We review the literature that links institutions, entrepreneurship, and economic growth outcomes, focusing in particular on the empirics of the links between these. Most of this literature has an economics orientation, but we also review relevant literature from other social science and from...

In this paper, we explore why there are no examples of societies with low state capacity and high economic development. We argue that such an outcome is unlikely because of the nature of investments in state capacity. Societies that become rich in the absence of a strong state invite predation...

I comment on the controversy around Garrison's secular growth, with special emphasis in Murphy's contribution in this issue. I also argue that further research on this area should focus in formally connecting Garrison's model with neoclassical growth theory

From a broad philosophical framework, this paper addresses the relation between freedom and economic performance. It argues for the thesis that, although a liberal system does not guarantee absolute harmony, is the only "convenient" and morally valid for a modern society. The core of this...

The macroeconomic policy response to the global financial and economic crisis has brought interest rates (close to) zero and the public debt to record levels despite institutionalized monetary and fiscal polity rules. The paper discusses the long-term implications of asymmetric fiscal and...

We examine the conceptualization of entrepreneurs in neo-Schumpeterian growth theory, which has reintroduced entrepreneurs into mainstream economics. Specifically, we analyze how neo-Schumpeterians relate to the contradiction between the entrepreneur-centered view of Schumpeter (1934) and the...

Should shocks be part of our macro-modeling tool kit - for example, as a way of modeling discontinuities in fiscal policy or big moves in the financial markets? What are shocks, and how can we best put them to use? In heterodox macroeconomics, shocks tend to come in two broad types, with some...

This paper analyses the hypothesis that the robust relationship between trust - as measured by the World Values Survey's question "In general, do you think that most people can be trusted, or that you can't be too careful in dealing with people?" - and economic growth, established by empirical...

The American economy changed rapidly in the last half-century. The National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) were designed before these changes started. They have stretched to accommodate new and growing service activities, but they are still organized for an industrial economy. It is hard to...

This paper shows how the inter-connections of the U.S. economy with five major economic regions in the world: Japan, China, ASEAN, Latin America, and the European Union can be captured through use of the inter-linkage coordinate space, and how such connections can be represented graphically with...