This paper provides a theory that explains the cross-country distribution of average years of schooling, as well as the so called human capital premium puzzle. In our theory, credit frictions as well as differences in access to public education, fertility and mortality turn out to be the key...

We study the shape of the aggregate production function in the presence of land-intensive agriculture. The traditional Cobb-Douglas formulation is corrected to include a "diversification component." The implied TFP differences across countries are larger than what Solow residuals suggest.

Many economic and non-economic variables such as income, wealth, firm size, or city size often distribute Pareto in the upper tail. It is well established that Gibrat's law can explain this phenomenon, but Gibrat's law often does not hold. This note characterizes a class of processes, one that...

The main lotteries individuals face during their lifetime are country and family of birth. How much consumption growth would a newborn sacrifice to avoid these lotteries? We find that he may be willing to sacrifice a large fraction, if not all, to avoid them. Critical elements for the results...