We study the effects of corruption on economic growth in a framework that includes corruption as part of the institutional setting of countries. Using a formal growth framework where corruption affects labor inputs and the provision of public goods, we find that particularly in situations where...

We study the connection between economic performance and the quality of government institutions for the sample of 103 Italian NUTS3 regions, including new measures of institutional quality calculated using data on the provision of four areas of public service: health, educational...

There is a growing literature that studies the properties of models that combine international trade and neoclassical growth theory, but mostly in a deterministic setting. In this paper we introduce uncertainty in a dynamic Heckscher-Ohlin model and characterize the equilibrium of a small open...

We compare, head on, two intergenerational institutions, a family compact – a parent makes a transfer to her parent in anticipation of a possible future gift from her children – with a pay-as-you-go, social security system in a lifecycle model with endogenous fertility wherein children are...

This paper develops an endogenous directed technical change model that is consistent with the data on the distribution of firms and production across high- and low-tech sectors, and its relationship to economic growth, in a number of developed countries. We argue that scale effects at the...

We study the effects of monetary policy on the choice of production technology and specialization. The level of output specialization is represented by the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor within a CES production function. A higher degree of specialization increases trading...

The well-known question whether regional trade agreements (RTAs) and the multilateral trading system (MTS) are "strangers, friends, or foes" (Bhagwati and Panagariya, 1996) has gained new importance with the widespread proliferation of RTAs in recent years. Based on an extensive data set which...

This paper investigates the link between terms of trade volatility and long-term output growth in developing countries. I find that differences in terms of trade volatility account for 25% of the cross-country variation in growth from 1980 to 2007. The magnitude is arresting: a...

This research examines theoretically and empirically the origins of agriculture. The theory highlights the role of climatic sequences as a fundamental determinant of both technological sophistication and population density in a hunter-gatherer regime. It argues that foragers facing volatile...

We advance the hypothesis that cultural values such as high work ethics and thrift, “the Protestant ethic” according to Max Weber, may have been diffused long before the Reformation, thereby importantly affecting the pre-industrial growth record. The source of pre-Reformation Protestant...