Knowledge accumulation in the richer countries provides them with comparative advantages in higher productivity products. The countries that import the higher productivity intermediate products and capital equipments produced in the richer countries, however, derive benefits from knowledge...

Some of the topical problems of the harmonization of the global economy are outlined.Harmony is treated in Physical Macroeconomics as a dynamic balance of all energy and informational factors. Harmony is an objective property of the sustainable development of all living systems.Primarily,...

The paper continues a series of publications on the natural science foundations of the global economy. Physical macroeconomics treats the global economy as a living system, formed during biological and socio-economic evolution.In this Part VI of physical macroeconomics, qualitatively...

[enter Abstract Body]In this chapter, we review the recent and growing literature on medium-term growth patterns. This strand of research emerged from the realization that for most countries economic development is a highly unstable process; over a few decades, a typical country enjoys periods...

The worst global downturn since the Great Depression has caused ballooning budget deficits in most nations, as tax revenues collapse and governments bail out financial institutions and attempt countercyclical fiscal policy. With notable exceptions, most economists accept the desirability of...

This paper challenges recent empirical findings that democratic institutions have a negligible direct effect on economic growth. We delve into numerous historical sources and democracy indicators to identify the countries and timing of recent democratization episodes. We then employ a...

This paper examines the impact of terrorism on economic growth and capital formation using data for 152 countries from 1970 to 2003.During the past thirty-five years, the world has witnessed nearly twenty thousand terrorist incidents. The increasingly global scope of terrorism has raised...

This paper proposes a neoclassical growth model of a small open economy, connecting international trade to real GDP growth and structural transformation from agriculture to non-agriculture. The calibrated model generates 'growth miracles,' to which the contributors are learning by doing and...

It is well established in the literature that, on average, economic growth is associated with reductions in income poverty. However, evidence suggests that some countries see a much faster decline in poverty with the same level of growth in income. The objective of this paper is to analyse the...

The variance of the logarithm, often used to test for s-convergence, does not respect the properties expected for an inequality measure and it has problematic implications for world growth. Empirical tests for b-convergence are so weak that b-convergence can be observed simultaneously when one...