Economists tend to exalt the virtues of free international trade, while politicians are more skeptical. This paper suggests that this is the case because politicians mainly worry about the income distribution effects of trade liberalization, while economists focus on efficiency. Using textbook...

We show that the specification of technology differences in recent empirical studies of trade is not supported by basic growth theory and may lead to biased estimates of the pattern of specialization and trade.

Die entwicklungspolitische Debatte hat lange darunter gelitten, daß ihr eine überzeugende theoretische Grundlage fehlte. Dies beginnt sich seit einigen Jahren mit dem Aufkommen der "neuen" Wachstumstheorie zu ändern. Deren Implikationen stützen das, was neoklassisch orientierte...

Most empirical studies of long run growth refer to one of the two seminal contributions by Robert Solow (1956, 1957). His work shows that in order to estimate the relative roles of factor accumulation and technology in development, an a priori identification assumption is needed about the nature...

We consider whether Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries are mainly poor because they are governed worse than other countries, as suggested by recent studies on the supremacy of institutions. Our empirical results show that the supremacy of institutions does not hold. SSA countries appear to face...

Humankapital gilt gemeinhin als eine wesentliche Determinante von Wachstum und Entwicklung. Der empirischen Forschung fällt es derzeit allerdings nicht leicht, die quantitative Relevanz des Humankapitals für den gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklungsprozess zu bestimmen. Neuere Studien bieten ein...