This paper offers the first systematic historical evidence on the role of a central actor in modern growth theory - the engineer. It collects cross-country and state level data on the labor share of engineers for the Americas, and county level data on engineering and patenting for the US during...

"This book explores the causal link between GDP and military expenditure, and other economic and political indicators of the countries of different status of developments for the period of formal wars to till date. It surveys the interdependences between the national output and military or...

This paper carries out an empirical assessment of the relationship between social capital and the quality of economic development in Italy. The analysis draws on a dataset collected by the author including about two hundred variables representing different aspects of economic development and...

1. Origins of the economy as collective activity -- 2. Custom and path-dependence. Social capital as accumulation factor -- 3. The role of the state in economic development -- 4. Competition in Enlightenment economists -- 5. On the productiveness of welfare expenditures -- 6. Keynesian Policy...