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This paper investigates whether democracy plays a mediating role in the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

The empirical analysis is conducted using fixed effects and system GMM (Generalised Method of Moments) on a panel of 38 Sub-Saharan African countries covering the period of 1990–2018.

The results find that FDI has no direct effect on inequality whereas democracy reduces inequality directly in both the short run and the long run. The sensitivity analyses find that democracy improves equality regardless of the magnitude of FDI, resource endowment or democratic deepening whereas FDI only reduces inequality once a moderate level of democracy has been achieved.

The results discussed above thus have four policy implications. First, these results show that although democracy has inequality reducing benefits, SSA is unlikely to significantly reduce inequality unless the region purposefully diversifies its trade and FDI away from natural resources. Second, the region should continue to expand credit access to reduce inequality and attract FDI. Third, policymakers should undertake reforms that will reduce youth inequality. Lastly, the region should focus on long-run democratic reforms rather than on short-run democratization to improve governance and investor confidence.

Although there are existing studies that examine the association between FDI and inequality, FDI and democracy and democracy and inequality, this is the first study to explicitly examine the effect of democracy on the association between FDI and inequality in SSA, and the first study to separately consider the possible varied effects of contemporaneous democratization versus the long-run accumulation of democratic capital. In addition, rather than measure inequality by income alone, this study uses the more appropriate Human Development Index to account for SSA's sociological, education and income disparities.

In this study, the authors look at the case of Ferdinand Marcos, President of the Philippines between 1965 and 1986. Documenting the life and career of Marcos on Wikipedia provides an excellent example of the pitfalls confronting those seeking to address disinformation without first reflecting deeply on the reasons why people subscribe to views deemed outlandish by the intellectual or cultural mainstream.

The authors sampled the version of the Marcos article on Wikipedia as it existed after the first edit of each year since its inception (2002). This resulted in 22 texts for analysis. Content and thematic analyses were conducted on these texts as well as on the entire body of talk page comments for the article.

The authors' work suggests that the basic elements of responsible encyclopedic writing have prevailed in the case of Wikipedia's biography of Marcos. However, this is not an unalloyed victory, as issues of polarization remain unaddressed.

Underlying revisionist or distorted claims about Ferdinand Marcos (and other controversial topics) lie very real grievances that give these claims traction for many people. Hence, it is not enough to “just present the facts” to readers. Rather, the authors argue that what is needed is a synthesis of positions that would allow for common ground to be found between them. This could be done in the case of Wikipedia by cultivating editors who are capable and willing to engage with the subject literature in a deeper and richer fashion.

In 1991, India embarked on market-based economic reforms initiatives pillared on liberalization, privatization and globalization (LPG). The reforms exposed the public sector enterprises to competitive market forces, raising the need to identify and develop the competencies necessary for survival. Executive training programs were initiated to prepare public enterprises for the market-based reforms. Three decades later, the reforms especially privatization is witnessing renewed interest under the current administration. In this context, the article takes a closer look at the structure of management education provided to public sector officers in India. The article also identifies barriers for implementing the learnings from the management courses in the workplaces and suggests approaches for closing the gap.

The study follows a thematic approach based on unstructured interviews of senior executives of Indian public sector enterprises covering oil and gas, aeronautical, power and transportation sectors. New public management (NPM) is used as a yardstick of “business-like” characteristics of public sector enterprises.

Despite heavy investment, trainings have had only partial success in implementing the core objective of NPM, i.e. to provide quality services in a professional manner to meet citizen requirements. The study found that though concepts of NPM are introduced at multiple management training programs, the public enterprises lag in the implementation of NPM. The ingrained hierarchical and procedural culture of the enterprises was often highlighted as the challenge to its implementation.

The study will be of significance to Indian policymakers in designing management education programs to public sector employees. It brings out – (1) various models of management education provided to public servants across industries, (2) provide evidence on the extent of NPM implementation, (3) identify barriers for transitioning the learnings from the management courses to workplace and (4) suggest changes for improving effectiveness.

The existing research on LPG in India covers the economic transformation post-implementation and the factors contributing to the success of its implementation. This study adds to the limited literature available on the management education of public servants in the country.

This study aims to investigate the implications of natural gas rents and institutions as co-drivers of economic growth, focusing on the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) with panel data between 2001 and 2021.

This research paper uses a specialised two stage estimator, the panel instrumental variable technique (panel IV), which takes care of the potential endogeneity issues in the model.

The findings show that natural gas rent significantly impacts the economic growth of the GECF. On average, natural gas rent increases the sample’s growth rate by about 2.634% percentage points in the short run. The result indicates that the qualities of institutions (political and economic) have a significant positive long-term effect on the economies of the GECF. In addition, the study’s energy price volatility positively correlates with the countries’ growth.

There might be a need to investigate the effects of natural gas rents and institutions as co-growth drivers in each country within the GECF. The likelihood exists that the impact of natural gas rents and institutions on economic growth at the country’s level may differ from the outcome of such an experiment on the group level. Because of space and time limitations, this study could not carry out the specific country’s investigation of natural gas rents and institutions as a co-growth driver. That limitation may constitute further study to advance this study to a new height.

With good institutions, natural gas rent is likely to be an alternative growth driver for some economies that rely on fossil fuels like oil as a growth driver. By extension, the GECF has the potential to rival Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in the global energy market, particularly in achieving Sustainable Development Goal number seven. In essence, evidence in this study suggests that natural gas rent has long-term positive effects on the growth of the GECF, conditioned on good institutions. Moreover, the drive of global energy consumption towards sustainable energy usage is an economic blessing for the GECF. By extension, the demand for natural gas would continue to rise, creating opportunities to improve natural gas rents. By implication, the GECF would continue to benefit from the pursuit of sustainability as the world shifts towards energy consumption with less CO₂.

Firstly, this study models the qualities of institutions for the GECF. Secondly, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first attempt to examine natural gas rents and the qualities of institutions as co-determinants of economic growth among the GECF (a potential cartel).

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

The complex interaction of politics and the economy is a critical factor for the sustainable growth and development of the construction sector (CNS). This study aims to investigate the effects of type of political administration including democracy and military on the performance of CNS using the Nigerian Construction Sector (NCS) as a case study.

A 48 year (1970–2017) time series data (TSD) on the NCS and the gross domestic product (GDP) based on 2010 constant USD were extracted from the United Nations Statistical Department database. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) models were used to analyze the TSD. The ANCOVA model includes the GDP as correlational variable or covariate.

The estimates of the ANOVA model indicate that democratic administration is significantly better than military administration in construction performance. However, the ANCOVA model indicates that the GDP is more important than political administration in the performance of the CNS. The study recommends for a new national construction policy, favourable fiscal and monetary policy, local content development policy and construction credit guaranty scheme for the rapid growth and development of the NCS.

Hitherto, little is known about the influence of political administration on the performance of the CNS. This study provides empirical evidence from a developing economy perspective. It presents the relationships and highlights recommendations for driving growth in the construction industry.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the Polish economic situation was extremely difficult: high public debt, shortages, high inflation and more than 8,000 state-owned enterprises (SOEs) waiting to be restructured and/or privatised; along with a GDP per capita lower than in Ukraine.

This chapter provides an overview of the Polish economic transition, and presents the results of this process, taking into account four aspects of the changes, i.e. stabilisation, liberalisation, institutional reforms and privatisation. Special attention is paid to intentionally unfinished privatisation and the still significant role of state-owned enterprises, which have remained important economic agents.

Critical analyses were made of the literature dedicated to the economic transition and of the role and characteristics of state-owned enterprises. Empirical evidence is drawn from original datasets about the scale of SOEs in the contemporary economy and rotations in management and supervisory boards in Polish joint-stock companies.

Despite the unfavourable initial conditions, Poland soon emerged as a leader in economic growth, successfully stabilising, liberalising and privatising its economy. The institutional foundations of a democratic market economy were consistently built, and the applications for membership in the OECD, the EU and NATO were an important driver of institutional reforms. In terms of state institutions, political and economic freedom and quality of governance, Poland is more similar to the G7 countries than to the other post-socialist countries, though the need to maintain high-quality state institutions is still a priority. The significant share of SOE is regarded as a challenge of the Polish economy because state-owned enterprises are an object of rent-seeking by politicians and political parties.

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

Previous literature has investigated the connection amongst remittances, political stability and unemployment in remittance-receiving economies separately. Besides, they did not cover the Middle East and North African (MENA) region.

To this end, this research uses the pooled mean group (PMG) method.

The findings suggest that the influence of remittances on lowering unemployment accelerates in recipient economies with high levels of political stability.

Policymakers in MENA countries should vigorously pursue political stability, which plays a crucial role in boosting the influence of inward remittances on unemployment alleviation. This is accomplished by establishing solid institutions that contribute to ensuring fair politics, increasing citizens' trust in the government, enhancing the rule of law and protecting investors and prioritizing policies and programs that promote political stability.

This paper, therefore, aspires to empirically examine the impacts of inward remittances on unemployment via the moderating role of political stability in thirteen MENA-receiving countries from 1996 to 2020.