Why do governments in developing economies invest in roads and not enough in schools? In the presence of distortionary taxation and debt aversion, the different pace at which roads and schools contribute to economic growth turns out to be central to this decision. Specifically, while costs are...

This paper analyzes the effects of distortionary taxes on growth and welfare in an endogenous growth model with a public capital externality. The model is calibrated to the U.S. economy, and experiments are run under which the tax regime is shifted from the current mix of capital income, labor...

This paper examines the significance of the time path of a given productivity increase on growth and inequality. Whereas the time path impacts only the transitional paths of aggregate quantities, it has both transitional and permanent consequences for wealth and income distribution. Hence, the...

In this paper we show that a model featuring durable consumer goods, imperfect substitution between domestic and foreign assets, and weak credibility can explain the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the stylized facts associated with exchange-rate-based stabilization, including the...

The rise in economic growth in some countries of Africa over past two decades, powered mainly by productivity boom, has been associated with large private capital inflows despite poor integration of the African countries with the world capital markets. While these countries lack access to world...

The standard procedure for analyzing transitional dynamics in non-linear macro models has been to employ linear approximations. This paper investigates the reliability of this procedure in evaluating the dynamic adjustments to policy changes or structural shocks. We analyze this issue using the...