Consider the following facts. In 1950, the richest countries attained an average of 8 years of schooling whereas the poorest countries 1.3 years, a large 6-fold difference. By 2005, the difference in schooling declined to 2-fold because schooling increased faster in poor than in rich countries....

We construct a dynamic Heckscher-Ohlin model in which the initial distribution of production factors across economies makes factor price equalization impossible. The model produces dynamics similar to those of the neoclassical growth model. However, free trade prevents identically parameterized...

The business cycle accounting "wedge" methodology is used to identify the mechanisms driving the rapid growth of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan since 1966. Analysis with a neoclassical growth model reveals that growth in these economies has been sustained by different mechanisms...

Trends in gross domestic product (GDP) and total factor productivity (TFP) growth in the former socialist economies seem to indicate that these economies were converging to unusually low long-run growth rates in the late 1980s. In this paper we develop an endogenous growth model of...

What part of the high oil price can be explained by structural transformation in the developing world? Will continued structural transformation in these countries result in a permanently higher oil price? To address these issues I identify an inverted-U shaped relationship in the data between...

From 1960 to 2003, Turkey has underperformed relative to several Western economies, in terms of hours worked and output per hour. Our sectoral analysis illustrates two points. First, Turkey's large drop in hours is due to the fact that the substantial decline in agricultural hours has not been...

Plant-level data from U.S. textile industries indicate (1) significant cross-sectional dispersion in plant-level productivity within narrowly defined industries, (2) that highly productive plants grow faster and are less likely to exit, (3) dispersion in productivity is larger in industries with...

This paper examines the Japanese economy in the 1990s, a decade of economic stagnation. We find that the problem is not a breakdown of the financial system, as corporations large and small were able to find financing for investments. There is no evidence of profitabkle investment opportunities...

This paper develops and analyzes a macroeconomic model in which aggregate growth and fluctuations arise from the discovery and diffusion of new technologies; there are no exogenous aggregate shocks. The temporal behavior of aggregates is driven by individuals' efforts to innovate and/or make use...

This paper integrates tax evasion into a standard AK growth model with public capital. In the model, the government optimizes the tax rate, while individuals optimize tax evasion. It studies tax rate, tax evasion and economic growth, and compares them with otherwise identical economies except...