Economists devote too much attention to international flows of goods and services and not enough to international flows of ideas. Traditional trade flows are an imperfect substitute for flows of the underlying ideas. The simplest textbook trade model shows that a welfare-enhancing move toward...

In 1961, Nicholas Kaldor used his list of six "stylized" facts both to summarize the patterns that economists had discovered in national income accounts and to shape the growth models that they were developing to explain them. Redoing this exercise today, nearly fifty years later, shows how much...

Technology has been evolving and improving over the years, thus impacting growth and competition among businesses and industries. Considering these technological advancements, three arguments are presented: technological change acts as the base for economic growth; technological change occurs...

During the 1980s, a number of unusual financial crises occurred. In Chile, for example, the financial sector collapsed, leaving the government with responsibility for extensive foreign debts. In the United States, large numbers of government-insured savings and loans became insolvent - and the...