We explore the question of how political institutions and particularly democracy affect economic growth. Although empirical evidence of a positive effect of democracy on economic performance in the aggregate is weak, we provide evidence that democracy influences productivity growth in different...

We investigate how university governance affects research output, measured by patenting and international university research rankings. For both European and U.S. universities, we generate several measures of autonomy, governance, and competition for research funding. We show that university...

In a cross-section of countries, government regulation is strongly negatively correlated with social capital. We document this correlation, and present a model explaining it. In the model, distrust creates public demand for regulation, while regulation in turn discourages social capital...

In this paper we analyze the relationship between turnover-driven growth and subjective wellbeing, using cross-sectional MSA level US data. We find that the effect of creative destruction on wellbeing is (i) unambiguously positive if we control for MSA-level unemployment, less so if we do not;...

This paper introduces endogenous and directed technical change in a growth model with environmental constraints and limited resources. A unique final good is produced by combining inputs from two sectors. One of these sectors uses "dirty" machines and thus creates environmental degradation....

This paper revisits the relationship between health and growth in light of modern endogenous growth theory. We propose a unified framework that encompasses the growth effects of both the rate of improvement of health and the level of health. Based on cross-country regressions over the period...

In this paper we analyze the problem of whether and/or when to replace a leader (agent) when no monetary rewards are available, and it is the leader's competence rather than effort that is being evaluated. The only decisions that the leader takes over time are whether to undertake risky but...

Can patent protection and product market competition complement each other in enhancing incentives to innovate? In this paper, we address this question by investigating how innovation responses to a substantial policy initiative increasing product market competition interact with the strength of...

Chamley (1986) and Judd (1985) showed that, in a standard neoclassical growth model with capital accumulation and infinitely lived agents, either taxing or subsidizing capital cannot be optimal in the steady state. In this paper, we introduce innovation-led growth into the Chamley-Judd...

Can directed technical change be used to combat climate change? We construct new firm-level panel data on auto industry innovation distinguishing between "dirty" (internal combustion engine) and "clean" (e.g. electric and hybrid) patents across 80 countries over several decades. We show that...