This paper extends the Ramsey model's normative analysis to issues of generational welfare and intergenerational transfers. A planner, who maximizes the discounted welfare of an endless stream of generations, is intrinsically biased against larger cohorts, which are more costly to provide...

An increase in the size (scale) of an economy increases the total quantity of rents that can be captured by successful innovators, which, in equilibrium, should lead to a rise in innovative activity. Conventional wisdom and the theoretical predictions of models of endogenous innovation suggest...

This paper documents the fundamental role played by factor accumulation in explaining the extraordinary postwar growth of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Participation rates, educational levels, and (excepting Hong Kong) investment rates have risen rapidly in all four economies....

The unusually rapid and prolonged growth of both output and exports in the Newly Industrializing Countries of East Asia has led many economists to believe that productivity growth in these economies, particularly in their manufacturing sectors, has been extraordinarily high. This view has, in...

If workers self-select into industries based upon their relative productivity in different tasks, and comparative advantage is aligned with absolute advantage, then the average efficacy of a sector's workforce will be negatively correlated with its employment share. This might explain the...

Measures of real consumption based upon the ownership of durable goods, the quality of housing, the health and mortality of children, the education of youth and the allocation of female time in the household indicate that sub-Saharan living standards have, for the past two decades, been growing...

I present a formula which allows for the calculation of the Gini coefficient when the overall population distribution is unknown, but there is some information on the Gini coefficients or moments of population sub-groups. When applied to data on the global and US income distribution, it proves...

If workers self-select into sectors based upon their relative productivity in different tasks, and comparative advantage is aligned with absolute advantage, then as a sector's employment share increases (decreases) the average efficacy of its workforce will fall (rise). This provides a potential...