Does international financial integration boost economic growth? The question has been discussed controversially for a long time. As of yet, robust evidence for a positive impact is lacking (Edison et al., 2002). However, there is substantial narrative evidence from economic history that...

Investment in network infrastructure can boost long-term economic growth in OECD countries. Moreover, infrastructure investment can have a positive effect on growth that goes beyond the effect of the capital stock because of economies of scale, the existence of network externalities competition...

In this paper, we apply a convex hull approach to counterfactual analysis of trade openness and growth. The experiments we choose evaluate the importance of trade openness for growth across African countries. Specifically, we ask the question “what would happen if African countries were more...

The aim of this paper is to provide new empirical evidence on the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for 21 African countries over the period from 1970 to 2006, using recently developed panel cointegration and causality tests. The countries are divided into two groups:...

We revisit the relationship between financial development and economic growth in a panel of 52 middle income countries over the 1980-2008 period, using pooled mean group estimator in a dynamic heterogeneous panel setting. We show that financial development does not have a linear positive...

This paper studies the formation of human capital and its transmission across generations when premature adult mortality is a salient feature of the demographic landscape, either permanently or in the form of a long-period wave that follows the outbreak of an epidemic. We establish several...

Does trade openness cause higher GDP per capita? Since the seminal instrumental variables (IV) estimates of Frankel and Romer [F&R](1999) important doubts have surfaced. Is the correlation spurious and driven by omitted geographical and institutional variables? In this paper, we generalize...

This paper develops an open economy model with heterogeneous final goods producers who simultaneously choose whether to export their goods and whether to use imported intermediates. The model highlights mechanisms whereby import policies affect aggregate productivity, resource allocation, and...

The value of the elasticity of substitution between labor and capital (ó) is a “crucial” assumption in understanding the secular decline in labor share of income (Piketty (2014a), Karabarbounis and Neiman (2014)) and long-run growth (Solow, 1956). This paper begins by examining the role of...

The volatility of unanticipated output growth in income per capita is detrimental to long-run development, controlling for initial income per capita, population growth, human capital, investment, openness and natural resource dependence. This effect is significant and robust over a wide range of...