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Making Room for China in the World Economy
(American Economic Association, 2010)
The Natural Resource Curse: A Survey
(John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2010)
It is striking how often countries with oil or other natural resource wealth have failed to grow more rapidly than those without. This is the phenomenon known as the Natural Resource Curse. The principle is not confined ...
Country Diversification, Product Ubiquity, and Economic Divergence
(John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2010)
Countries differ markedly in the diversification of their exports. Products differ in the number of countries that export them, which we define as their ubiquity. We document a new stylized fact in the global pattern of ...
Determinants of Agricultural and Mineral Commodity Prices
(John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2010)
Prices of most agricultural and mineral commodities rose strongly in the past decade, peaking sharply in 2008. Popular explanations included strong global growth (especially from China and India), easy monetary policy (as ...
Are Bilateral Remittances Countercyclical?
(John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2010)
By putting together a relatively large data set on bilateral remittances of emigrants, this paper is able to shed light on the important hypothesis of smoothing. The smoothing hypothesis is that remittances are countercyclical ...
How Good Politics Results in Bad Policy: The Case of Biofuel Mandates
(John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2010)
Biofuels have become big policy and big business. Government targets, mandates, and blending quotas have created a growing demand for biofuels. Some say that the U.S. biofuels industry was created by government policies. ...
Diagnostics Before Prescription
(American Economic Association, 2010)
Development economists should stop acting as categorical advocates (or detractors) for specific approaches to development. They should instead be diagnosticians, helping decisionmakers choose the right model (and remedy) ...
Mauritius: African Success Story
(John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University., 2010)
What explains the economic success of Mauritius, a top performer among African countries? How did it develop a manufacturing sector and how has it managed to respond well to new external shocks? This paper draws on the ...
Rethinking the Millennium Development Goals for Africa
(John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2010)
The global economy and especially its poorest members, face a perfect storm. The crisis has been created by a Global LIE: leverage that is unfathomable, institutions that are discredited, and, experts who are uncertain ...
How Far Have Public Financial Management Reforms Come in Africa?
(John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2010)
This paper asks how strong African Public Financial Management (PFM) has become, after a decade and more of reform. How well do African PFM systems in place now facilitate effective public financial management? Where are ...