There has been a wide debate on whether democracy actually has an effect on economic outcomes, and especially on international trade. With a new estimation strategy, we analyze this relationship taking a look at the distribution of countries´ trading activity. Using a panel quantile estimation...

This paper proposes a model that links households and firms, as usual, by markets for factors and goods and, additionally, by a banking sector that channels households' funds to firms and eliminates idiosyncratic risk. In equilibrium, agency costs and tax benefits of corporate debt are...

A neoclassical growth model is augmented by a corporate sector, financial intermediation, and a set of tax rates. In this setting, capital structure is determined by the interplay between an advantage of debt finance resulting from the tax system and a disadvantage resulting from asymmetric...

This paper consolidates two previously disconnected literatures. It integrates R&D-based innovations into a unified growth framework with micro-founded fertility and schooling behavior. The theory suggests a refined view on the human factor in productivity growth. It helps to explain the...

This article proposes a theory for the gradual evolution of knowledge diffusion and growth over the very long run. A feedback mechanism between capital accumulation and the ease of knowledge diffusion explains a long epoch of stasis and an epoch of high growth linked by a gradual economic...

Unified growth theory predicts that the timing of the fertility transition is a key determinant of contemporary comparative development, as it marks the onset of the take-off to sustained growth. Neoclassical growth theory presupposes a take-off, and explains comparative development by...

We generalize a trade model with firm-specific heterogeneity and R&D-based growth to allow for an endogenous education decision of households and an endogenously evolving population. Our framework is able to explain cross-country differences in living standards and trade intensities by the...

We investigate the effects of demographic change and human capital accumulation on trade and productivity of domestic firms. In so doing we integrate a micro-founded education and fertility decision of households into a model of international trade with firm heterogeneity. Our framework leads to...

In this paper I investigate the nexus between life time utility (life satisfaction) and income predicted by the standard model of endogenous economic growth under different behavioral assumptions. The solution rationalizes why the empirical association between income and life satisfaction is...

This paper proposes a theory for the gradual evolution of knowledge diffusion and growth over the very long run. A feedback mechanism between capital accumulation and the ease of knowledge diffusion explains a long epoch of (quasi-) stasis and an epoch of high growth linked by a gradual economic...