We use a set of established growth models, which simultaneously include human capital and R&D, to show that the effect of mortality rate in human capital accumulation is quantitatively more important than the effect of perfectly guaranteed patents on research. First, we show that the effect of...

Early states like China, India, Italy and Greece have been experiencing more rapid economic growth in recent decades than have later-comers to agriculture and statehood like New Guinea, the Congo, and Uruguay. We show that more rapid growth by early starters has been the norm in economic...

The city size distribution of many countries is remarkably well approximated by a Pareto distribution. We study what constraints this regularity imposes on standard urban models. We find that under general conditions urban models must have (i) a balanced growth path and (ii) a Pareto...

Empirical evidence shows that capital inflows are often used by developing countries to finance excessive consumption. The existing literature explains these phenomena as resulting from institutional imperfections. In contrast, we argue that they can be fundamental outcomes of open capital...

Three issues regarding asset prices and monetary policy are clarified. First, increases in asset prices due to monetary expansion, despite their “paper” wealth nature, tend to make current consumers as a whole wealthier. Second, the weaker (stronger) effect of monetary policy on investment...

We measure the United States capital stock of money implied by the Divisia monetary aggregate service flow, in a manner consistent with the present-value model of economic capital stock. We permit non-martingale expectations and time varying discount rates. Based on Barnett’s (1991) definition...

This paper articulates three insights regarding asset prices and monetary policy: (1) Asset price appreciation due to monetary expansion, despite its “paper” wealth nature, tends to make current consumers as a whole wealthier; (2) the wealth effect of monetary policy (on consumption) is...

This paper investigates whether the inclusion of housing in a household portfolio is important to the household’s intertemporal decision making. Households hold portfolios of assets rather than a Treasury bill and/or a stock index and make their spending decisions based on expected total...