The advent of modern science made possible the emergence of sustained economic growth. Without growth in scientific knowledge, the productivity growth experienced during the Industrial Revolution would have eventually diminished, as did growth from previous productivity revolutions (i.e....

Political competition between European countries has often been viewed as being a stimulus to the innovation process and part of the reason why Europe was the first region of the world to experience sustained growth. Countries that fell behind their rivals technologically and economically became...

Contrary to widespread belief, voting machines of older types, such as lever and punchcard systems, are not used in counties with lower income - and newer machines, such as optical scanners and electronic machines, are not used in richer counties. We provide an economic explanation for this and...

What is the relationship between income distribution and economic policy/governance? This paper focuses on one way in which distribution can affect the type of economic policies that are enacted by a government. If there is government capture by the economic "elite," the elite may choose to use...

The endogenous growth models of the early 1990's predicted scale effects: larger population - more resources devoted to R&D - faster productivity growth. As pointed out by Jones (1995) this prediction is not consistent with the experience of industrialized countries like the U.S. over the...

The growth experiences of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Korea over the last several decades have been polar opposites. South Korea has had one of the world's fastest growing economies and the Democratic Republic of the Congo one of the slowest. Despite this divergence in...

Sub-Saharan Africa, in the aggregate, has had the worst growth performance of any major region of the world over the last few decades. It is important to recognize, however, the enormous diversity in growth experiences at the country level. Some countries, like Botswana and Cape Verde, have...

Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2002) document a 'Reversal of Fortune' among former European colonies. Former colonies that were relatively advanced in 1500, measured by urbanization rates and population density, are comparatively poor today. Although, when using population density data, they...

The literature on income inequality has provided various explanations of how income inequality can affect growth, with the emphasis on ideas such as investments in human capital, issues of occupational choice, or the redistributive policies of governments. Inequality not only has a direct effect...