This dissertation was prepared by Jasmin Gröschl and is a collection of five self-contained empirical essays. They aim at contributing to the understanding of non-standard determinants of trade and migration: historical and cultural characteristics in the United States (Chapter 1),...

This dissertation presents two essays on endogenous growth and renewable resources. The first essay explores the role of renewable resources in a tractable model of endogenous growth driven by horizontal and vertical innovation in the closed economy. The model is tractable in that it yields a...

The present thesis develops a formal model of endogenous growth that incorporates costly knowledge codification as a means of intergenerational knowledge transfer. It identifies the circumstances under which knowledge codification takes place in the long run and studies its effects on long run...

Der anhaltende Anstieg des Pro-Kopf-Einkommens ist die wichtigste Eigenschaft, die kapitalistische Länder seit mehreren Dekaden aufweisen. Grund für das anhaltende Wachstum ist hauptsächlich der technische Fortschritt. Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich vor allem damit, wie technischer...

The thesis presents several theoretical models on the causes and consequences of income growth and uncertainty.Part I deals with international trade as a major source of aggregate productivity. It presents the Melitz (2003) model and develops an integrated model of intra-industry trade and...

One of the fundamental normative questions within international trade theory is whether free trade is better than autarky and, if so, in what sense and to what extent. Surprisingly, the literature contains just a few formal models constructed under discrete time and investigating the...

The topic of this thesis is the impact of scale effects onto labor productivity and its implications. Chapter one gives an overview of the economic literature on scale effects. It starts with reviewing early economic writings; summarizes the literature of the new trade theory, the new economic...

The effect of an increase of the education level of the population on innovation and economic growth is an important topic in current political discussions. This thesis quantifies the effect with an empirically grounded system dynamics model distinguishing 30 economic sectors in Germany....