We survey the micro and macro literature on the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on productivity. The “Solow Paradox” of the absence of an impact of ICT on productivity no longer holds, if it ever did. Both growth accounting and econometric evidence suggest an...

Whether or not the marginal product of capital (MPK) differs across countries is a question that keeps coming up in discussions of comparative economic development and patterns of capital flows. We use easily accessible macroeconomic data to shed light on this issue, and find that MPKs are...

Are individuals more sensitive to losses than gains in macroeconomic growth? Using subjective well-being measures across three large data sets, we observe an asymmetry in the way positive and negative economic growth are experienced, with losses having more than twice as much impact on...

We revisit Western Europe’s record with labor-productivity convergence, and tentatively extrapolate its implications for the future path of Eastern Europe. The poorer Western European countries caught up with the richer ones through both higher rates of physical capital accumulation and...

Developing countries are vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, yet there is disagreement about what they should do to protect themselves from antic- ipated damages. In particular, it is unclear what the optimal balance is between investments in traditional productive capital...

This paper explores the role of knowledge flows and TFP growth by using direct survey data on knowledge flows linked to firm-level TFP growth data. Our knowledge flow data correspond to the kind of information flows often argued, especially by policy-makers, as important, such as within the...

The recent work on misallocation argues that aggregate productivity in poor countries is low because various market frictions prevent marginal products from being equalized. By focusing on such allocative inefficiencies, misallocation is construed as a purely static phenomenon. This paper argues...

We analyse self-reported measures of satisfaction with life in a transition country, Kyrgyzstan, using 1993 household survey data. We test whether higher levels of satisfaction are associated with greater economic well-being. This hypothesis is strongly supported by the data. Unhappiness is...