A large body of evidence suggests that poor countries tend to invest less (have lower PPP - adjusted investment rates) and to face higher relative prices of investment goods. It has been suggested that this happens either because these countries have lower TFP in the investment - good producing...

This paper examines the effect of agricultural development on a country's overall development and growth experience. In most poor countries, large fractions of land, labor, and other productive resources are devoted to producing food for subsistence needs. This 'food problem' can delay a...

In most poor countries, large majorities of the population live in rural areas and earn their livelihoods primarily from agriculture. Many rural people in the developing world are poor, and conversely, most of the world's poor people inhabit rural areas. Agriculture also accounts for a...

This paper examines the number of licensed private cars in the economy per unit of GDP, or car intensity, as an intrinsic component of car use that may be underlying the observed peak car phenomenon. Using data on 88 countries from 1950 to 2010, I demonstrate that car intensity evolves in a...

This paper introduces wealth-dependent time preference into a simple model of endogenous growth. The model generates adjustment dynamics in line with the historical facts on savings and economic growth in Europe from the High Middle Ages to today. Along a virtuous cycle of development more...

This paper examines the effect of agricultural development on a country's overall development and growth experience. In most poor countries, large fractions of land, labor, and other productive resources are devoted to producing food for subsistence needs. This 'food problem' can delay a...

The benefits from the New Economy should accrue as improvements in productivity and economic growth. But while the use of information and communication technology seems to have had a substantial impact on the performance of the United States economy, the evidence for other countries is much...

This paper provides empirical evidence that there is no absolute convergence between the GDP per capita of the developing countries since 1950. Relying upon recent econometric methodologies (nonstationary long-memory models, wavelet models and time-varying factor representation models), we show...