Robust institutional change is difficult to achieve.  However, the growth paths of some countries are more likely to be affected by contemporaneous political turmoil than others.  This paper supports this claim using data on GDP growth during periods of extreme political turmoil for 69 countries between 1870 and 2000.  The authors argue that the robustness of a country’s growth path to political uncertainty depends on the degree to which individuals are invested in its current institutions. 

In this Country Brief, Enterprise Africa! lead researcher Karol Boudreaux and program associate Johan van der Walt focus on three domestic policy issues that they believe are important to expanding opportunities for South Africa’s poor: employment, education, and security. In addition, they also focus on three foreign policy issues that they believe are significant to leveraging South Africa’s unique position in international affairs: regional integration, good governance, and public and cultural diplomacy.

The fatal conceit is the assumption the world can be shaped according to human desires.  With the collapse of socialism, central planning has been discredited as a viable means of economic organization.  However, the fatal conceit of central planning continues through foreign interventions in the form of foreign aid and foreign military interventions.

In Alliance Curse, Hilton Root illustrates how misguided foreign aid policy can backfire, stunting rather than advancing political and economic development, and poisoning relations instead of capturing hearts and minds. Partnering with dictators can produce perverse disincentives for those regimes to govern for prosperity, resulting in corruption, economic failure, and instability. These policies contradict America’s image as the champion of freedom and democracy, making the developing world even more wary of its intentions.

Frederic Sautet's chapter "Why Have Kiwis Not Become Tigers? Reforms, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development in New Zealand" appears in the book Making Poor Nations Rich: Entrepreneurship and the Process of Economic Development, edited by Benjamin Powell and with a forward by Deepak Lal.

This chapter first describes briefly the context in which New Zealand's reforms took place and then, second, considers the five main reforms that changed the New Zealand economy positively. In the third section, it examines the reasons why the New Zealand economy is failing to perform like that of an Asian tiger. Before concluding, some policy implications are offered.