This Paper highlights a problem in using the first-differenced GMM panel data estimator to estimate cross-country growth regressions. When the time series are persistent, the first-differenced GMM estimator can be poorly behaved, since lagged levels of the series provide only weak instruments...

This Paper investigates the empirical relationship between uncertainty and investment dynamics. This is motivated by the real options literature, which suggests a weaker response of investment to demand shocks at higher levels of uncertainty, as firms place a greater value on the option to wait....

Academic and policy debates generally consider levying tax on corporate profit on either a residence basis or on a source basis. We explore two alternatives, based on the location of consumption, rather than production – destination-based, as opposed to source-based or residence-based, taxes....

The idea that income differences between rich and poor nations arise through multiple equilibria or ‘poverty traps’ is as intuitive as it is difficult to verify. In this Paper, we explore the empirical relevance of such models. We calibrate a simple two-sector model for 127 countries, and...

This paper develops empirical growth models suitable for dual economies, and studies the relationship between structural change and economic growth. Structural change matters because, if the marginal product of labour varies across sectors, changes in the structure of employment can raise...

Since the early 1990s, there has been a renaissance in the study of regional growth, spurred by new models, methods and data. We survey a range of modelling traditions, and some formal approaches to the ’hard problem’ of regional economics, namely the joint consideration of agglomeration and...

We introduce a new `supply-push' instrument for foreign aid, to be used together with an instrumental variable estimator that filters out unobserved common factors. We use this instrument to study the effects of aid on macroeconomic ratios, and especially the ratios of consumption, investment,...

This paper introduces a framework for studying the optimal dynamic allocation of foreign aid among multiple recipients. We pose the problem as one of weighted global welfare maximization. A donor in the North chooses an optimal path for international transfers, anticipating that consumption and...

We examine whether structural transformation leads to a Kuznets curve. We present a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous workers, occupational self-selection and selective migration, and calibrate the model to survey data for Malawi. We show that structural transformation raises...

This Paper shows how to calibrate a two-sector general equilibrium model of production using a small number of parameter assumptions and readily available data. The framework is then used to analyse the costs of labour market dualism. The Paper quantifies the effects of rural-urban wage...