A utilitarian measure of economic growth combines changes in the distribution of income with changes in real income per person to show how much better off people are becoming over time. It is the rate of growth of the dollar value of average utility of income. As such , it is seen differently by...

During the recovery from the recent crisis, the general role of lending in economic growth, and particularly in the recovery from financial crises, has become an important issue. In this paper, we review the major differences between creditless recovery episodes and recoveries accompanied by...

The Great Moderation, the significant decline in the variability of economic activity, provides a most remarkable feature of the macroeconomic landscape in the last twenty years. A number of papers document the beginning of the Great Moderation in the US and the UK. In this paper, we use the...

This study examines the effect of the Great Moderation on the relationship between U.S. output growth and its volatility over the period 1947 to 2006. First, we consider the possible effects of structural change in the volatility process. In so doing, we employ GARCH-M and ARCH-M specifications...

Using panel data for a large number of countries, we find that economic contractions are not followed by offsetting fast recoveries. Trend output lost is not regained, on average. Wars, crises, and other negative shocks lead to absolute divergence and lower long-run growth, whereas we find...

This paper revisits the relation between growth and volatility in disaggregated data. Across countries, the link is confirmed to be significantly negative, but the paper shows that across sectors, the relation becomes positive. This reversal has a natural interpretation. The macroeconomic...

We built upon Angelopoulos et al. (2009) and we employ a dynamic general equilibrium model in order to examine the interrelated role of rent seeking activities, institutions and government policy variables, like tax rates and public spending, on Greece’s economic performance during the last...

I revisit the relationship between growth and volatility in two different disaggregated data sets. I confirm that growth and volatility are negatively related across countries, but show that across sectors, the relation is the opposite. This phenomenon, sometimes called "Simpson's fallacy", has...

This paper proposes a simple endogenous-fluctuations growth model to show: 1) long-run growth and short-run fluctuations can be intimately linked; in particular, the rate of long run growth can be negatively affected by volatilities; 2) imperfect competition can cause endogenous fluctuations, and...

Schumpeter’s notion of creative destruction assumes that volatile growth leads to a more efficient reallocation of resources and the adoption of new technologies. However, this can only occur if such productivity-enhancing opportunities are available within society. This availability is...