Th is paper evaluates the concepts of natural rates of interest and output in

This paper will propose a comparative analysis of the conceptualization of colonisation that could shed light on the contemporary economic analysis of the colonial legacy in Africa. More specifically, this article will propose a return to old debates on colonisation, with a special focus on French 19th century political economy. Three main institutionalist lessons can be drawn from a careful analysis of French colonial economics of the 19th century. First, by institutions, the authors referred not only to the modes of colonisation – liberalism or collectivism? – but also to the actors: What should be the respective role of states and of private actors (entrepreneurs, banks, settlers) in the colonisation of Africa? Second, the colonial debates involved a discussion of property, whether in the sense of land ownership (individual vs. collective) or under the prism of property rights. Third, the analysis of the colonisation of Africa by French economists reveals an understanding of institutions as cultural values, norms or even racial attributes.

La composition du parlement libanais est basée sur un compromis entre les différentes confessions religieuses de ce pays, souvent considéré comme seule démocratie parlementaire de l'Orient arabe.À partir des outils de la théorie des jeux coopératifs, cet article analyse le pouvoir des différentes confessions dans le parlement libanais. Nousétudions la différence entre le pouvoir "apparent" et le pouvoir "réel" de chaque confession prenant part au processus de décision. Cet article analyse aussi l'impact des dispositions de la nouvelle réformeélectorale sur le pouvoir de chaque confession. Nous montrerons que le compromis confessionnel au Liban est loin d'être parfait.

This article examines the growth performance of Africa and the Middle East for the period 1990-2005. It employs a Bayesian model-averaging method that constructs estimates as a weighted average of spatial autoregressive estimates for every possible combination of included variables. One of the results is that the inclusion of spatial dependences has a direct impact on the determinants of growth in Africa and the Middle East. A main contribution of this article is to consider geographical effects in a more flexible way, which allows an enriched comprehension of the role of institutional factors in explaining low economic development. (JEL: O11, O15, C11) Consequently, following the seminal works of Kormendi and Meguire (1985) and Barro (1991), recent researchers (Fernández, Ley, and Steel, 2001; Sala-i-Martin, Doppelhofer, and Miller, 2004) suggest using Bayesian methods to understand the determinants of growth. Assuming that we do not know which model is true, the Bayesian reasoning attaches probabilities to different possible models.Our contribution deals with two aspects. In the first place, our method includes a spatial dimension that has been recently explored in the empirical literature on economic growth. Indeed, the possibility that space could be a determinant of economic growth is suggested in several of the empirical contributions that allow for geographical effects. Quah (1996) formulates criticisms of the usual measures of convergence. He argues that most studies treat regions as "isolated islands" without taking into account effects of interaction due to spatial spillovers. Space influences the channels through which countries interact; however, these interactions are not modelled explicitly. In this paper, we introduce spatial modelling based on exogenously provided information about the spatial structure. As in LeSage and Parent (2007), we extend the literature on Bayesian model comparison for ordinary least-squares regression models to include a spatial autoregressive specification. We construct estimates as a weighted average of spatial autoregressive estimates for every possible combination of included variables. In the second place, in order to examine the importance of the spatial element in the determinants of growth, our study focuses on a specific territory, Africa and the Middle East. In much of the empirical literature on economic growth, Africa and the Middle East exist primarily as a regional dummy. However, recent papers (Block, 2001;Masanjala and Papageorgiou, 2008) suggest that the determinants of growth may be different in Africa from the rest of the world. In this paper we extend a BMA methodology used by Masanjala and Papageorgiou (2008) and others, taking into account spatial proximity to examine the sources of growth in Africa and in the Middle East.This last choice can be justified by economic as well as by historical considerations. From an economic point of view, Africa and the Middle East constitute an under-developed "block" whose spatial interrelations have not been stud...

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