The importance of the length of state history for understanding variations in income levels, growth rates, quality of institutions and income distribution across countries has received a lot of attention in the recent literature on long-run comparative development. The literature, however, is...

This paper attempts to shed some light on the role of financial sector policies in generating new knowledge, drawing on the experience of one of the fastest growing and largest developing countries. Using time series data for India over the period 1963-2005, the results indicate that interest...

This paper tests Jared Diamond’s influential theory that an earlier transition from a hunter-gatherer society to agricultural production induces higher levels of technology adoption. Using a proxy for the geographic diffusion barriers of Neolithic technology and an index of biogeographic...

It is well established in the literature that financial development (FD) is conducive to growth, and yet the channels through which FD affects growth are not well understood. Using a unique new panel data set for 21 OECD countries over the past 140 years, this paper examines the extent to which...