We formulate a version of the growth model in which production is carried out by heterogeneous plants and calibrate it to US data. In the context of this model we argue that differences in the allocation of resources across heterogeneous plants may be an important factor in accounting for...

Recent empirical studies show that the intergenerational persistence of economic status in the U.S. is much higher than previously thought. We develop a quantitative theory of inequality and intergenerational transmission of human capital where parents invest in early and college education of...

By international standards, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in Latin America is low -- around one fifth of that of the United States. Moreover, in the last five decades, Latin America has failed to catch-up in wealth to the level of the United States while other countries at similar or...

Between 1940 and 2000 there has been a substantial increase of educational attainment in the United States. What caused this trend? We develop a model of schooling decisions in order to assess the quantitative contribution of technological progress in explaining the evolution of education. We...

We investigate the role of sectoral differences in labor productivity in explaining the process of structural transformation - the secular reallocation of labor across sectors - and the time path of aggregate productivity across countries. Using a simple model of the structural transformation...

I develop a growth model where output can be produced with a modern and a traditional technology. The traditional technology has a lower TFP and a lower share of reproducible capital than the modern technology. In this simple framework, barriers to capital accumu-lation affect the extent to...

The agricultural sector has certain distinctive features over the business cycle: it is more volatile than and not positively correlated with the rest of the economy and its employment is counter-cyclical. Because of these features and even though the agricultural sector represents less than 2%...

We investigate the role of sectoral differences in labor productivity and the process of structural transformation (the secular reallocation of labor across sectors) in accounting for the time path of aggregate productivity across countries. Using a simple model of the structural transformation...

Despite mandatory parental leave policies being a prevalent feature of labor markets in developed countries, their aggregate effects in the economy are not well understood. To assess their quantitative impact, we develop a general equilibrium model of fertility and labor market decisions that...

Between 1940 and 2000 there has been a substantial increase of educational attainment in the United States. What caused this trend? Using a simple model of schooling decisions, we assess the quantitative contribution of changes in the return to schooling in explaining the evolution of education....