Long-term cycles in world economic development are analyzed through the view on Russia's economy in the XIX century. Several economic indicators and industries are observed. It is found that Russia joined long economic fluctuations gradually. The first signs of this involvement are noticeable...

In endogenous growth theory models exist which are characterized by local and global indeterminacy. These concepts imply that economies differ with respect to their growth rates on the transition path (local indeterminacy) as well as their long-run growth rates (global indeterminacy). While the...

This paper develops a general equilibrium model of fertility and human capital investment under uncertainty. Uncertainty exists in the form of a probability that a young adult does not survive to old age. Parents maximize expected utility arising from own consumption, their fertility, and the...

The authors examine the relative importance of the growth of physical and human capital and the growth of total factor productivity (TFP) using newly organized data on 145 countries that span more than one hundred years for twenty-four of these countries. For all countries, only 3 percent of...

This paper examines the importance of institutional shocks to long-run development. Our empirical method offers a clear empirical test to distinguish between three models of institutional shocks. We define gradual institutional change without a major shock, institutional change imposed by a...

Economic growth within countries varies sharply across decades. This paper examines one explanation for these sustained shifts in growth - changes in the national leader. We use deaths of leaders while in office as a source of exogenous variation in leadership, and ask whether these...

Turks have been around for several millennia; lived freely as nomadic Turkic tribes, established great empires, but now continues its humble existence as the Republic of Turkey that Atatürk created a century ago from the ashes of the abolished Ottoman Empire. Same as its ancestors, Turkey has...

We exploit differences in European mortality rates to estimate the effect of institutions on economic performance. Europeans adopted very different colonization policies in different colonies, with different associated institutions. In places where Europeans faced high mortality rates, they...

This paper examines cross-country and cross-industry differences in labor productivity performance and their association with ICT. It broadens earlier work with coverage of 52 industries in 16 OECD countries. The analysis suggests that ICT diffusion in Europe is following similar industry...