Using a human capital based growth model, we show the essential role of labor mobility and cross-country tax harmonization in equalizing income levels of countries that start off from different initial income positions. Knowledge spillovers cum labor mobility are the driving forces behind the...

The human capital of young and old workers are imperfect substitutes both in production and in on-the-job training. This helps explain why capital does not flow from rich to poor countries, causing instantaneous convergence of per capita output. If each generation chooses its human capital...

One critical aspect of economic development is that productivity growth and a rising standard of living are realized through more roundabout methods of production and increasing specialization of intermediate inputs and producer services. We use an extended version of the Judd-Grossman-Helpman...

We develop a framework to estimate the aggregate capital-labor elasticity of substitution by aggregating the actions of individual plants, and use it to assess the decline in labor's share of income in the US manufacturing sector. The aggregate elasticity reflects substitution within plants and...

We provide an overview of recent empirical research on patterns of cross-country growth. The new empirical regularities considered differ from earlier ones, e.g., the well-known Kaldor stylized facts. The new research no longer makes production function accounting a central part of the analysis....

This paper takes a step towards formalizing the theoretical interconnections among four post-Industrial Revolution phenomena - the industrialization and growth take-off of rich northern' nations, massive global income divergence, and rapid trade expansion. Specifically, we present a...

We provide an exploratory quantitative analysis of the role of capital mobility and international taxation in explaining the observed cross-country diversity in the long-run rates of growth of per capita and total incomes as well as the population growth rates. Corroborative evidence is found...

We consider the role of capital mobility and international taxation. In explaining the observed diversity in long-term growth rates. Our major finding is that, under capital mobility, international differences in taxes will not matter for total growth differentials. Policy differences have a...

We consider trade between two countries of unequal size, where the creation of new intermediate inputs occurs in both. We assume that the knowledge gained from R&D in one country <i>does not</i> spillover to the other. Under autarky, the larger country would have a higher rate of product creation. When...

Individuals differ in both inherited and acquired abilities, but only the latter differ among countries and time periods. Human capital analysis deals with acquired capabilities which are developed through formal and informal education at school and at home, and through training, experience, and...