In this paper, we argue that the condition of education and the economy of the low performing sub-Saharan African countries can be characterized as a stagnant steady state -- a "trap". We present a simple heterogeneous-agent model in which high costs of education relative to income and the skill...

Using data on formal manufacturing plants in India, we report a large but imprecise speedup in productivity growth starting in the early 1990s (e.g., 1993-2007 compared to 1980-1992). We trace it to productivity growth within large plants (200 workers or more), as opposed to reallocation across...

In this paper, we use a general equilibrium model of endogenous growth in which there is heterogeneity in skill, income, and tax rates to evaluate the effect of progressivity of taxes on growth and welfare. In this framework, changes in the progressivity of tax rates can have positive growth...