The origins of "capital fundamentalism' - the notion that physical capital accumulation is the primary determinant of economic growth - have been often ascribed to H arrod's and Domar's proposition that the rate of growth is the product of the saving rate and of the output-capital ratio. I t is...

In the late 1970s Paul Samuelson drafted the outline of a paper, never published, with a critical assessment of the theoretical innovations of postwar development economics. He found the subject essentially intractable. The present paper discusses how that assessment fits in Samuelson's...

It is often claimed that entrepreneurship is indispensable for economic growth and development. These claims are mostly generated by scholars working in the field of entrepreneurship and management studies. In contrast, development economics scholars seem to be less concerned about...

Conventional wisdom about the relationship between income distribution and economic development has been subjected to dramatic transformations in the past century. While Classical economists advanced the hypothesis that inequality is beneficial for economic development, the Neoclassical...

Conventional wisdom about the relationship between income distribution and economic development has been subjected to dramatic transformations in the past century. While classical economists advanced the hypothesis that inequality is beneficial for growth, the neoclassical paradigm dismissed the...

We propose a unified growth theory to investigate the mechanics generating the economic and demographic transition, and the role of mortality differences for comparative development. The framework can replicate the quantitative patterns in historical time series data and in contemporaneous...

While it is widely presumed that development progress in so-called fragile states is lagging behind, only very limited empirical analysis exists that investigates to what extent the levels and trends in the MDGs differ significantly between fragile and other developing countries, and between...

What became the post-War era's "less developed countries" (LDCs) varied enormously in their pre- modern or pre-industrial economic conditions. We hypothesize that if these countries are arrayed on a continuum of pre-industrial development such as that of the demographer Ester Boserup, countries...

We analyze the role of risk-sharing institutions in transitions to modern economies. Transitions requires individual-level risk-taking in pursuing productivity-enhancing activities including using and developing new knowledge. Individual-level, idiosyncratic risk implies that distinct...