In this paper we study the productivity slowdown taking as a starting point the nonlinear shape of the growth path. We relate the slowdown to the evolution of the world income distribution and show that i) in the periods before and after the oil shocks growth is nonlinear; ii) the productivity...

The British Industrial Revolution triggered a reversal in the social order whereby the landed elite was replaced by industrial capitalists rising from the middle classes as the economically dominant group. Many observers have linked this transformation to the contrast in values between a...

We study a general equilibrium model in which entrepreneurs finance investment with optimal financial contracts. Because of enforceability problems, contracts are constrained efficient. We show that limited enforceability amplifies the impact of technological innovations on aggregate output....

This paper proposes a reassessment of the export-led growth hypothesis focusing on conditioning effects from countries initial level of GDP per worker, human capital stock, and exports share in GDP. For this purpose a panel threshold regression technique was applied over selected cross-country...

This paper reviews the growing body of evidence on the relative economic standing of different regions of the world in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In general, it does not find support for Eurocentric claims regarding Western Europe’s early economic lead. The Eurocentric...

The neoclassical growth model was extended by Mankiw, Romer and Weil (1992) to estimate the level effects of additional factors like human capital. We suggest a further extension to capture their permanent growth effects. Time series data from Fiji are used to show that the growth effect of...

This paper examines the historical evolution of the relationship between population growth, technological change, and the standard of living. It considers several unified models that encompass the transition between three distinct regimes that have characterized the process of economic...

Industrialization allowed the industrialized world of today to escape from a regime characterized by low economic and population growth and to enter a regime of high economic and population growth. To explain this transition, we construct a two-sector growth model with endogenous fertility and...

We present a model in which two of the most important features of the long-run growth process are reconciled: the massive changes in the structure of production and employment; and the Kaldor facts of economic growth. We assume that households expand their consumption along a hierarchy of needs...

The paper presents a model where the interplay between fertility, child labour, and education can explain economic stagnation when parents live in an environment of high child mortality. If in contrast child mortality is low, the solution of the parental decision problem leads to perpetual...