A clear understanding of the rapid development of the newly industrialized economies (NIEs) of Asia remains elusive, with disputes over the roles of technology growth, capital accumulation, and international trade and investment. Most notably, alternative approaches to growth accounting yield...

This paper focuses on the effects of a recent episode of trade liberalization in India. India underwent a massive reform in 1991 which involved slashing tariffs and opening up different industrial sectors to foreign direct investment. This episode, which is described in detail in a section of...

We explore the relationship between capital accumulation, trade, and the development of property rights. In our analysis, the development of property rights is an endogenous process, driven by capital accumulation. Property rights are defined as institutions that internalize the portion of the...

During the first half of the 20th century the workweek in the United States declined, and the distribution of hours across wage deciles narrowed. At the same time, the distribution of wages narrowed too. The hypothesis proposed is (i) Households have access to an increasing number of leisure...

In 1910 the average American city was a small and densely populated place where the dominant form of intracity transportation was the electric streetcar. Despite the release of the Model T in 1908, less than one percent of Americans owned a car. In contrast, by 1970, almost every family in the...

This paper develops a set of criteria for identifying the arrival of a general purpose technology (GPT) and applies them to the electification and IT "revolutions" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The criteria suggest that a GPT should be 1) pervasive, 2) improving over time, and 3)...

A recent literature in development economics has focused renewed attention on land redistribution. Driven in part by political events in countries like Zimbabwe, the literature has sought to understand the economic implications of land reform. Much of this literature focuses on credit market...

How do movements in the distribution of income and wealth affect the macroeconomy? We create two economies where the only difference between them lies in the initial distribution of economic resources and the degree of frictions in financial markets. Generally, these economies eventually reach...