The destruction of natural habitats has prompted concerns about the loss of biological diversity. Regrettably, however, there is no consensus among either biologists or economists on the most meaningful measures of biodiversity. Fundamentally different definitions are useful in asking...

This paper develops an evolutionary theory of adaptive growth, understood as a product of structural change and economic self-transformation, based upon processes that are closely connected with but not reducible to the growth of knowledge. The dominant connecting theme is enterprise, the...

We study network formation in a strategic setting where every agent strives for short paths to the other agents. The main parameter of our model is the marginal rate of substitution between network benefits and linking costs. We provide boundaries of stable networks for increasing and decreasing...

Standard economic theory suggests that capital should flow from rich countries to poor countries. However, capital has predominantly flowed to rich countries. The three essays in this dissertation attempt to explain this phenomenon. The first two essays suggest theoretical explanations for why...