We present a model in which capital assets can only be owned by members of a small politically-connected elite ("the oligarchs"), each member of which faces a given risk of being expropriated, and we investigate the implications of such an imperfection of property rights for the transition to a...

Researchers have estimated productivity changes surrounding trade liberalization for different countries, using different techniques, and have generally reached the conclusion that gains are positive. In this paper we study how different techniques influence the quantitative results by...

The empirical evidence is such that countries with better developed financial markets gain significantly from FDI. This paper formalizes the mechanism through which the trickle down effect of FDI depends on the extent of the development of the domestic financial sector. We model a small open...

In this paper I examine the effects of international technological competition on innovation, growth, and optimal R&D subsidies. I focus on a particular dimension of competition: the share of industries where domestic and foreign research firms compete for innovation. In a version of the...

The theoretical debate over whether countries can and should set tariffs in response to export elasticities goes back over a century to the writings of Edgeworth (1894) and Bickerdike (1907). Despite the optimal tariff argument's centrality in debates over trade policy, there exists no evidence...

Despite the general belief among economists on the growth-enhancing role of international trade and significant trade opening over the past 25 years, the growth performance of many developing economies, especially of those in Latin America and Africa, has been disappointing. While this poor...

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...

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...

Among the rich economies of the world today, per capita output levels had typically diverged before converging to the per capita output level of the frontier economy. Since frontier economies have grown at stable rates, non-frontier economies display an S-shape aggregate transition path. Along...