In this paper we investigate the causal effect of life expectancy on economic growth by explicitly accounting for the role of the demographic transition. In addition to focusing on issues of empirical identification, this paper emphasizes the role of the econometric specification. We present a...

We propose a unified growth theory to investigate the mechanics generating the economic and demographic transition, and the role of mortality differences for comparative development. The framework can replicate the quantitative patterns in historical time series data and in contemporaneous...

Economically highly developed countries are mostly democratic. But does this association constitute a causal relationship according to which democracy is a determinant of economic development? Or is it, conversely, economic development that paves the way for democratization? This paper gives an...

This paper argues that accounting for the dynamic interactions between endogenous changes in longevity, the education composition of the population, and the associated fertility differential is crucial for understanding the economic and the demographic transition. In the model, heterogeneous...

This paper opens with a discussion of the types of institutions that allow markets to perform adequately. While we can identify in broad terms what these are, there is no unique mapping between markets and the non-market institutions that underpin them. The paper emphasizes the importance of...

This paper studies the relationship between political conflict and economic growth in a simple model of endogenous growth with distributive conflicts. We study both the case of two "classes" (workers and capitalists) and the case of a continuum distribution of agents, characterized by different...

Unlike most cross-country growth analyses, we focus on turning points in growth performance. We look for instances of rapid acceleration in economic growth that are sustained for at least eight years and identify more than 80 such episodes since the 1950s. Growth accelerations tend to be...

Growth has accelerated in a wide range of developing countries over the last couple of decades, resulting in an extraordinary period of convergence with the advanced economies. We analyze this experience from the lens of structural change - the reallocation of labor from low- to...