The colonial origins of comparative development: a skeptical note

"This note casts skepticism over various hypothesis formulated by Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2001) in reaching the conclusion that institutions cause economic development. The author has identified four major issues in the study. It lacks adequate econometric specification and relies only on, what the author termed, destiny variables. Secondly, the historical record does not support the author's theory that mortality rate determine Europeans strategy for institutions they intended to develop in the host country; thirdly, given current living standards and disease ridden environment in low and middle income countries, the claim that disease environment of early 19th century was neutral to economic development seems farfetched; finally, assuming that initial institutions caused present institutions put in question the developmental efforts of past half century and thus is more than a sweeping generalization." (author's abstract

Does regulatory discretion increase the unofficial economy? Evidence from panel data

One factor that contributes in the size of the shadow economy is the regulation of business activities. This paper provides empirical analysis of the effects of regulatory discretion on the unofficial economy. It adds to the previous findings by gathering evidence from a large data set of 162 countries for the 1999 to 2007 period. Going beyond simple correlation, it uses the Arellano-Bond estimator to investigate the dynamics and causal effects of regulation on the shadow economy. We find that increase in regulation increases the size of the shadow economy

Monetary Policy Committee Transparency: Measurement,Determinants, and Economic Effects

This paper studies monetary policy committee transparency (MPCT) based on a new index that measures central bankers’ educational and professional backgrounds as disclosed through central bank websites. Based on a novel cross-sectional data set covering 75 central banks, we investigate the determinants of MPCT as well as its economic consequences. We find that past inflation, quality of institutional setup, and extent of Internet use in a country are important determinants of MPCT. MPCT has a robust and significantly negative impact on inflation variability, even after controlling for important macroeconomic variables and institutional transparency, as well as instrumenting MPCT in various ways.Monetary Policy Committee, Transparency, Monetary Policy Transparency, Monetary Policy, Central Banks

Decentralization and Business-Government Relations: Evidence from Micro Data

Adding to the literature on the effects of government decentralization, this paper uses a large sample of individual responses from more than a hundred countries about public’s perceptions of government’s performance along various dimensions to study the relative influences of different types of decentralization, including fiscal decentralization, administrative decentralization, and aggregate decentralization. Our cross-national results show that fiscal and administrative decentralization are qualitatively alike in that greater decentralization in each case improves perceptions of the government performance. Overall decentralization is viewed somewhat differently. With regard to tax administration particularly, fiscal and administrative forms of government decentralization result in better outcomes than overall decentralization. Finally, service industries, ceteris paribus, perceived government performance differently. Compared to a representative country in the sample, Pakistan is significantly underperforming as far as the provision of good business environment is concerned. Thus, the consequences of decentralization may vary across its different types as well as depend upon countries’ peculiarities.&nbsp

Regulatory discretion and the unofficial economy: A redux

This paper replicates the Johnson et al.’s (1998) empirical analysis of the affects of regulatory discretion on the unofficial economy. The narrow replication uses the data set of the original study which comprises of 49 countries for the year 1997. The wide replication is performed in two ways. Firstly, I investigate the original authors’ results using a larger data set of 162 countries and for a period from 1999 to 2007. Secondly, I use Arellano and Bond estimator to investigate the dynamics and causal effects. In both types of replications the results are similar to those in the original study. However, the estimates using Arellano and Bond estimator exhibit autocorrelation of order greater than 1 in the error term and are unable to pass the overidentifying restrictions test

Regulatory discretion and the unofficial economy: A redux

This paper replicates the Johnson et al.’s (1998) empirical analysis of the affects of regulatory discretion on the unofficial economy. The narrow replication uses the data set of the original study which comprises of 49 countries for the year 1997. The wide replication is performed in two ways. Firstly, I investigate the original authors’ results using a larger data set of 162 countries and for a period from 1999 to 2007. Secondly, I use Arellano and Bond estimator to investigate the dynamics and causal effects. In both types of replications the results are similar to those in the original study. However, the estimates using Arellano and Bond estimator exhibit autocorrelation of order greater than 1 in the error term and are unable to pass the overidentifying restrictions test

Estimated Export Demand and Supply Functions for Pakistan: A Disaggregated Analysis

This study estimates the impact of demand and supply side factors on the export performance of Pakistan. Using unrestricted autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model for the period 1971 to 2015, the study analyzes export performance using data both at aggregate and disaggregate levels. The study finds, firstly, that exports are elastic to changes in world income and relative export price at the aggregate level. Secondly, at a disaggregate level, only exports of manufactured goods, leather and cotton cloth are elastic with respect to world income. Similarly, demand for all export categories is inelastic to changes in relative export price. On the supply side, exports at both aggregate and disaggregate levels are significantly elastic to changes in domestic production capacity and relative price. The study concludes that demand and supply side factors are equally important in explaining the export behavior at the aggregate level, whereas at a disaggregated level, the supply side factors exercise relatively high impact on export performance

Are the informal economy and cryptocurrency substitutes or complements?

This research considers a new dimension of the effects of the underground sector by examining the spillovers on cryptocurrency holdings. Cryptocurrencies offer a relatively greater ability to dodge taxes and ensure the anonymity of holders, providing attractive avenues for underground operators to stash their informal-sector earnings. Our results, based on data from more than 50 nations, show that a greater prevalence of the underground economy in a nation is indeed associated with greater cryptocurrency holdings. This result holds across an alternative measure of the shadow economy, and when the bi-directional causality between the shadow economy and cryptocurrency holdings is considered. In other noteworthy findings, greater FDI crowded out cryptocurrency holdings, while greater financial globalization and greater economic uncertainty, ceteris paribus, increased them

Does an informal sector reduce the economic dividends of political stability? Empirical evidence.

Political stability is generally hailed as an asset that yields positive economic dividends. In particular, the macroeconomic environment is likely to benefit from political stability. On the other hand, the existence of a sizeable shadow (or informal) economy represents institutional weaknesses and may undermine the macroeconomic environment. The latter effect is more likely if the shadow economy reduces the government’s tax revenues and disturbs the balance of demand and supply for formal businesses. This paper tests these contradictory tendencies. Circumventing the issues related to reverse causality and endogeneity of the informal sector, we define a qualitative variable for the size of the informal sector. The qualitative variable assumes a value of 1 for all the countries having an informal sector exceeding 25 percent of GDP on average over our sample period. Using a large data set of 162 countries over the 1999 to 2007 period we find that an informal sector can undermine the positive effect of political stability. The results are robust against alternative specifications and satisfy the usual assumptions of valid empirical analysis

Does an informal sector reduce the economic dividends of political stability? Empirical evidence.

Political stability is generally hailed as an asset that yields positive economic dividends. In particular, the macroeconomic environment is likely to benefit from political stability. On the other hand, the existence of a sizeable shadow (or informal) economy represents institutional weaknesses and may undermine the macroeconomic environment. The latter effect is more likely if the shadow economy reduces the government’s tax revenues and disturbs the balance of demand and supply for formal businesses. This paper tests these contradictory tendencies. Circumventing the issues related to reverse causality and endogeneity of the informal sector, we define a qualitative variable for the size of the informal sector. The qualitative variable assumes a value of 1 for all the countries having an informal sector exceeding 25 percent of GDP on average over our sample period. Using a large data set of 162 countries over the 1999 to 2007 period we find that an informal sector can undermine the positive effect of political stability. The results are robust against alternative specifications and satisfy the usual assumptions of valid empirical analysis