Modern economic growth started in the West in the early nineteenth century. This survey discusses the precise connection between the Industrial Revolution and the beginnings of growth, and connects it to the intellectual and economic factors underlying the growth of useful knowledge. The...

We set up an endogenous growth model in which the efficiency of both capital and fossil energy can be improved, whereas the efficiency of one alternative energy source is limited. With capital and energy as complements, there exist two steady states: one stagnant where energy is fully derived...