Recent medical research shows that health is highly influential for learning and the ability to think laterally; however, past economic studies have failed to empirically examine the influence of health on learning, schooling, and ideas production; the main drivers of growth in endogenous growth...

Growth and structural transformation of the manufacturing sector in developing countries are generally considered to be the result of the expansion of the "modem" (large-scale) sector relative to the "traditional" (small-scale) sector. Examining the sources of labor productivity growth in...

This paper examines whether management changes caused by the entry of the baby boom into the workforce explain the US productivity slowdown in the 1970s and resurgence in the 1990s. Lucas (1978) suggests that the quality of managers plays a significant role in determining output. If there is...

Consensus forecasts for the global economy over the medium and long term predict the world's economic gravity will substantially shift towards Asia and especially towards the Asian Giants, China and India. While such forecasts may pan out, there are substantial reasons that China and India may...

No region of the United States fared worse over the postwar period than the "Rust Belt," the heavy manufacturing region bordering the Great Lakes. This paper hypothesizes that the Rust Belt declined in large part due to a lack of competitive pressure in its labor and output markets. We formalize...

Some technologies save lives -- new vaccines, new surgical techniques, safer highways. Others threaten lives -- pollution, nuclear accidents, global warming, the rapid global transmission of disease, and bioengineered viruses. How is growth theory altered when technologies involve life and death...

Why are people in the richest countries of the world so much richer today than 100 years ago? And why are some countries so much richer than others? Questions such as these define the field of economic growth. This paper documents the facts that underlie these questions. How much richer are we...

Most economic activity occurs in cities. This creates a tension between local increasing returns, implied by the existence of cities, and aggregate constant returns, implied by balanced growth. To address this tension, we develop a theory of economic growth in an urban environment. We show that...

This paper explores the relationship between the relative size of the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector, economic growth, and poverty alleviation using a new database on the share of SME labor in the total manufacturing labor force. Using a sample of 45 countries, we find a strong,...

Compulsory licensing allows firms in developing countries to produce foreign-owned inventions without the consent of foreign patent owners. This paper uses an exogenous event of compulsory licensing after World War I under the Trading with the Enemy Act to examine the long run effects of...