This chapter builds on Robert Blecker's pathbreaking, decades-long contributions (Blecker 1989, 1998, 2013; Blecker and Razmi, 2008) which incorporate, among many other contributions, capital flows to the balance of payments constrained growth literature. We link this to the literature on wealth...

What ignited humanity's momentous ascent from millennia of stagnation to an era of sustained economic growth? And what are the roots of the vast disparities in the wealth of nations? These enduring mysteries, which have preoccupied scholars across generations, lie at the core of Unified Growth...

We interpret the increased polarization in Western societies over global economic issues as an interaction of economic forces and shifts in a society's social identity equilibrium. We combine social identity theory with standard small open economy model of international trade to study the effect...

We compare wealth taxes and capital gains taxes in a random growth model with idiosyncratic investment risk. At equal tax revenue, wealth taxes generate higher wealth inequality but also higher wealth mobility than capital gains taxes. The mechanism operates through variance: wealth taxes shift...

We compare wealth taxes and capital gains taxes in a random growth model with idiosyncratic investment risk. At equal tax revenue, wealth taxes generate higher wealth inequality but also higher wealth mobility than capital gains taxes. The mechanism operates through variance: wealth taxes shift...

The positive correlation between high temperatures and crime is well established. I consider how random, within-month daily high temperature and precipitation affects arrests rather than incidents. I analyze jail records of a Prohibition Era southern city with mean summer daily high temperatures...

This chapter takes stock of what has been learned from the recent micro-development literature about wedges - mechanisms generating dispersion in marginal revenue products of factors across firms, which are commonly interpreted as indicators of misallocation. We present a general theoretical...