitable distribution of technological information and promote technical cooperation among developing countries. Certain features of Unesco's regional approach to information network development are reviewed and their advantages are described. The impact, both beneficial and disadvantageous, of information technology on international cooperation in the information area is examined. The special problems faced by developing countries wishing to benefit fully from international (cooperative) information systems are discussed as well as some of the strategies adopted in an effort to find solutions to some of these problems. The authors conclude that in the coming years the transfer of information will have to be considered as a whole encompassing the production, recording, processing, distribution and use of in formation, the economic aspects of related industries, the sociopolitical and socioeconomic characteristics of the countries participating in a given information system, and the contribution of the information communication industry to the economic development of nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the migration trends in the Western Hemisphere. It says that the migration inflows is related to the increase population growth in the developing countries. It states that migrants tend to divert in developed countries due to the challenges in terms of food, housing, and health services. It adds that net exports on human capital from developing countries represents negative element in their economic development particularly the implications loss in human resources in the technological innovations, scientific research, and education. Details related to the migration policies and its objectives in the Western Hemispere is also discussed.

The article focuses on the regional partnership between the European Community (EC) and the Third World countries. It examines the three sets of EC relations with the developing countries. It discusses whether the relations is geared towards the development or distortion of the Third World. It suggests the need for the Northern effort to target the poorest populations within the poorest countries. It also tackles several topics including EC regionalism and outward-oriented industrial development, North-South regionalism and dependency, and the basic human needs.

The article focuses on the implications of economies of scale for developing countries. It explores the empirical evidence on economies of scale at the aggregate as well as at plant level and further provides a statistical analysis of the influence of the size of plant to the output per worker. It also examines the relationship between the plant level economies of scale and the industry's structure as a sample of developed and developing countries. Moreover, the potential significance of the development of economies of scale on factor intensity and factor reversals are considered. Also included is a brief overview and policy implications for developing countries.

This article presents a study which examined the growth, innovation and foreign direct investment. The existence of firm-specific assets is one of the major reasons for the establishment of multinational firms. Firm-specific assets allow for profitable horizontal or vertical intrafirm integration. In the presence of factor price differences between countries, firms might locate their production plants in the low-cost countries. The production location differs from the geographical site where the specific asset was acquired if extra costs associated with the formation of multinational corporations do not overcompensate production-cost advantages. Firms acquire specific knowledge through R&D investment in the more developed country and use their specific asset to establish a production plant in the low-cost country. Foreign direct investment is accompanied by interregional spillovers of knowledge from the more to the less advanced country.

This article seeks to introduce scholars outside of development studies to post-development thought, and to restate its relevance and value to those working within the development field. It begins with an overview of post-development thought and its critique of the post-World War Two development project. Following this, specific critiques levelled at post-development thought and various responses to these are considered. In the last section, the possibility or desirability of raising the living standards of Third World people to a level comparable to those of the First World through economically based development strategies is questioned. The article concludes by drawing attention to First World overdevelopment and the continued value of post-development thinking in unsettling the development trajectory for either the First or Third World. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information about Theodore W. Schultz, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, who argues in the book "Investing in People" that the most valuable resource in the world is the acquired abilities of people, their education, experiences, skills and health. All this, from a scientist who has amply earned the Nobel Prize by original work, could be true if it were not true that in the developed countries, like the U.S. and the Soviet Union, as in the developing countries, the resources of the earth are monopolized by owners, who do not pay more than nominal sums to the real owners, all the people, for the privilege of exclusive possession of those resources. Monopolized by owners who fight desperately against any effort by the public to regulate the rate of exploitation in the interest of present and future generations. The belief with unquestioning religious faith in the ability of the free market, one that never existed and can only exist if human arrangements for perfecting the market provide for it-to allocate resources is one of the basic fallacies of contemporary economic science.