This paper tries to reconcile evidence on the effect of schooling on income and on GDP growth from the microeconometric and empirical macro growth literatures. Much microeconometric evidence suggests that education is an important causal determinant of income for individuals within countries as...

Do countries with lower policy-induced barriers to international trade grow faster, once other relevant country characteristics are controlled for? There exists a large empirical literature providing an affirmative answer to this question. We argue that methodological problems with the empirical...

This paper addresses the complex relationship between geography and macroeconomic growth. We investigate the ways in which geography may matter directly for growth, controlling for economic policies and institutions, as well as the effects of geography on policy choices and institutions. We find...

Growth accounting breaks down economic growth into components associated with changes in factor inputs and the Solow residual, which reflects technological progress and other elements. This exercise is generally viewed as a preliminary step for the analysis of fundamental determinants of growth...

This paper argues that domestic social conflicts are a key to understanding why growth rates lack persistence and why so many countries have experienced a growth collapse after the mid-1970s. It emphasizes conflicts interact with external shocks on the one hand, and the domestic institutions of...

This paper proposes an explicit test for determining the significance and the timing of" slowdowns in economic growth during the postwar period. We examine a large sample of" countries (both industrialized and developing), and find that a majority though not all " exhibit a significant...

What is the impact on output of movement towards free trade? Can trade liberalization have a permanent effect on output levels, and more importantly, does it have an impact on steady-state growth rates? The model developed here emphasizes the role" that knowledge spillovers emanating from...

Does finance affect economic growth? A number of studies have identified a positive correlation between the level of development of a country's financial sector and the rate of growth of its per capita income. As has been noted elsewhere, the observed correlation does not necessarily imply a...