The paper describes tests of hypotheses from economic history concerning the significance of financial development as a determinant of economic growth. It goes beyond the existing studies in drawing on a large panel data set covering 93 countries from 1970-90 and includes a new proxy for the...

To clarify the causal links between financial activity and economic growth, three theoretical models are analyzed and a structural equation path models is estimated. In the modeling part, poverty traps result from large fixed costs or high proportions of real investment to run a financial...

An endogenous growth model with a financial sector is formulated, and empirical analyses are conducted. The model exhibits structural shifts and breaks caused by institutional change, suggesting that a linear approach is inadequate. To address this point empirically, we fit data for 90 countries...

This paper describes tests of several hypotheses put forward in the literature on the significance of education as a determinant of economic development. It is shown that the generally positive impact of education on economic development is severely impaired by 'educational imbalance' in the...

While Switzerland's recent growth of employment was high in historical and international perspective, the reasons for this "job miracle" were not well understood. As the "miracle" was not anticipated by economic forecasters, it consequently resulted in systematic and persistent forecast errors....

From a theoretical perspective, the output gap is probably the most comprehensive and convincing concept to describe the cyclical position of an economy. Unfortunately, for practical purposes, the concept depends on the determination of potential output, which is an inherently unobservable...

The paper reconstructs the origins of the quantity theory of money and its applications. Against the background of the history of money, it is shown that the theory was flexible enough to adapt to institutional change and thus succeeded in maintaining its relevance. To this day, it is useful as...

This paper examines the impact of demographic factors on saving, investment, and external balances. We derive a number of semi-structural equations from national accounting principle and the principle that external balances for the world as a whole must sum to zero. The resulting equations...

From a theoretical perspective, the output gap is probably the most comprehensive and convincing concept to describe the cyclical position of an economy. Unfortunately, for practical purposes, the concept depends on the determination of potential output, which is an inherently unobservable...