................................................................................ 4 About the Authors ........................................................................ 5

Recent empirical analysis suggests that individual national leaders can have large impacts on economic growth. Leaders have strongest effects in autocracies, where they appear to substantially influence both economic growth and the evolution of political institutions. These findings call for increased focus on national economic policies and the means of leadership selection, among other issues.

State capacity has become one of the most discussed concepts in development economics and political economy. In this survey we argue that the study of economic history provides vital insights into the process through which modern states have acquired ‘state capacity’. By evaluating the process of state building across a range of different countries in Europe and Asia, we are able to ‘decompress...

This paper is a survey of the theory of stochastic optimal economic growth.

The theory about missing links of economic growth often lags behind the empirical estimations of such links. A consensus has emerged that ethnic fractionalization has a negative impact on growth, also when controlled for income inequality. Often, although implicitly, the assumed channel is social cohesion. We analyse the effect of fractionalization on social cohesion with a different inequality...

This paper reviews and appraises the body of empirical research on the association between financial markets and economic growth that has accumulated over the past quarter-century. The bulk of the historical evidence suggests that financial development affects economic growth in a positive, monotonic way, yet recent research endeavors have provided useful and important qualifications of this co...

Countries face the twin challenge of providing highquality care while keeping care systems affordable and accessible during a time of financial crisis and low economic growth. In many countries, payment reforms are seen as a major lever to achieve these challenges. The rationale behind payment reforms emerges from the recognition that the current funding systems are a key cause of care fragment...

This paper studies the influence of bank market concentration, regulation, and institutions on the real effects of 68 systemic banking crises in 54 countries over the 1980-2000 period. We find that less stringent restrictions on non-traditional bank activities and on the mixing of banking and commerce have a negative effect on economic growth during normal periods but mitigate the negative effe...

Sustainable development -the notion that boosting economic growth, protecting natural resources, and ensuring social justice can be complementary goals -has lost much appeal over the past two decades, the victim of woolly thinking and interest-group politics. The concept can be relevant again, but only if its original purpose -helping the poor live healthier lives on their own terms -is restored.