Countries rich in natural resources constitute both growth losers and growth winners. We claim that the main reason for these diverging experiences is differences in the quality of institutions. More natural resources push aggregate income down, when institutions are grabber friendly, while more...

The fight for power is not only over immediate rents, but also over advantageous positions in future power struggles. When incumbency yields an extra fighting edge, current struggles involve high stakes as a victory today may guarantee the victory also tomorrow. Such an incumbency edge may stem...

Divided societies in the developing world experience wasteful struggles for power. We study the relationship between political stability and resources wasted in the struggle within a model of competitive power contests. The model of power contests is similar in structure to models describing...

Countries rich in natural resources constitute both growth losers and growth winners. We claim that the main reason for these diverging experiences is differences in the quality of institutions. More natural resources push aggregate income down, when institutions are grabber friendly, while more...

I derive an explicit solution for the saddle path in a Ramsey growth model. The existence of a closed form expression greatly simplifies the analysis of how the parameters of the utility function affects investments and growth.

China's growth is characterized by massive capital accumulation, made possible by high and increasing domestic savings. In this paper we develop a model with the aim of explaining why savings rates have been high and increasing, and we investigate the general equilibrium effects on capital...

We study the political economy of migration policies in oil-rich Gulf countries focusing on two policy dimensions: a) the number of migrants allowed into the country and b) the assimilation of migrants, where less assimilated migrants on short-term contracts remit more. We develop a two goods...

In this article I take up the relationship between economics and law in the hundred-year period preceding the establishing of economics as a separate discipline. Rather than providing a review of historical milestones, I concentrate on some observations that illustrate the relationship between...