This paper highlights economic factors determining the choice of technology andopenness in an intertemporal context in the presence of Institutional constraints Inthe labor market. It considers the case in which a more aggressive - developmentstrategy involves an investment in a modern...

We present a model of growth and technology transfer based on the idea that technologies are specific to particular combinations of inputs. We argue that this model is more realistic than the usual specification, in which an improvement in any technique for producing a given good improves all...

We consider the differential incentives of the North and the South to provide patent protection to innovating firms in the North. The two regions are assumed to have a different distribution of preferences over the range of exploitable technologies. Due to the scarcity of R&D resources, the two...

Approximately $30 billion (2000$) has been spent on Superfund clean-ups of hazardous waste sites, and remediation efforts are incomplete at roughly half of the 1,500 Superfund sites. This study estimates the effect of Superfund clean-ups on local housing price appreciation. We compare housing...

This paper examines the extent to which state taxes have inhibited interstate transport of" hazardous waste for disposal in the United States. It uses panel data from the Toxics Release" Inventory (TRI) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) on interstate" shipments of waste, and...

We are the first to examine the effect of Superfund cleanups on infant health rather than focusing on proximity to a site. We study singleton births to mothers residing within 5km of a Superfund site between 1989-2003 in five large states. Our "difference in differences" approach compares birth...

Empirical tests in the 1990s found little evidence of poor countries catching up with rich - unconditional convergence - since the 1960s, and divergence over longer periods. This stylized fact spurred several developments in growth theory, including AK models, poverty trap models, and the...

Despite an abundance of cross-section, panel, and event studies, there is strikingly little convincing documentation of direct positive impacts of financial opening on the economic welfare levels or growth rates of developing countries. The econometric difficulties are similar to those that...

This paper studies the value of external commitment to policy reforms in the case of WTO/GATT accessions. The accessions often entail reforms that go beyond narrowly defined trade liberalization, and have to overcome fierce resistance in the acceding countries, as reflected in protracted...

In this paper, we examine the impact of China's growth on developing countries that specialize in manufacturing. Over 2000-2005, manufacturing accounted for 32% of China's GDP and 89% of its merchandise exports, making it more specialized in the sector than any other large developing economy....