The authors develop a simple analytical framework that shows how the composition of public spending affects economic growth. Distinguishing between productive and unproductive government spending (that which complements private sector productivity and that which does not), they show that...

It is puzzling why China has one of the highest investment rates in the world. In 1994 China introduced a new fiscal system. Using this natural experiment and the dynamic provincial panel data during the following period 1995-2002, we find that fiscal decentralization has a significant, positive...

We build a growth model with status preference to explore the effects of patent protection on innovation and social welfare. The main results are as follows. There exists a non-monotonic relationship between patent protection and innovation, and the growth-rate-maximizing degree of patent...