Using longitudinal data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, we examine how individual wages change in line with the share of college graduates in a given province. The individual fixed effect model shows that the external returns to education in China appear to be zero. We estimate an...

This study is a review of the recent trends in development economics research. The focus is on the development in the recent decades as a result of increased globalization of knowledge, technologies and economies. In particular I look at the development in a number area where similar trends are...

Conventional wisdom about the relationship between income distribution and economic development has been subjected to dramatic transformations in the past century. While classical economists advanced the hypothesis that inequality is beneficial for growth, the neoclassical paradigm dismissed the...

We propose a unified growth theory to investigate the mechanics generating the economic and demographic transition, and the role of mortality differences for comparative development. The framework can replicate the quantitative patterns in historical time series data and in contemporaneous...

We analyze the role of risk-sharing institutions in transitions to modern economies. Transitions requires individual-level risk-taking in pursuing productivity-enhancing activities including using and developing new knowledge. Individual-level, idiosyncratic risk implies that distinct...