Global Development Institute Blog

Research by Professor Kunal Sen of the Global Development Institute and the United Nations University (UNU-Wider), and Sabyasachi Kar and Amrita Roy from the Institute of Economic Growth in Delhi, India has won Economic Modelling’s Best Paper of the year award for 2019.

The Double Trap: Institutions and economic development was published in the journal in January 2019 and examined whether there was a link between institutional quality and economic development.  The research explored data from over 80 countries and across a period of 3 decades (1985-2015), with the authors finding evidence of several countries which are stuck in poor quality institutions traps. Additionally, the research established that poor institutional traps are major determinants of low income traps.

As the authors state, “If it is indeed true (as our results suggest) that countries are stuck in low income traps because they are primarily in poor institution traps, then policies for growth will have to focus on getting them out of these traps”. According to the authors it seems that democratisation and globalisation whilst having an impact on growth, can also help in making these institutional reforms.

Congratulations once again to the authors.

Note: This article gives the views of the author/academic featured and does not represent the views of the Global Development Institute as a whole