This paper explores the role of within group social comparisons on the life satisfaction of different racial and ethnic groups in the US. For Whites, we find that higher group income levels are associated with lower levels of life satisfaction, a result that is consistent with a preference for...

After a decade of research, the effect of inequality on long-run economic growth remains unresolved, in part because researchers have treated omitted variable bias as an estimation problem rather than a deeper question of causality. In this article we argue that the key omitted variable is the...

We estimate a finite mixture model in which countries are sorted into groups based on the similarity of the conditional distributions of their growth rates. We strongly reject the hypothesis that all countries follow a common growth process in favor of a model in which there are two classes of...

This paper constructs a simple model that can account for both the negative relationship between growth and income inequality observed in the cross-country data and the positive relationship observed within countries over time. The model employs a dual-economy structure with formal and informal...

In this article, the author considers the merits of two classes of profit maximization problems: those involving perfectly competitive firms with quadratic and cubic cost functions. While relatively easy to develop and solve, problems based on quadratic cost functions are too simple to address a...

Property rights are one of the most fundamental and highly robust institutions supporting economic performance. However, the channels through which property rights are achieved are not adequately identified. This paper is a first step toward unbundling the black box of property rights into a...

Elderly have been increasingly targeted as a group to enhance economic development and the tax base in communities. While recent literature on elderly migration tends to focus on how elderly migration patterns are influenced by state fiscal variables, the reverse effect from elderly population...