Early states like China, India, Italy and Greece have been experiencing more rapid economic growth in recent decades than have later-comers to agriculture and statehood like New Guinea, the Congo, and Uruguay. We show that more rapid growth by early starters has been the norm in economic...

We use a set of established growth models, which simultaneously include human capital and R&D, to show that the effect of mortality rate in human capital accumulation is quantitatively more important than the effect of perfectly guaranteed patents on research. First, we show that the effect of...

Factor-endowment based trade with the leading economy helps to explain the differing development performances of the Americas and East Asia in the past two centuries. Between 1830 and 1945, labor-abundant Britain, the most advanced country, traded heavily with land-abundant countries in the...

Between 1870 and 1890 Australian incomes per capita were 40 percent or more above those in the United States. About half this gap is attributable to Australia’s higher labor input per capita, and half to its higher labor productivity. The higher labor input is due in part to favorable...

Con questo articolo si intende offrire una rassegna critica del dibattito in corso da più di un decennio sul concetto di capitale sociale. Gli studi considerati sono suddivisi in base all’aspetto della struttura sociale cui di volta in volta viene accordata maggiore enfasi. La rassegna si...

This essay will consider the relevance of the social sciences - especially economics - to the foundations of sustainable development. Looming environmental crises have served as a prime motivating force for reevaluating fundamental principles. In particular, the concept of sustainability,...

This study assesses the widely-held belief that manufacturing industries are uniquely important to the process of national economic growth. The study’s related purpose is to describe structural changes in the U.S. manufacturing sector and the organization of U.S. manufacturing firms that are...

Households in developing countries use a variety of informal mechanisms to cope with risk, including mutual support and risk-sharing. These mechanisms cannot avoid that they remain vulnerable to shocks. Public programs in the form of food aid distribution and food-for-work programs are meant to...

This paper examines why some transitions are more successful than others by focusing attention on the role of productive, protective and predatory behaviors from the perspective of the new institutional economics. Many transition economies are characterized by a fundamental inconsistency between...

This essay presents a survey of the main contribution to the debate on the causes and effects of the underdevelopment of the Italian Mezzogiorno. The essay describes the most recent analysis devoting specific attention to policy proposals. Questo saggio presenta una rassegna dei principali...