This paper considers the impact of macroeconomic and microeconomic policy tools on enterprise activities within an economy in the process of economic reform. Assuming a dual exchange rate regime and the type of increased enterprise autonomy introduced as components of partial economic reform as...

This paper studies structural transformation of Soviet Russia in 1928-1940 from an agrarian to an industrial economy through the lens of a two-sector neoclassical growth model. We construct a large dataset that covers Soviet Russia during 1928-1940 and Tsarist Russia during 1885-1913. We use a...

"We prove that the change in welfare of a representative consumer is summarized by the current and expected future values of the standard Solow productivity residual. The equivalence holds if the representative household maximizes utility while taking prices parametrically. This result justifies...

"This paper investigates the impacts of cotton marketing reforms on farm productivity, a key element for poverty alleviation, in rural Zambia. The reforms comprised the elimination of the Zambian cotton marketing board that was in place since 1977. Following liberalization, the sector adopted an...

This paper assesses the standard data on output, labor input, and capital input, which imply one big wave' in multi-factor productivity (MFP) growth for the United States since 1870. The wave-like pattern starts with slow MFP growth in the late 19th century, then an acceleration peaking in...

We reconcile international trade theory with findings of enormous plant-level heterogeneity in exporting and productivity. Our model extends basic Ricardian theory to accommodate many countries, geographic barriers, and imperfect competition. Fitting the model to bilateral trade among the United...

A political miracle occurred when Germany was reunited, and at first glance an economic miracle has followed. Real incomes in the east have now reached the western level, and investment per capita has been much higher than in the west. However, every third deutschmark spent in the east has been...

Previous research suggests that "direct" reforms to the liability system -- reforms designed to reduce the level of compensation to potential claimants -- reduce medical expenditures without important consequences for patient health outcomes. We extend this research by identifying the mechanisms...

Convergence in per capita income across countries turns on whether technological knowledge spillover are global or local. This paper estimates the amount of spillover from R&D expenditures in major industrialized countries on a geographic basis. A new data set is used which encompasses most of...