The author surveys recent growth models that try to explain the diversity among countries in rates of economic growth. The author finds that these models can generate differences in growth rates only in the absence of international capital markets. Under these models, if there were free...

The authors develop a simple analytical framework that shows how the composition of public spending affects economic growth. Distinguishing between productive and unproductive government spending (that which complements private sector productivity and that which does not), they show that...

This paper estimates a dynamic business growth equation on a sample of small-scale manufacturers. The results suggest that excessive labor regulation, power shortages, and problems of access to finance are significant influences on industrial growth in India. The expected annual sales growth...

A puzzle in the recently stagnated economy of Jamaica is that high rates of unemployment have persisted even when real wages have been increasing. This paper examines aspects of the labor supply in an effort to understand why high rates of unemployment have existed with increasing real wages....

Output collapses, and crises are a fact of life. Severe economic downturns occur periodically, and have grave consequences on the poor. The authors propose a new measurement for economic downside risk, and severity: Growth at risk. Similar to the concept of Value at Risk in finance, Growth at...

The debate over the curse of natural resources has haunted developing countries for decades if not centuries. A review of existing empirical evidencesuggests that the curse remains elusive. The fragile negative effect of natural resources on economic growth might be due to international...

There is substantial research about cross section and time series correlations between economic growth and various economic, social, demographic and political variables. After analyzing these correlations, the paper makes the following conclusions. Exogenous increases do not seem to cause...

In this paper the authors reconsider the idea of an earnings-related pension system with reserves invested in indexed government bonds as a mechanism to both ensure financial sustainability and improve security. They start by reviewing the characterization of the sustainable rate of return of an...

The author's dynamic model of international borrowing subject to credit constraint was developed for an economy with increasing returns to physical capital. Increases in the capital stock within the nonconvex range increase debtor borrowing opportunities. Conversely, a temporary liquidity shock...