This paper analyses the remarkable growth experience of Indonesia since 1966. Over a thirty-year period, GDP per capita rose more than fourfold, despite unfavourable initial conditions, some weak institutions, and flawed microeconomic policies. The paper attributes this strong performance to a...

Since World War II there has been: (i) a rise in the fraction of time that married households allocate to market work, (ii) an increase in the rate of divorce, and (iii) a decline in the rate of marriage. What can explain this? It is argued here that technological progress in the household...

This paper examines the historical evolution of the relationship between population growth, technological change, and the standard of living. It considers several unified models that encompass the transition between three distinct regimes that have characterized the process of economic...

Industrialization allowed the industrialized world of today to escape from a regime characterized by low economic and population growth and to enter a regime of high economic and population growth. To explain this transition, we construct a two-sector growth model with endogenous fertility and...

This paper documents that a process of industrial restructuring has been transforming the developed economies, where large corporations are accounting for less economic activity and small firms are accounting for a greater share of economic activity. Not all countries, however, are experiencing...

This paper provides evidence on the long-term impact of market potential on economic development. It derives from the New Economic Geography literature a structural estimation where the level of factors' income of a country is related to its export capacity, labelled Market Access (MA) by...

If capital is an essential input, the neoclassical growth model has a steady state with zero capital. From this, one is inclined to conclude that an economy starting without capital can never grow. We challenge this view and claim that, if the production function satisfies the Inada conditions,...

Does fractionalization change over (short periods of) time? If so, are there any substantial implications for economic performance? To answer such questions, we construct a new panel data set with measures of fractionalization for 26 former communist countries covering the period from 1989 to...

What is the right balance among policy interventions in order to ensure economic growth over the long run when an epidemic causes heavy mortality among young adults? We argue that, in general, policies to combat the disease and promote education must be concentrated, in certain ways, on some...

This Paper considers the emergence of institutions as a political outcome, arguing that the support for protection of private property rights is stronger the higher is the economy's aggregate income and the more equal its distribution. When these conditions initially hold, the politically...