This article investigates economic performance when enforceable property rights are missing and subsistence needs matter. It shows that if per capita income is sufficiently high, a windfall gain in productivity triggers behavior that leads to higher growth (the normal reaction). The same shock...

This paper develops a production function which two separate elasticities of substitution between two input factors. One of these elasticities is obtained if the factor intensity equals a particular baseline value. The second part of the paper gives an economic application and shows the...

There is strong empirical evidence that countries with lower per capita income tend to have smaller trade volumes even after controlling for aggregate income. Furthermore, poorer countries do not just trade less, but have a lower number of trading partners. In this paper, I construct and...

This paper develops a production function which two separate elasticities of substitution between two input factors. One of these elasticities is obtained if the factor intensity equals a particular baseline value. The second part of the paper gives an economic application and shows the...