Currently, evidence on the ‘resource curse’ yields a conundrum. While there is much cross-section evidence to support the curse hypothesis, time series analyses using vector autoregressive (VAR) models have found that commodity booms raise the growth of commodity exporters. This paper adopts...

This research explores the historical roots of the division of labor in pre-modern societies. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that intra-ethnic diversity had a positive effect on the division of labor across ethnicities in the pre-modern era. Exploiting a variety of...

This research establishes that migratory distance from the cradle of anatomically modern humans in East Africa and its effect on the distribution of genetic diversity across countries has a hump-shaped effect on nighttime light intensity per capita as observed by satellites, reflecting the...

This paper empirically tests the predictions of the Malthusian theory with respect to both population dynamics and income per capita stagnation in the pre-Industrial Revolution era. The theory suggests that improvements in technology during this period generated only temporary gains in income...

This paper examines the central hypothesis of the influential Malthusian theory, according to which improvements in the technological environment during the pre-industrial era had generated only temporary gains in income per capita, eventually leading to a larger, but not significantly richer,...

We revisit the idea that colonized countries that were more (less) economically advanced in 1500 became poorer (richer, respectively) by the late 20th century. Using data on place of origin of today's country populations and the urbanization and population density measures used by Acemoglu et...

The hypothesis that economic freedom and related variables are significant determinants of real per capita income and growth is critically evaluated. Economic freedom is found necessary for higher levels of per capita income and growth largely in terms of threshold effects as opposed to...

The paper uses the recently available data on growth rates, democracy, protectionism, and wars over the period 1820 to 2000 to look at the determinants of economic growth over the long-term. It is motivated by the following questions: what is the effect of democracy on growth, was colonialism...

This paper reviews the experience of economic growth during the twentieth century with a view to highlighting implications for both growth economists and policy-makers. The unprecedented divergence in income levels between the OECD economies and many developing countries is documented but so too...

This article re-examines the relationship between constitutional monarchy and economic growth in Europe. We suggest that economic growth explains the survival of constitutional monarchy rather than vice versa. The empirical results are consistent with our hypothesis