In the centuries leading up to the Industrial Revolution, Western Europe gradually pulled ahead of other world regions in terms of technological creativity, population growth, and income per capita. We argue that superior institutions for the creation and dissemination of productive knowledge...

This paper analyzes the evolution of an economy where growth is driven by increased specialization caused by the geographical expansion of markets. It proves that such Smithian growth exhibits generic threshold behavior. Below a critical density of transport linkages, the economy is split into...

The one-sector Solow-Ramsey model is the most popular model of long-run economic growth. This paper argues that a two-sector approach, in which technological progress in the production of durable goods exceeds that in the rest of the economy, provides a far better picture of the long-run...