I reconsider the primacy of institutions over geography as an explanatory factor of cross-country differences in economic performance, which has recently been postulated by Acemoglu et al. (2001) and others. My estimates show that the reported missing direct performance effects of a measure of...

We reconsider the effects of long-run economic growth on relative factor prices across cones of specialization. We model economic growth as exogenous technical change. Allowing for capital biased technical change with a sector bias and for endogenous commodity prices, we find that economic...

This research argues that variations in the interplay between cultural assimilation and cultural diffusion have played a significant role in giving rise to differential patterns of economic development across the globe. Societies that were geographically less vulnerable to cultural diffusion,...

Estland, Lettland und Litauen haben seit 1997 relativ starke Produktionszuwächse zu verzeichnen. Die Inflationsraten liegen konstant bei etwa 10% und die Haushaltsbudgets sind nahezu ausgeglichen. Nach einer ziemlich erfolgreichen Transformationsphase konzentrieren sich die Politiker der...

This research contributes to the understanding of human genetic diversity within a society as a significant determinant of its economic development. The hypothesis advanced and empirically examined in this paper suggests that there are socioeconomic trade-offs associated with genetic diversity...

The "Easterlin paradox" suggests that there is no link between a society's economic development and its average level of happiness. We re-assess this paradox analyzing multiple rich datasets spanning many decades. Using recent data on a broader array of countries, we establish a clear positive...