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Adam Smith's "Tolerable Administration of Justice" and the Wealth of Nations
Irwin, Douglas A. - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2014
In the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith argues that a country's national income depends on its labor productivity, which in turn hinges on the division of labor. But why are some countries able to take advantage of the division of labor and become rich, while others fail to do so and remain poor?...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010951078
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Forbidden Fruits: The Political Economy of Science, Religion, and Growth
Benabou, Roland; Ticchi, Davide; Vindigni, Andrea - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2015
We analyze the joint dynamics of religious beliefs, scientific progress and coalitional politics along both religious and economic lines. History offers many examples of the recurring tensions between science and organized religion, but as part of the paper's motivating evidence we also uncover...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011262916
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Long Term Persistence
Guiso, Luigi; Sapienza, Paola; Zingales, Luigi - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2008
Is social capital long lasting? Does it affect long term economic performance? To answer these questions we test Putnam's conjecture that today marked differences in social capital between the North and South of Italy were due to the culture of independence fostered by the free city-states...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005778376
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Political Institutions and Government Spending Behavior in Iran
Dizaji, Sajjad Faraji; Farzanegan, Mohammad Reza - CESifo - 2014
This study examines how quality of political institutions affects the distribution of government budget and how development of government spending in major sections shapes the political institutions in Iran. This question has become especially important due to recent international sanctions,...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010739347
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Young, Restless and Creative: Openness to Disruption and Creative Innovations
Acemoglu, Daron; Akcigit, Ufuk; Celik, Murat Alp - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2014
This paper argues that openness to new, unconventional and disruptive ideas has a first-order impact on creative innovations-innovations that break new ground in terms of knowledge creation. After presenting a motivating model focusing on the choice between incremental and radical innovation,...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010739732
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Social Fragmentation, Public Goods and Elections: Evidence from China
Miquel, Gerard Padro i; Qian, Nancy; Yao, Yang - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2012
This study examines how the economic effects of elections in rural China depend on voter heterogeneity, for which we proxy with religious fractionalization. We first document religious composition and the introduction of village-level elections for a nearly nationally representative sample of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010652304
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The Institutional Causes of China's Great Famine, 1959-61
Meng, Xin; Yared, Pierre; Qian, Nancy - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2010
This paper investigates the institutional causes of China's Great Famine. It presents two empirical findings: 1) in 1959, when the famine began, food production was almost three times more than population subsistence needs; and 2) regions with higher per capita food production that year suffered...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008646472
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Growth in Regions
La Porta, Rafael; Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio; … - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2013
We use a newly assembled sample of 1,503 regions from 82 countries to compare the speed of per capita income convergence within and across countries. Regional growth is shaped by similar factors as national growth, such as geography and human capital. Regional convergence is about 2.5% per year,...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010950694
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Product and Labor Market Regulations, Production Prices, Wages and Productivity
MAIRESSE, Jacques; Cette, Gilbert; Lopez, Jimmy - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2014
through their various impacts on changes in production prices and wages. In a first stage, the estimation of a regression …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010950712
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Convergence and Modernization Revisited
Barro, Robert J. - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2012
frame-34 countries with GDP data starting between 1870 and 1896-estimation with country fixed effects is more appropriate … "iron-law" rate of 2%. In the post-1960s panel, estimation without country fixed effects supports the modernization … hypothesis, in the form of positive effects of per capita GDP and schooling on democracy and maintenance of law and order. The …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010951080