We present evidence of the relationship between trade-openness and growth in the sample of former communist countries before and after the transition from a central planned economy (CPE) to a market economy by applying standard OLS and panel estimation techniques. The main finding is that during...

I show that in a conventional Ramsey model, between one-fourth and one- half of income differences across countries can be explained by a single factor: The steady-state effect of large, persistent differences in national average IQ on worker productivity. These differences in cognitive...