Using a panel data set of countries this paper shows that the inequality-growth relationship follows an ordinary-U curve during the period 1970-98, in which inequality first decreases and then increases with economic growth. In addition, there is some evidence that the increasing pattern may...

In recent decades, foreign direct investment (FDI) played an important role in achieving economic growth and development especially for developing countries. FDI bring capital and introduced new technology. Moreover, the new technology can also spill over to the local firms in the host country....

Reforms that promote economic growth have also an impact on the distribution of capital and income. This paper considers the effect of a rise in the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. It uses the normalized CES function introduced by Klump and de La Grandville. A reform that...

In most resource-driven developing economies, a mineral-based formal sector and an informal resource sector (such as charcoal production) constitute the main economic activities, from which local dwellers derive their livelihoods. The paper examines the coexistence of formal and informal...

The aim of this paper is to bring together two distinct ensembles of evidence concerning, at macro level, international distributions of incomes and their dynamics, and, at micro level, the size distributions of firms and the properties of their growth rates. We also include an intermediate...

This paper presents a two-countries dynamic model of Schumpeterian growth with two innovative R&D sectors in each country: a vertical R&D sector that improves the quality of existing differentiated products and a horizontal R&D sector that creates new differentiated products. The two countries...

The paper studies the effect of liberalization of imports and foreign direct investment on Russian firms. Using the firm-level data from 1993-2000, the paper finds that competition with imports and with FDI exerts positive effect on domestic firms. Prior to the 1998 crisis, this effect is weaker...

In this paper we explore whether the constitutional text has any practical meaning for welfare policy. To examine the empirical importance of the constitution, we first constructed for 68 countries an index of constitutional commitment to social security in five areas: Old Age, disability and...

Do policies that alter the allocation of human capital across individuals affect the innovation capacity of an economy? To answer this question I extend Romer’s growth model to allow for individual heterogeneity. I find that the value of an invention rises with equality. If skills and talents...