Economic development in Latin America has trailed most other world regions over the past four decades despite its relatively high initial development and school attainment levels. This puzzle can be resolved by considering the actual learning as expressed in tests of cognitive skills, on which...

Economic development in Latin America has trailed most other world regions over the past four decades despite its relatively high initial development and school attainment levels. This puzzle can be resolved by considering the actual learning as expressed in tests of cognitive skills, on which...

Economic development in Latin America has trailed most other world regions over the past four decades despite its relatively high initial development and school attainment levels. This puzzle can be resolved by considering the actual learning as expressed in tests of cognitive skills, on which...

Maddison's international panel data show that technically it was the faster growth rate of the US economy that led to its overtaking the UK as economic superpower. We explore the contributing factors. Identifying the land-grant colleges system triggered by the 1862/1890 Morrill Acts (MAs) as a...

We employ the “social conditions of innovative enterprise” framework to analyze the key determinants of China’s development path from the economic reforms of 1978 to the present. First, we focus on how government investments in human capabilities and physical infrastructure provided...

To continue its economic growth and create new and better livelihoods, Africa must transform the productive side of its economy. Ongoing globalization - in trade, finance, and technology - opens up new possibilities for structural transformation, but also new risks as Africa's integration with...

In this paper we show that inconclusive results in previous empirical studies on human capital and growth might be due to omitted variable bias. Using data for about 130 countries, we show that after inclusion of variables related to the social capabilities concept of Abramovitz (1986) i.e....

The existing literature on Indian growth finds no evidence of convergence across states. This represents a puzzle given the relatively free flows of capital, labor and commodities across state borders. We use a new data set of district level income and socio-economic data to explore the...

What are the long-term economic effects of a more equal distribution of wealth? We exploit variation in historical inheritance rules for land in Germany. In some German areas, inherited land was to be shared or divided equally among children, while in others land was ruled to be indivisible....

The objective of this article is to approach the concepts of growth and economic development in order to highlight the essential aspects that differentiate them. These are fundamental concepts that define the economy of a nation and contribute for a better life for it. Economic growth does not...