Over the last decade, a growing body of literature dealing with the phenom-enon of the "middle-income trap" (MIT) has emerged. The term MIT usually refers to countries that have experienced rapid growth and thus reached the status of a middle-income country (MIC) in a very short period of time,...

We modify the concept of the middle-income trap (MIT) against the background of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the (future) challenges of automation (creating the concept of the "MIT 2.0") and discuss the implications for developing Asia. In particular, we analyze the impacts of...

We study the implications of two historical institutions, direct British rule, and the heterogeneous land tenure institutions implemented by the British, on disparity in present day development using district level data from India. Using nightlights per capita as a proxy for district level per...

Do new school types focusing on practical and business-related knowledge lead to increased economic performance? To analyze this question, this paper examines the introduction of two types of modern secondary education, the Gewerbeschule and its successor, the Realschule, in nineteenth-century...

In this paper we show that inconclusive results in previous empirical studies on human capital and growth might be due to omitted variable bias. Using data for about 130 countries, we show that after inclusion of variables related to the social capabilities concept of Abramovitz (1986) i.e....

By merging individual data on valuable patents granted in Prussia in the late nineteenth century with county level information on literacy and income tax revenues we show that increases in the stock of human capital not only improved workers ́productivity but also accelerated innovative...