A declining agricultural employment share is a key feature of economic development. Its main drivers are: improvements in agricultural technology combined with Engel's law release resources from agriculture ("labor push"), and improvements in industrial technology attract labor out of...

We present a simple model of capital accumulation where agents care about their consumption relative to the consumption of other members of society, `envy,' In this context we quantify the extent of the distortions and welfare costs associated with envy. Under conservative estimates of envy we...

This paper presents a simple model of resource extraction where preferences are defined over the individual’s consumption level, her effort and the comparison of her consumption with that of other members of the community. Our specification captures the intuition that lies behind the growing...

Income per capita in some Western European countries more than tripled in the two and a half decades that followed World War II. The literature has identified several factors behind this outstanding growth episode, specifically; structural change, the Marshall Plan combined with the public...

This paper proposes a welfare criterion that balances the need for development and the concern for the least advantaged generations, and explores its implications. This criterion, called the mixed Bentham-Rawls criterion, moderates the effect of discounting, yet permits some degree of...

Despite its theoretical dominance, the empirical case in favor of the permanent income hypothesis is weak. Contrary to one of its basic implications, a growing body of evidence suggests that rich households save a higher proportion of their permanent income than poor households. We propose an...