Many economists, including former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, believe that the gold standard generates poor economic outcomes including output volatility, price instability, financial panics, the spread of recessions via the exchange rate, and speculation-induced collapse. These problems,...

Current discussions among major economists finds significant disagreement in defining the status of the global economy. This article examines the main themes in the context of the theories presented on savings, consumption and investment. The primitive society concept of “limited good”...

After the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system, Austria adhered to an exchange rate policy of adjustably pegging the schilling to a basket of stable currencies. Over the years the basket changed according to the respective priorities of overall economic policy and eventually shrunk to a single...

Im vorliegenden Text wird dargelegt, warum in die moderne Wirtschaft ein Wachstumszwang und Wachstumsdrang eingebaut sind. Wird eine globale minimale Wachstumsrate unterschritten, kommt es zur Krise.

We analyze the endogenous evolution of economic and political institutions and the interdependencies with the process of economic development. Favorable economic institutions ensure the appropriability of rents in form of a state of law. We study the conditions under which a state of law can be...

Did adoption of the gold standard exacerbate or diminish macroeconomic volatility? Supporters thought so, critics thought not, and theory offers ambiguous messages. A hard exchange-rate regime such as the gold standard might limit monetary shocks if it ties the hands of policy makers. But any...

This study constructs a simple, two-sector Malthusian model with agriculture and industry, and use it to identify the determinants of subsistence income. We make standard assumptions about preferences and production technology, but by contrast to existing studies we assume that children and...

This paper argues that openness to goods trade in combination with an unequal distribution of political power has been a major determinant of the comparatively slow development of resource- or land-abundant regions like South America and the Caribbean in the nineteenth century. We develop a...

We analyze the role of risk-sharing institutions in transitions to modern economies. Transitions requires individual-level risk-taking in pursuing productivity-enhancing activities including using and developing new knowledge. Individual-level, idiosyncratic risk implies that distinct...

I model life expectancy in terms of physical and human capital and technology, the fundamental economic variables described by economic growth theories. For concreteness, the Solow model and a convergence club growth model by Howitt and Mayer (2001) are used as examples. I discuss how a multiple...