This paper extends the 'expanding-varieties' growth model in a two-countries-two-goods setup, and describes the dynamics of growth rates and terms of trade when the industry-based economy is the innovation leader, while the tourism-based economy is the follower (i.e. increases the number of...

This paper analyzes the welfare benefits from falling relative prices of IT (information technology) goods across a wide range of countries. We find, using two separate methodologies and datasets, that welfare benefits mainly accrue to users of IT, not their producers, because of falling...

This research explores the effects of distance to the pre-industrial technological frontiers on comparative economic development in the course of human history. It establishes theoretically and empirically that distance to the frontier had a persistent non-monotonic effect on a country's...

We revisit Western Europe's record with labor-productivity convergence and tentatively extrapolate its implications for the future path of Eastern Europe. The poorer Western European countries caught up with the richer ones through both higher rates of physical capital accumulation and greater...

The authors revisit Western Europe's record with labor-productivity convergence and tentatively extrapolate its implications for the future path of Eastern Europe. The poorer Western European countries caught up with the richer ones through both higher rates of physical capital accumulation and...

In a classical world where prices of both northern manufactures and southern raw materials are determined by market demand and supply, technical progress in one region leads to a terms-of-trade improvement of the other region irrespective of whether technical progress is labor-saving or...