This article provides a knowledge-based and energy-centred unified growth model of the transition from limited to sustained economic growth. We model the transition between: (i) a pre-modern organic regime defined by limited growth in per capita output, high fertility, low levels of human...

The main divisions of the theoretical economic growth literature that we study today include exogenous and endogenous growth models that have transitioned through a number of notions and criticisms. Proponents of exogenous growth models argue that technological progress is the key determinant of...

To explain the process of development historically documented, we consider a model with three economic sectors (agriculture, manufacturing and services) characterized by different productivity gains and by saturation levels in the demands of agricultural and manufactured goods. Our parsimonious...

This paper studies the interplay between left-handedness and economic development. To explain the decline and subsequent recovery of left-handedness observed over the last few centuries in the Western world, we propose a theory in which economic development influences the prevalence of...

This paper integrates in a unified and tractable framework some of the key insights of the field of international trade and economic growth. It examines a sequence of theoretical models that share a common description of technology and preferences but differ on their assumptions about trade...

This paper explores the implications of Unified Growth Theory for the origins of existing differences in income per capita across countries. The theory sheds light on three fundamental layers of comparative development. It identifies the factors that have governed the pace of the transition from...

This paper presents a neoclassical-growth model in which long-run growth is driven by the continuous specialization of capital. The specialization of capital is the allocation of capital into sets of specialized capital and the coordination required for different individuals to use the same set...

In “Long-Term Growth as a Sequence of Exponential Modes,” Robin Hanson presents a characteristically pathbreaking analysis, of economic growth over the history of the genus Homo. The paper shows that, across 2 million years, the data series for gross world product (GWP) can be modeled as a...

We provide an outline for viewing the middle-income trap through the lens of the Schumpeterian growth paradigm, which places the notion of creative destruction at the center of economic growth. Economic growth and development come from the interplay between changes in economic structure and...

This article studies the role of technology drivers in catching up at different stages of development. Countries can be at different stages of development when entering in a new catching-up cycle. Thus, the technological drivers of growth [technological capabilities, external spillovers,...