This paper provides evidence to argue that the difference in the social security schemes of two countries may help explain the disparity in their saving rates. We examine the argument by limiting our focus to a comparison of New Zealand and Singapore for the period 1960–1993. We choose the...

There is an increasing trend in the pattern of world migration of educated and skilled individuals leaving developing countries for developed ones. This has created much concern about a so-called “brain drain”. As the name suggests, the brain drain was believed by early commentators to be...

This paper constructs an analytically tractable model of endogenous innovation with a special focus on the effects of barriers to entry, namely patents. Conventional models of endogenous growth rely on the existence and enforcement of intellectual property rights with patents. Those legal rights...

Conventional exchange rate theory has proven unreliable in its attempts to explain the real exchange rate. In the March 2003 Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Statement two graphs appeared, one of total net migration and the other the nominal TWI exchange rate. Closer inspection revealed they were...

The paper incorporates Tobin's portfolio balance theory into an overlapping generations model of growth with endogenously valued money in which fiscal policy and/or monetary policy can change the steady state level of the capital stock. The optimal inflation rate that maximizes the steady-state...

We examine the popularity of competing topics of macroeconomics by tracing publication frequencies of these topics as recorded in the EconLit database over the period from 1969 through 1996. We find some evidence in the data that the popularity of a topic in the core journals relative to the...

The traditional emphasis on breaking down output growth according to growth in inputs and growth in TFP is misplaced. More appropriately, we should break it down according to changes in "efficiency" and "technology". These two are equilibrium concepts, rather than purely technical properties of...

Benabou (2002) strengthens the so-called Efficient Redistribution Hypothesis (ERH) by demonstrating how income redistribution can promote growth and welfare by mitigating economic waste from resource misallocation that is caused by credit market frictions to production, which is subject to...

This paper aims to provide a theoretical explanation for understanding the cross-country disparity of long-run economic growth rates based on the diversity in the initial conditions. In particular, it argues that the disparity in the inequality of human capital and income, as well as the...

I examine how economic institutions which exhibit a socio-cultural bias against women may reduce the wealth of a nation and undermine its economic wellbeing. In particular, I explore the origin of various types of gender gaps in a society and their impact on its economic welfare. My hypothesis...