We analyze the effects of declining population growth on the adoption of automation technology. A standard theoretical framework of the accumulation of traditional physical capital and of automation capital predicts that countries with a lower population growth rate are the ones that innovate...

We analyze the effects of children's health on human capital accumulation and on long-run economic growth. For this purpose we design an R&D-based growth model in which the stock of human capital of the next generation is determined by parental education and health investments. We show that i)...

We introduce automation into a standard model of capital accumulation and show that (i) there is the possibility of perpetual growth, even in the absence of technological progress; (ii) the long-run economic growth rate declines with population growth, which is consistent with the available...

We analyze the impact of status preferences on technological progress and long-run economic growth within an R&D-based framework. For this purpose, we extend the standard relative wealth approach by allowing the various assets held by households to differ with respect to their status relevance....

We propose a Unified Growth model that analyzes the role of the Scienti fic Revolution in the takeoff to sustained modern economic growth. Basic scientific knowledge is a necessary input in the production of applied knowledge, which, in turn, fuels productivity growth and leads to rising...

We analyze the effects of automation on the wages of high-skilled and low- skilled workers and thereby on the evolution of wage inequality. Our model explains the simultaneous presence of i) increasing per capita GDP, ii) de-clining real wages of low-skilled workers, and iii) an increasing...

We analyze the economic growth effects of rising longevity in a framework of endogenous growth driven by quality-improving innovations. We show that a rise in longevity raises savings and thereby reduces the market interest rate. Since the monopoly profits generated by a successful innovation...

In a growth accounting context one usually constructs a quality adjusted index of labor services by aggregating over predefined groups of workers, using the groups' relative wage bills as weights. In this article we suggest a method based on decomposing individual predicted wages into a...

A satisfactory account of the postwar growth experience of the United States should be able to come to terms with the following three facts: 1. Since the early 1970's there has been a slump in the advance of productivity. 2. The price of new equipment has fallen steadily over the postwar period....

Human capital is almost always identified as a crucial ingredient for growing economies, but empirical investigations of cross-national growth have done little to clarify the dimensions of relevant human capital or any implications for policy. This paper concentrates on the importance of labor...