This paper deals with a classic development question: how can the process of economic development – transition from stagnation in a traditional technology to industrialization and prosperity with a modern technology – be accelerated? Lewis (1954) and Rostow (1956) argue that the pace of...

This paper combines the standard incomplete markets model of uninsurable idiosyncratic risks and borrowing constraints with the Arrow/Romer approach to endogenous growth to analyze the interaction of risk, growth, and inequality, the latter also endogenously determined in equilibrium. We derive...

When other economic measurements are scarce or unreliable, height and the body mass index (BMI) are now well accepted measures for cumulative and current net nutrition. However, as the ratio of weight to height, BMI is the ratio of current to cumulative net nutrition, therefore, does not fully...

We introduce financial frictions into a simple two sector model of international trade with heterogeneous agents and investigate the impact of differences in the strength of financial institutions and wealth inequality on trade flows, capital movements and entrepreneurial migration. Distinct...

This paper examines the role of bequests and of taxation on bequests for the distribution of wealth. We investigate a model with overlapping generations and heterogenous households where parents derive utility directly from their bequests. Using the coefficient of variation as the measure of...

We develop an efficient and easy-to-use computational method for solving a wide class of general equilibrium heterogeneous agent models with aggregate shocks, together with an open source suite of codes that implement our algorithms in an easy-to-use toolbox. Our method extends standard...

This paper develops an incomplete markets model with state dependent (Markovian) stochastic earnings processes and ex ante skill heterogeneity corresponding to being university educated or not. Using the Wealth and Assets Survey for Great Britain, we find that the university educated group has...

We provide a systematic analysis of the properties of individual returns to wealth using twelve years of population data from Norway's administrative tax records. We document a number of novel results. First, during our sample period individuals earn markedly different average returns on their...

We study the optimal combination of corporate tax rate and tax base in a model of a small open economy with heterogeneous firms. We show that it is optimal for the small country's government to effectively subsidize capital inputs by granting a tax allowance in excess of the true costs of...

If a free trade agreement (FTA) is characterized by the exchange of market access with a large and competitive trading partner, the agreement can cause a leakage of protectionist benefits to domestic industry from lobbying against external tariff cuts. This rent destruction effect of an FTA can...