The theory of economic development was an exception to Paul Samuelson's claim of being a "generalist" in economics. It was a hard subject to tackle analytically because of the intrinsic difficulty of some of the concepts involved, such as increasing returns and long-term economic evolution....

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...

Paul Samuelson was attracted to the economic dynamics of South American countries because of the links between economic performance and political factors. He discussed the influence of “populist democracy” on Argentina's relative stagnation, which, he argued in the 1970s and early 1980s,...

The paper discusses how early economists, sometimes informed by Alexander Humboldt’s pioneer detailed report on a tropical country (Mexico), interpreted the connections between natural resources, institutions and growth. The apparent paradox of a negative relation between natural wealth and...