Using a new dataset on imports of technology and total factor productivity (TFP) over more than a century for the OECD countries, this paper tests for international technological transmission through trade. The empirical estimates suggest that imports of knowledge have been responsible for an...

A core mechanism of unified growth theory is that accelerating technological progress induces mass education and, through interaction with child quantity-quality substitution, a decline in fertility. Using unique new data for 21 OECD countries over the period 1750-2000, we test, for the first...

In this paper we investigate the impact of technological change on inequalityin the presence of a landed elite using a standard unified growth model. We measure inequality by the ratio between land rent and wages and show that, before the onset of the fertility transition, technological progress...

A core mechanism of unified growth theory is that accelerating technologicalprogress induces mass education and, in interaction with child quantity-quality substitution, a decline in fertility. Using unique new data for 21 OECD countries over theperiod 1750-2000, we test, for the first time, the...

It is a well known fact that economic development and distance to the equator are positively correlated variables in the world today. It is perhaps less well known that as recently as 1500 C.E. it was the other way around. The present paper provides a theory of why the 'latitude gradient'...

This paper addresses two puzzles in international trade, namely why traditional estimates of income elasticities of exports are implausibly high and why the export growth varies much more markedly across countries than can be explained by price competitiveness and variations in income in export...

The sharp increase in equity prices over the 1990s was widely attributed to permanently higher productivity growth derived from the New Economy. This paper establishes a rational expectations model of technology innovations and equity prices, which shows that under plausible assumptions,...

This paper develops a theory of medium term share price movements under slow adjustment in the labour market relative to the share market and perfect foresight in the share market. The model seeks to explain the slow movements in real share prices that have been observed in the OECD countries...

Based on the Tobin's q principle this paper shows that earnings per unit of capital and the output capital ratio are excellent measures of the required share returns because they are only temporarily affected by earnings shocks but are driven permanently by changes in required share returns....

This paper develops a macro-model of share prices that predicts that the growth rates in real share prices and real dividends gravitate toward predictable constants in the long run, but fluctuate on approximately decennial frequencies due to movements in capital's share in total income and the...