This paper investigates the nature of income inequality across nations. Several exercises, such as variance decompositions, simulations and counter-factual analyses are performed. We find that, although total factor productivity has a leading role in explaining the dispersion of output per...

This article presents a group of exercises of level and growth decomposition of output per worker using cross-country data from 1960 to 2000. It is shown that at least until 1975 factors of production (capital and education) were the main source of output dispersion across economies and that...

In a widely cited paper, Young (1995) showed that the East Asian miracles (Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan) grew mostly through input accumulation during the period 1966-1990. Using data for 83 countries taken from the Penn World Table, version 6.1, and Barro and Lee (2000), we use a...

This article studies the impact of longevity and taxation on life-cycle decisions and long run income. Individuals allocate optimally their total lifetime between education, working and retirement. They also decide at each moment how much to save or consume out of their income, and after...

This paper estimates the elasticity of substitution of an aggregate production function. The estimating equation is derived from the steady state of a neoclassical growth model. The data comes from the PWT in which different countries face different relative prices of the investment good and...

This paper studies the long-run impact of HIV/AIDS on per capita income and education. We introduce a channel from HIV/AIDS to long-run income that has been overlooked by the literature, the reduction of the incentives to study due to shorter expected longevity. We work with a continuous time...

Economic downturn of Rio de Janeiro in last decades is an stylized fact in regional economics in Brazil. People worry if Sao Paulo is attracting jobs that are lost in Rio. In this paper we investigate the economic foundations of this problem. We first derive an analytical framework and hence do...

A simple model incorporating rent-seeking into the standard neoclassical model of capital accumulation is presented. It embodies the idea that the performance of an economy depends on the efficiency of its institutions. It is shown that welfare is positively affected by the institutional...

Employing the two sector model of capital accumulation in an open economy, the impact on the path of the following variables: exchange rate, wages, investment, saving, and consequently external debt and capital stock after a permanent and non expected elevation of the economy productivity is...