This paper offers the first systematic historical evidence on the role of a central actor in modern growth theory - the … engineers diverged in their growth trajectories over the next century. The results are supported by historical case studies from …

To explain the process of development historically documented, we consider a model with three economic sectors … agricultural and manufactured goods. Our parsimonious model captures within a single framework the process of development which is … characterized by the structural changes in the workforce across sectors, variable growth rates (an initial "Malthusian regime …

democracy (186 countries, 1960-2014). The method takes its name from a machine learning technique for pattern recognition and … economic development, and find that democracies grow faster than autocracies. Furthermore, we illustrate how the estimation … results are affected by conceptual and methodological changes in the measure of democracy. In particular, we show that …

networks expanded in a less interior-to-coast way in periods of democracy. This result suggests that Africa's interior …

a major determinant of the comparatively slow development of resource- or land-abundant regions like South America and …, development is faster in a democratic system. We also endogenize the trade regime and demonstrate that, in political equilibrium …

I argue that whether or not a state is predatory hinges on the relationship between development and the distribution of … political power in society. Development is typically inconsistent with the preservation of the political status quo and this …

necessarily mean that giving money to women is a good development policy. We show that depending on the nature of the production … function, targeting transfers to women may be beneficial or harmful to growth. In particular, such transfers are more likely to …