Economic development in Latin America has trailed most other world regions over the past four decades despite its relatively high initial development and school attainment levels. This puzzle can be resolved by considering the actual learning as expressed in tests of cognitive skills, on which...

We investigate whether a causal interpretation of the robust association between cognitive skills and economic growth is appropriate and whether cross-country evidence supports a case for the economic benefits of effective school policy. We develop a new common metric that allows tracking...

Prettner (2019) studies the implications of automation for economic growth and the labor share in a variant of the Solow-Swan model. The aggregate production function allows for two types of capital, traditional and automation capital. Traditional capital and labor are imperfect substitutes...

We scrutinize Thomas Piketty's (2014) theory concerning the relationship between an economy's long-run growth rate, its capital-income ratio, and its factor income distribution put forth in his recent book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. We find that a smaller long-run growth rate may be...

Although many U.S. state policies presume that human capital is important for state economic development, there is little research linking better education to state incomes. In a complement to international studies of income differences, we investigate the extent to which quality-adjusted...

We use the elements of a macroeconomic production function-physical capital, human capital, labor, and technology-together with standard growth models to frame the role of religion in economic growth. Unifying a growing literature, we argue that religion can enhance or impinge upon economic...

This paper develops a unified model of growth, population, and technological progress that is consistent with long-term historical evidence. The economy endogenously evolves through three phases. In the Malthusian regime, population growth is positively related to the level of income per capita....

We present a model of growth and technology transfer based on the idea that technologies are specific to particular combinations of inputs. We argue that this model is more realistic than the usual specification, in which an improvement in any technique for producing a given good improves all...

This paper considers the effects of fiscal and financial policy on economic growth in open and closed economies, when human capital formation by young households is constrained by the illiquidity of human wealth. Both endogenous and exogenous growth versions of the basic OLG model are analyzed....

The paper develops a two-country endogenous growth model to investigate possible causes for the existence and persistence of productivity growth differentials between nations despite a common technology, constant returns to scale and perfect international capital mobility. Private consumption is...