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...

Vulnerability to scarcity or to reduction of natural capital depends on defensive substitution possibilities that, in turn, are affected by the availability of other productive factors. However, in several developing countries asset distribution tends to be highly skewed. Taking into ac- count...

This paper reviews the empirical literature on growth and convergence that has addressed the importance of spatial factors. An important distinction in this literature is the one between absolute and relative location. The literature on absolute location predominantly uses non-spatial...

This research examines variations in the diffusion of agriculture across countries and archaeological sites. The theory suggests that a society's history of climatic shocks shaped the timing of its adoption of farming. Specifically, as long as climatic disturbances did not lead to a collapse of...

We develop a dynamic discrete choice model of a self-interested and unchecked ruler making decisions regarding the exploitation of a resource-rich country. This dictator makes the recursive choice between either investing domestically to live off the productivity of the country while facing the...

We develop a dynamic discrete choice model of a self-interested and unchecked ruler making decisions regarding the exploitation of a resource-rich country. This dictator makes the recursive choice between either investing domestically to live off the productivity of the country while facing the...

We develop an aggregated model to study rational environmental adaptation policies that compensate negative consequences of certain environmental hazards and changes. The model distinguishes the three categories of adaptation measures that (a) compensate the decrease of the environmental amenity...

Uzbekistan has huge opportunities, offering a potential for a considerable economic development. Among the other sectors, agriculture plays a specific role in economic development because of its significant share in total employment and GDP. The aim of this paper is to analyze main sectoral...

This paper uses per capita data for 132 countries over 1960–2010 to estimate elasticities of sectoral energy use with respect to national gross domestic product (GDP). We estimate models in both levels and growth rates and use our estimates to sectorally decompose the aggregate energy-GDP...

This article investigates economic performance when enforceable property rights are missing and basic needs matter for consumption. It suggests a new view of the so-called voracity effect according to which windfall gains in productivity induce behavior that leads to lower economic growth....