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...

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 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 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...

The adoption and diffusion of technological knowledge is generally regarded as a key element in a country's economic success. However, as is the case with most types of information, the transfer of technological knowledge is likely to be subject to adverse selection problems. In this paper we...

The role of improved schooling, a central part of most development strategies, has become controversial because expansion of school attainment has not guaranteed improved economic conditions. This paper reviews the role of education in promoting economic well-being, with a particular focus on...

Technological diffusion implies a form of 'conditional convergence' as lagging countries catch up with technological leaders. We find strong evidence of technological diffusion but not full convergence; differences in total factor productivity (TFP) persist even in the long run due to differences...

For decades, economists and social thinkers have debated the influence of population change on economic growth. Three alternative positions define this debate: that population growth restricts, promotes, or is independent of economic growth. Proponents of each explanation can find evidence to...

The object of this paper is to show how population growth, through its interaction with recent technological and organizational developments, can account for many of the cross-country differences in economic outcome observed among industrialized countries over the last 20 years. In particular,...

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)...