The paper considers the transformation of the political system as countries pass through the Grand Transition from a poor developing country to a wealthy developed country. In the process most countries change from an authoritarian to a democratic political system. This is shown by using the...

Channeling human resources into the right occupations has historically been a key to economic prosperity. Occupational choices are not only driven by the material rewards associated with the various occupations, but also by the esteem that they confer. We propose a model of endogenous growth in...

The agricultural transition, the demographic transition and the democratic transition explain the development paths of the share of agriculture, the population growth rate, and the standard democracy indices. We demonstrate that two related estimation models give contradictory results when...

This paper studies the relation between patterns of long-term economic growth and indeterminacy of equilibrium in an endogenous growth model with human capital formation. By introducing sector-specific externalities and a non-separable utility function into the Lucas model, we show that multiple...

Ecuador's dollarization was no marginal optimization decision. It was fundamental, dramatic and designed to completely transform central elements of the economy. Since orthodox, a-historical perspectives are inadequate in explaining such significant policy reversals, the paper uses a...

This review of the book by Thomas Piketty, The capital in the XXI century, presents the central themes of the work and exposes its scope on the relationship between inequality and wealth. In particular a positive reflections on the progressive tax is added.

Nowadays, ethics seems to be a very important issue when speaking about the way of doing business. Many economists ask if it is necessary to study the way ethics are transmitted to the next generations of businessmen and if business ethics comes from education. Finally, does it have anything to...

Standard models of fiscal federalism suggest many benefits of decentralization in developing economies, and there has been a recent push toward decentralization around the world. However, developing countries presently still have less decentralization, particularly on the revenue side, than both...