This research focuses on the role of human capital in explaining cross-country productivity differences, and in shaping the world allocation of capital stocks. A widely held view is that a country's ability to absorb and implement technologies is tied to its human capital. We construct a novel...

This dissertation makes a contribution to regional studies by constructing Multi-Factor Productivity (MFP) growth measures at the state level for the US. The first essay of the dissertation exploits a dual growth accounting technique to calculate sector-specific MFP growth for all US states from...

A central issue in the growth literature is whether initial conditions matter for income disparity among nations. If they don't, then countries will converge to a single regime once the structural features of the economies are controlled for. If they do, then countries will converge to multiple...

This dissertation empirically identifies exogenous changes in monetary policy and estimates their effects on the economy. The framework is the Romer and Romer (2004) quasi-narrative approach to identifying exogenous changes in monetary policy. The first essay replicates the Romer-Romer (RR)...

I investigate the effects of two important channels of technology diffusion (i) Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and (ii) import of capital goods, on the total factor productivity (TFP) growth. My first essay contributes to the literature by empirically investigating the role of initial distance...

This dissertation investigates the reasons behind international price dispersion. The first essay, International Price Dispersion and the Direction of Trade, discusses the importance of trade cost as a determinant of international price dispersion. The importance of trade costs in segmenting...

This study investigates the implications of firm's demand for real balances from the production and monetary economics perspective. Money is a component of production as a factor increasing efficiency in exchange in input markets. Firms may improve efficiency in production by holding real money...

This dissertation investigates the properties of macroeconomic fluctuations in a small open economy under the presence of sovereign default risk. International borrowing and lending arise from the interaction between a risk averse sovereign representative agent in a small open economy trying to...