Higgins et al. (2006) report several statistically significant partial correlates with U.S. per capita income growth. However, Levine and Renelt (1992) demonstrate that such correlations are hardly ever robust to changing the combination of conditioning variables included. We ask whether the...

We use US county level data (3,058 observations) from 1970 to 1998 to explore the relationship between economic growth and the extent of government employment at three levels: federal, state and local. We find that increases in federal, state and local government employments are all negatively...

We use U.S. county-level data to estimate convergence rates for 22 individual states. We find significant heterogeneity. E.g., the California estimate is 19.9 percent and the New York estimate is 3.3 percent. Convergence rates are essentially uncorrelated with income levels.

This paper links the newest generation of nighttime satellite images, which offer a resolution 45 times higher than the previous generation, to nationwide administrative panel-data on population and income from the United States and Brazil for the years 2012-2019. Using this fine-grained data, I...

This paper links the newest generation of nighttime satellite images, which offer a resolution 45 times higher than the previous generation, to nationwide administrative panel-data on population and income from the United States and Brazil for the years 2012-2019. Using this fine-grained data, I...

This paper expands on our understanding of the lights-income relationship by linking the newest generation of nighttime satellite images derived from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometry Suite, VIIRS, to nationwide, panel data on population and income from 2012-2018 for both Brazil and the...

This paper expands on our understanding of the lights-income relationship by linking the newest generation of nighttime satellite images derived from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometry Suite, VIIRS, to nationwide, panel data on population and income from 2012-2018 for both Brazil and the...

This paper links the newest generation of nighttime satellite images, which offer a resolution 45 times higher than the previous generation, to nationwide administrative panel-data on population and income from the United States and Brazil for the years 2012-2020. Using this fine-grained data, I...

In this paper we outline (i) why sigma-convergence may not accompany beta-convergence, (ii) discuss evidence of beta-convergence in the U.S., and (iii) use U.S. county-level data containing over 3,000 cross-sectional observations to demonstrate that sigma-convergence cannot be detected at the...

We use Mississippi county-level data on (per capita) income and the percentages of populations that are Black (henceforth "Black") to examine the relationship between race and economic growth. The analysis is also conditioned on 40 other economic and socio-demographic variables. Given a negative...