Growth accounting exercises point to aggregate TFP differences as the dominant source of the large cross-country income differences. In this paper, I ask which sectors account for the aggregate TFP gap between rich and poor countries. Data limitations for developing countries have led...

This paper decomposes the resource curse and its potential reversal in three important dimensions; type of resource, type of institutional measure, and time. Studying components of primary exports we find that the curse is (to various degrees) present for all components but that its possible...

We investigate, both theoretically and quantitatively, a previously unexplored link between adult mortality and growth. Our mechanism allocates a central role to individuals as carriers of useful ideas and to personal contact as an important means of passing on the useful ideas to future...

We introduce a new time series measure of the extent of federal regulation in the U.S. and use it to investigate the relationship between federal regulation and macroeconomic performance. We find that regulation has statistically and economically significant effects on aggregate output and the...

The optimal mix of growth policies is determined within a comprehensive endogenous growth model. The analysis captures important elements of the tax-transfer system and accounts for transitional dynamics. Currently, for calculating corporate taxable income US firms are allowed to deduct...

We develop two models of economic growth with exhaustible natural resources, exogenous technical progress and consumers heterogeneous in time preferences. The first model assumes private ownership of natural resources. In the second model, natural resources are public property and the resource...

Within the causal structure of economic development, we can distinguish between short-term and long-term causal links. In particular, this study examines long-term short-term causal relations in economic development. We construct a balanced panel for 72 countries over the period from 1980 to...

This paper builds a model of growth through industrialization, where machines replace workers in a growing number of tasks. This enables the economy to experience long-run growth, as machines become servants of humans, and as their number grows unboundedly. The mechanism that drives growth is...

During the last twenty years the share of researchers in the workforce has been rising in OECD countries. The consistency of this pattern suggests that it is not a transitional phenomenon. This paper demonstrates that the rise of research can occur in the steady state when schooling inequality...

This paper shows that whether natural resources are good or bad for a country’s development crucially depends on the interaction between institutional setting and the type of resources possessed by the country. Some natural resources are, for economical and technical reasons, more likely to...