This paper explores the emergence of a world economy since 1950 and its implications for the world's labor force. There are four main sets of conclusions. First, although the integration of national economies since 1950 has been considerable, the world economy is still in its adolescence. Rapid...

The existence of a natural resource curse has been a longstanding theme in the economic literature and in policy discussions. We propose an alternative mechanism and study its policy implications. The mechanism is based on the interaction between two building blocks: specialization in...

The effects of geography and productivity on the global pattern of production are captured here in a specific factors gravity model. Simple enough for sharp results, the model is yet rich enough to contain the high dimensional productivity frictions in production and distribution of a many...

Countries that are more engaged in production sharing exhibit higher bilateral manufacturing output correlations. We use data on trade flows between US multinationals and their affiliates as well as trade between the United States and Mexican maquiladoras to measure production-sharing trade and...

Using a human capital based growth model, we show the essential role of labor mobility and cross-country tax harmonization in equalizing income levels of countries that start off from different initial income positions. Knowledge spillovers cum labor mobility are the driving forces behind the...

This paper reviews the extent and policy implications of linkages between demographic changes and international factor mobility. Evidence is found of significant demographic effects on both migration and the current account, but for different reasons neither increased migration nor international...

It is striking how often countries with oil or other natural resource wealth have failed to grow more rapidly than those without. This is the phenomenon known as the Natural Resource Curse. The principle has been borne out in some econometric tests of the determinants of economic performance...

Capital flow and commodity cycles have long been connected with economic crises. Sparse historical data, however, has made it difficult to connect their timing. We date turning points in global capital flows and commodity prices across two centuries and provide estimates from alternative data...