We first summarize the dominant interpretations of the "frontier" in the United States and predecessor colonies over the past 400 years: agricultural (1610s-1880s), industrial (1890s-1930s), scientific (1940s- 1980s), and algorithmic (1990s-present). We describe the difference between the...

We first summarize the dominant interpretations of the "frontier" in the United States and predecessor colonies over the past 400 years: agricultural (1610s-1880s), industrial (1890s-1930s), scientific (1940s-1980s), and algorithmic (1990s-present). We describe the difference between the...

Understanding the dynamics of nonemployer firms has been an unsolved puzzle because of a dearth of data. Nonemployer firms represent three-quarters of the businesses in the United States but only 3 percent of business receipts. While they represent a relatively small share of economic activity,...

This paper tests the hypothesis that overlapping and competing regional trade blocs undermine trade in Africa. Using the proposed merger of three trade blocs in the Eastern and Southern Africa region into a Free Trade Area and estimating gravity equations of bilateral trade flows, the hypothesis...

The future of Africa now depends largely on the nature and outlook of its economic vision and the realignment of national institutions to reflect major trends in global and regional economic affairs. Ongoing political reforms in Africa have coincided with the growing realisation that economic...

We first summarize the dominant interpretations of the "frontier" in the United States and predecessor colonies over the past 400 years: agricultural (1610s-1880s), industrial (1890s-1930s), scientific (1940s- 1980s), and algorithmic (1990s-present). We describe the difference between the...

The persistent belief, distributed throughout American politics, that U.S. energy dependence is a serious strategic and economic liability is simply not true. The time is long overdue for policymakers and analysts alike to put the many urgent issues that confront the people of the Middle East in...

This paper develops microeconomic foundations for a theory of entrepreneurship and growth, focusing on innovation and opportunity as intermediate linkages between the two. Expanding upon points of tangency between Schumpeter and Coase, the paper argues that transactions costs are the glue that...

A large empirical literature has documented differences in Schumpeterian profits, both among firms in single industries and between firms in different industries. Theorists have proposed various institutional and strategic factors to account for such differences but have had relatively little to...

We do two things in this paper. First, we put forward some elements of a microeconomic theory of technological evolution. This involves adding nascent (essentially undiscovered) technologies to the existing technologies of neoclassical production theory, and, more importantly, expanding the...