This research aims to study the relationship between economic performance, economic reforms, corruption, ethnic diversity and business environment. In chapter two, meta-analysis and meta-regression analysis methods are applied to study the relationship between economic growth and corruption. This shows that despite severe publication bias, there seems to be a genuine negative effect of corruption on growth. This impact is systematically affected by whether the authors are academics and whether the study controls for endogeneity and heterogeneity. As for mechanisms, the findings show that corruption significantly undermines the positive influence of institutions and trade openness on economic growth. Chapter three investigates the effect of dynamic ethnic diversity as endogenous variable on economic growth in the transition context. For this purpose, a unique data set is constructed based mostly on primary data (national censuses). Once diversity is instrumented; it shows a significant negative impact on economic growth which is robust to different specifications, polarization measures, econometric estimators, as well as to the use of an index of ethnic-religious-linguistic fractionalization. Chapter four provides evidence of the role of economic reforms on economic performance in developing countries measured by economic growth and industrial growth. This research focuses on, and constructs individual indicators for the following reforms: external stability, macroeconomic stability, financial development, trade liberalization and institutional quality. The main finding is that economic reforms strongly support growth in the long-run. They mostly have mixed effects in the short-run. Moreover, institutions are imperative to boost economic performance over the long run. Finally, chapter five demonstrates the relationship between firm performance and business environment, ownership, competition and exports in Syrian industrial private sector. Performance is measured in level and growth variables. The main findings show that firm performance is positively boosted by finance and technology and hindered by poor investment climate, in particular, corruption. However, competition and foreign ownership seem to not have first-order effects.

This thesis is based on four essays dealing with tourism development and its determinants. Chapter Two explores the different definitions of ‘tourism’ and ‘tourist’, as well as the factors that influence tourism arrivals. We discuss traditional and more recent theories that underlie the study of the tourism industry. The third chapter examines the effect of tourism upon economic growth, investigating the effects of tourism specialization within tourism-exporting countries and non-tourism-exporting countries annually over the period 1995–2007, applying panel-data methods in cross-sectional growth regressions. This study finds that tourism does not affect economic growth in either underdeveloped or developed countries. Moreover, tourism might cause Dutch Disease in tourism-exporting countries owing to their over-reliance on the exporting of non-traded goods. Chapter Four seeks to identify how institutional quality and aspects of infrastructure (internet access measured by size of country or per 100 people) influence tourist arrivals in a whole sample of 131 countries and in sub-samples comprising developed and developing countries (as defined by IMF criteria) using static and dynamic panel data. The findings indicate that internet access enhances the tourism industry, and most interestingly, that good governance is one of the most influential factors for improving and developing tourism. Chapter Five diagnoses the determinants of tourism flows using panel-data sets including 134 originating countries and 31 destination countries (selected depending on data availability) focusing on ICRG data for the period 2005–2009. The methodology makes use of basic and augmented gravity equations, together with the Hausman-Taylor and Poisson estimation techniques, whilst comparing the performance of the three gravity-equation methods. The results suggest that lower levels of political risk contribute to an increase in tourism flows. Furthermore, common language (positively), common currency (negatively) and political factors (particularly institutional quality) are the most prominent determinants in promoting (or deterring) tourism. Chapter Six gives concluding remarks.

This paper provides a comprehensive empirical assessment of the relation between the cyclicality of fiscal expenditure policy, output volatility, and economic growth, using a large cross-section of 88 countries over the period 1960 to 2004. Identification of the effects of (endogenous) cyclical expenditure policy is achieved by exploiting the exogeneity of countries political and institutional characteristics, which we find to be relevant determinants of the cyclicality of expenditures. There are three main results: First, both pro- and countercyclical expenditure policy amplify output volatility, much in a way like pure fiscal shocks that are unrelated to the cycle. Second, output volatility, due to variations in cyclical and discretionary fiscal policy, is negatively associated with economic growth. Third, there is no direct effect of cyclicality on economic growth other than through output volatility. These findings advocate the introduction of fiscal rules that limit the use of (discretionary and) cyclical fiscal (expenditure) policy to improve growth performance by reducing volatility. (author's abstract)

Questo lavoro analizza la relazione tra crescita economica e rischio-socio politico in un campione di 159 paesi per 30 anni. Il principale risultato è che l'instabilità socio-politica diminuisce la crescita mentre l'effetto della crescita sull'instabilità non è statisticamente significativo. Inoltre si evidenzia una relazione negativa tra inflazione e crescita, ma questo collegamento è mediato dal canale dell'instabilità socio-politica. / This paper tests the relationship between economic growth and socio-political instability on a large sample of 159 countries over 30 years, from 1970 through 2000. After a meticulous analysis performed with system estimates, modern econometric techniques that detect endogeneity and a detailed battery of robustness tests I find that socio-political risk decreases economic growth. as regard the other causality link from economic growth to instability, this effect is instead not statistically significant. In addiction a negative relationship between inflation and growth emerges but this link is mediated by the channel of socio-political instability.