Pooling data for 1905 to 2000, we find no systematic relationship between top income shares and economic growth in a panel of 12 developed nations observed for between 22 and 85 years. After 1960, however, a one percentage point rise in the top decile's income share is associated with a...

This paper reconstructs Revealed Comparative Advantages (RCA) and Economic Complexity Indices (ECI) for a large number of countries in the second half of the 19th century, by using data from the catalogues of five universal exhibitions held in Paris in 1855, 1867, 1878, 1889, and 1900. This...

I model life expectancy in terms of physical and human capital and technology, the fundamental economic variables described by economic growth theories. For concreteness, the Solow model and a convergence club growth model by Howitt and Mayer (2001) are used as examples. I discuss how a multiple...

This study provides evidence that culture understood as values and beliefs moves very slowly. Despite massive institutional change, values and beliefs in transition countries have not changed much over the last 20 years. Evidence suggests that culture is affected by the long run historical past,...

We examine the diffusion of more than twenty technologies across twenty-three of the world's leading industrial economies. Our evidence covers major technology classes such as textile production, steel manufacture, communications, information technology, transportation, and electricity for the...

New institutionalism has had considerable success during the last decade in shepherding the debate on sustained economic development. If the sociopolitical, legal and economic transformations in the Anglo-Saxon world in the last three decades prove anything, however, it is that the late Mancur...

The present study contributes to the analysis of economic growth by comparing labour ant total factor productivity (TFP) in France, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States in the very long run (since 1890) and in the medium run (since 1980). During the past century, the United States has...

As embodied in the concept of "inequality extraction" (Branko Milanovic), it is not possible to increase inequality (especially income inequality) in a society sustainably to levels beyond what is actually socially acceptable (and even less to levels endangering physical subsistence of parts of...

This paper answers fundamental questions that have preoccupied modern economic thought since the 18th century. What is the aggregate real rate of return in the economy? Is it higher than the growth rate of the economy and, if so, by how much? Is there a tendency for returns to fall in the...

We provide the first long-run dataset of regional employment structures and regional GDP and GDP per capita in 1990 international dollars, stretching over more than 100 years. These data allow us to compare regions over time, among each other, and to other parts of the world. After some brief...