While the importance of institutions for explaining cross-country income differences is widely recognized, comparatively little is known about the origins of economic institutions. One strand of the literature emphasizes cultural differences while another points at exogenous environmental...

This study examines the determinants of citation success among authors who recently published their work in economic history journals. We find that full professors, authors from non-economic history departments, and authors working in Anglo-Saxon countries are all more likely to get cited than...

This study consists of an examination of productivity growth following three major technological breakthroughs: the steam power revolution, electrification and the ICT revolution. The distinction between sectors producing and sectors using the new technology is emphasized. A major finding for...

We present a growth model where agents divide time between rent seeking in the form of resource competition; and working in a human capital sector, interpreted as trade or manufacturing. Rent seeking exerts negative externalities on the productivity of human capital, generating multiple steady...

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Inherited wealth has attracted much attention recently, much due to the research by Thomas Piketty (Piketty, 2011; 2014). The discussion has mainly revolved around a long-run contrast between Europe and the U.S., even though data on explicit historical inheritance flows are only really available for...

This paper develops an improved test of economic convergence or divergence using time series methods. The usefulness of the method is illustrated in an analysis of the growth pattern between Chinese regions in 1952–2007. Comparing all combinations of regional pairs, the analysis yields support...

Science & Technology (S&T) is high on the Chinese policy agenda but there are large uncertainties on the actual S&T development. For instance, previous studies tend to focus only on large and medium-sized enterprises (LMEs). The situation in Chinese small firms is far less explored. This paper...

This paper applies a systems-oriented, “holistic” approach to China’s radical economic reforms during the last quarter of a century. It characterizes China’s economic reforms in terms of a multidimensional classification of economic systems. When looking at the economic consequences of...