Reducing global poverty and addressing climate change and other environmental crises are among the most important challenges facing humanity today. This review article discusses one way in which these problems are intertwined: economic development affects the environment. I synthesize recent...

Growth theory is based on the assumption of exponential total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Across countries and time periods I find that TFP growth is actually linear. Unlike the exponential model, the additive growth model provides useful medium-term forecasts of TFP. It also explains the...

New ideas are often combinations of existing goods or ideas, a point emphasized by Romer (1993) and Weitzman (1998). A separate literature highlights the links between exponential growth and Pareto distributions: Gabaix (1999) shows how exponential growth generates Pareto distributions, while...

Macroeconomic development remains an important policy goal because of its ability to lift entire populations out of poverty. In our review of the literature, we emphasize that the best way to achieve this objective is to embrace a synthesis of methods and ideas, with the science of experiments...

In many developing countries today, the structural transformation is a shift of employment out of agriculture into the service sector. By contrast, industrial employment is mostly stagnant. Is the service sector an engine of growth and hence growth service led? Or is its expansion a mere...