This paper explores the implications of Unified Growth Theory for the origins of existing differences in income per capita across countries. The theory sheds light on three fundamental layers of comparative development. It identifies the factors that have governed the pace of the transition from...

This paper examines the role of public education in the context of parental migration, and it studies the effects of an expansive income tax policy that is adopted to increase public education expenditure per pupil. It is shown that such a policy may exacerbate income inequality in the long run...

In this paper, we revisit the inequality-growth relationship using an enhanced panel data set with improved inequality data and special attention to the role of transition countries. We base our analysis on the specification of Forbes (2000), but also address the functional form concerns raised...

Education has been one of the key determinants of economic growth around the world since 1965. In this paper, we discuss three different measures of education, and consider their relationship to the distribution of income as measured by the Gini coefficient as well as to economic growth across...

We extend the Lucas' 1988 model introducing two classes of agents with heterogeneous skills, discount factors and initial human capital endowments. We consider two regimes according to the planner's political constraints. In the first regime, that we call meritocracy, the planner faces...

In this paper, we revisit the inequality-growth relationship using an enhanced panel data set with improved inequality data and special attention to the role of transition countries. We base our analysis on the specification of Forbes (2000), but also address the functional form concerns raised...

In the last decades inequality of opportunity has been extensively studied by economists, on the assumption that, in addition to being normatively undesirable, it can be related to low potential for growth. In this paper we evaluate inequality of opportunity in 11 Sub-Saharan Africa countries....

The authors study the sources and pattern of China's impressive economic growth over the past 25 years and show that key issues currently of concern to policymakers - widening inequality, rural poverty, and resource intensity - are to a large extent rooted in China's growth strategy, and...

We examine how inequality and openness interact in shaping the long-run growth prospects of developing countries. To this end, we develop a Schumpeterian growth model with heterogeneous households and non-homothetic preferences for quality. We show that inequality affects growth very differently...