Like the "Sagrada Familia" in Barcelona (photo), institutions are built gradually. Evolution, rather than revolution... By Otaviano Canuto and Tiago Ribeiro dos Santos Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson caught…
Otaviano Canuto, Executive Director at the World Bank, once again is with ECON+ to continue this series of interviews on the global economy. This time, we tackle the topic…
Using data series recently released by the World Bank (2011) on natural capital and other forms of countries’ wealth, this column revisits some of the conclusions reached in the…
Drug trafficking is nothing new. But with the current levels of violence we are seeing, its effects on society and economic activity are staggering. From the suffering of victims,…
The Fight Against Drug Trafficking: A Challenge for All of Us New York | June 26, 2012 Remarks for Thematic Debate of the United Nations General Assembly on Drugs…
It has been argued for some decades that large endowments of natural resources—oil, gas, and minerals in particular—may actually become more of a curse, often leading to slow economic…
The protests that swept through the Middle East and North Africa over the past six months have shown us what people will do to have their voices heard. Starting…
Jun 9, 2010 The World's Worst Economies Ghana has the world's largest manmade lake and the 1-gigawatt Aksombo Hydroelectric Plant, built to supply electricity to Africa's largest aluminum smelter.…
Do you remember The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier’s 2007 book which became a classic? If you do, you will certainly like his latest work, The Plundered Planet. He came to launch…
Recent events have rekindled interest in the role of primary commodities in development. Was the boom in commodity prices from around 2003 through 2008 just a cyclical event, or…
As my World Bank colleague Milan Brahmbhatt and I observed in a recent note, primary commodity exports remain crucial for most developing countries. When one takes a simple average across…
