In recent times there has been a renewed interest in relationships between redistribution, growth and welfare. Land reforms have been central to strategies to improve the asset base of the poor in developing countries thought their effectiveness has been hindered by political constraints on...

This paper presents annual estimates of total and per-capita GDP at 1910 prices for the regions of Imperial Austria from the origin of the Dual Monarchy (1867) to the eve of WWI (1913). The time paths of regional GDP are estimated from the yield of the tax on the transfer of real and financial...

Can the increasing significance of knowledge-products in national income - the growing weightless economy - influence economic development? Those technologies reduce ''distance'' between consumers and knowledge production. This paper analyzes a model embodying such a reduction. The model shows...

Gutenberg's printing press was the great revolution in Renaissance information technology. This paper presents new evidence on media markets, knowledge transmission, and city growth across Europe 1450-1600. The paper construct- s comprehensive firm-level panel data on the number and subjects of...

In this paper we have built a model of financial intermediation that explains the GDP variability pattern of an economy during the development process. In our model, per capita is more volatile in the middle-income economies than in both low and high-income economies. We show that, if the model...

The Long-Term Consequences of Regional Specialization* What are the consequences of resource-based regional specialization, when it persists over a long period of time? While much of the literature argues that specialization is beneficial, recent work suggests it may be costly in the long run,...

The Long-Term Consequences of Regional Specialization* What are the consequences of resource-based regional specialization, when it persists over a long period of time? While much of the literature argues that specialization is beneficial, recent work suggests it may be costly in the long run,...