Essays on Political Economy and Economic Development

The spillover of information from more developed economies to the less developed ones is of key importance for sustainable transition towards higher living standards in emerging societies. The amount and type of essential information which is transferred to developing world is far from being exhausted by technological spillover effect, which is extensively studied in the literature (see, for instance, Acemoglu et al, 2006). Of equal importance is, for instance, information about comparative performance of foreign societies, as it helps identifying how far home country is from what this world considers as a group of leading economies. A possibility to compare the level of development in domestic economy with the one in foreign societies is also important for dynamic comparisons, as the latter helps assessing the progress which a developing society is making.