This paper explores the role of 'social capability' in growth and development. We present a wide variety of evidence to show that economic growth is strongly related to the extent of a country's initial social development. We also show that differences in social capability can explain the...

This paper highlights a problem in using the first-difference GMM panel data estimator cross-country growth regressions. When the time series are persistent, the first-differenced GMM estimator can be poorly behaved, since lagged levels of the series provide only weak instruments for subsequent...

This paper examines the adequacy of the augmented Solow model for explaining international variation in the standard of living and growth rates. Robust estimation and measurement error diagnostics are used to assess the model in a variety of dimensions. The main findings are that the speed of...