This paper takes a fresh look at two issues in the aid effectiveness debate. We begin by providing theoretical foundations for the various claims made with regard to the effectiveness of aid in stimulating long-run productivity. When foreign aid is modelled as an exogenous transfer of income or...

In the present paper the joint determination of long-run income per worker and capital utilization is studied. It is shown that comparatively low (optimal) rates of capital utilization may arise in poor economies in response to weak underlying structural characteristics. Moreover, the...

A number of empirical studies have investigated the hypothesis that cross-border flows of goods (international trade) and capital (FDI) lead to international technology diffusion. The contribution of the present paper consists in examining an as yet neglected vehicle for technology diffusion:...

The natural sciences have established a general scaling law that relates metabolism and body size of animals. Recently this association - known as Kleiber's law - has received deep theoretical foundation by network theory and has been fruitfully applied to explain various biological phenomena,...

This paper develops a bioeconomic Malthusian growth model. By integrating recent research on allometric scaling, energy consumption and ontogenetic growth, we provide a model where subsistence consumption is endogenously linked to body size and fertility. The theory admits a unique Malthusian...

Summary Using a calibrated neoclassical growth model, we address three questions: (i) how much growth should aid flows have produced in Sub-Saharan Africa over the last three decades? (ii) how much aid would be needed to attain the First Millennium Development Goal (MDG#1) of cutting poverty in...

This paper takes a fresh look at three issues in the aid effectiveness debate. First, we assess the theoretical case for foreign aid. Using an endogenous growth version of the standard overlapping generations model, we show that aid can be an effective policy tool in spurring growth in poor...

We advance the hypothesis that cultural values such as high work ethics and thrift, “the Protestant ethic” according to Max Weber, may have been diffused long before the Reformation, thereby importantly affecting the pre-industrial growth record. The source of pre-Reformation Protestant...

<Para ID="Par1">In the present paper we advance a theory of pre-industrial growth where body size and population size are endogenously determined. Despite the fact that parents invest in both child quantity and productivity enhancing child quality, a take-off does not occur due to a key “physiological...</para>

We hypothesize that cultural appreciation of hard work and thrift, the "Protestant ethic" according to Max Weber, had a pre-Reformation origin. The proximate source of these values was, according to the proposed theory, the Catholic Order of Cistercians. In support, we document that the...