This paper integrates in a unified and tractable framework some of the key insights of the field of international trade and economic growth. It examines a sequence of theoretical models that share a common description of technology and preferences but differ on their assumptions about trade...

Because of its inappropriability, protection of property rights is widely recognized as being the state's responsibility. Moreover, recent empirical evidence suggests that it leads to higher investment levels and faster growth. Nevertheless, the extent of property rights protection differs...

This research argues that variations in the interplay between cultural assimilation and cultural diffusion have played a significant role in giving rise to differential patterns of economic development across the globe. Societies that were geographically less vulnerable to cultural diffusion,...

This paper presents an innovation driven endogenous growth model, where firms and unions bargain over wages. We find that the degree of centralization of the bargaining structure plays a crucial rule for economic performance. Central bargaining, which incorporates the leapfrogging externality...

Economic growth is driven by structural change. Structural change does not come without a cost, the most evident social cost being high and persistent unemployment. This paper develops an economy with an endogenously expanding service sector, where the constant flow of workers in and out of...

Changes in social structures occurring during the process of economic growth can be considered direct consequences of this process, while other changes are caused by factors such as technological progress, that affect simultaneously social structures and growth. This chapter focuses on that part...

This chapter reviews the literature that tries to explain the disparity and variation of GDP per worker and GDP per capita across countries and across time. There are many potential explanations for the different patterns of development across countries, including differences in luck, raw...

We present a Schumpterian model of endogenous growth with General Purpose Technologies (GPTs) that captures two important historical stylized facts: First, from the beginning of mankind until today GPTs are arriving at an increasing frequency and, second, all GPTs heavily depended on previous...

The relationship between financial liberalization and poverty has been the subject of significant work and scrutiny in the field of development economics, however much of this criticism has been based upon empirical foundations and has rarely been extended to reconcile with the theory of...