This paper analyzes the historical determinants and long-term persistence of social capital, as well as its effect on economic development, by looking at the legacy of the commons in a Spanish region. In medieval times, common goods were granted to townships and were managed collectively by...

This paper studies the difference between public production and public finance of public goods in a dynamic general equilibrium setup. By public finance, we mean that the public good is produced by private providers with the government financing their costs. When the model is calibrated to match...

We study a model of human capital driven growth, where the parent's human capital serves as a productive input in the child's human capital production only when that of the former exceeds a minimum level required to intellectually contribute to the child's learning. Private and public...

This paper proposes a possible framework for identifying excessive investment. Based on this method, it finds evidence that some types of investment are becoming excessive in China, particularly in inland provinces. In these regions, private consumption has on average become more dependent on...

Students around the world are going to school but are not learning – an emerging gap in human capital formation. To understand this gap, this paper introduces a new data set measuring learning in 164 countries and territories. The data cover 98 percent of the world's population from 2000 to...

The paper studies the effect of additional government revenues on political corruption and on the quality of politicians, both with theory and data. The theory is based on a version of the career concerns model of political agency with endogenous entry of political candidates. The evidence...

As by product of economic growth, jobs are indeed transformational. In other words, efficiency increases as workers get better at what they do (as more productive jobs appear and less productive ones disappear). In fact societies flourish as jobs bring together people from different ethnic and...

This paper studies the difference between public production and public finance of public goods in a dynamic general equilibrium setup. By public finance, we mean that the public good is produced by private providers with the government financing their costs. When the model is calibrated to match...

Investment in network infrastructure – the energy, water, transport and telecommunication networks – which performs a vital role for the functioning of the economy, can contribute to raising growth and social welfare. But more is not always better. While the paper shows that investment in...

Öffentliche Investitionen werden im Gegensatz zu öffentlichem Konsum häufig als wachstumsfördernd angesehen. Ausgaben für "immaterielle" Güter wie etwa Bildung werden jedoch nicht als Investitionen angesehen, obwohl diese potenziell wachstumswirksam sind. Gleichzeitig werden auch Ausgaben...