Developing country leaders typically resemble proprietors more than benevolent social planners, i.e., they are powerful individuals pursuing their own interests while they remain in power. We model growth in a "proprietary economy" facing each period an endogenous probability of "political...

Our model consists of two groups. Group 1 holds political power and Group 2 threatens this power. Group 1 decreases the probability of its upheaval by co-opting some agents from Group 2 into a more benign third group. Improvements in the upheaval technology lead to fewer but better co-optation...

Transition economies have an initial condition of high human capital relative to living standards. I explore the possible implications of this key fact by surveying and adapting literature on growth and inequality. I focus especially on the long run and policy options

We model growth in dictatorships facing each period an endogenous probability of "political catastrophe" that would extinguish the regime's wealth extraction ability. Domestic capital exhibits a bifurcation point determining economic growth or shrinkage. With low initial domestic capital the...

We analyze the interaction between human capital and growth in Russia, where there are substantial human capital reserves but an education system seriously out of sync with the world economy. We define a rule for the timing of educational restructuring, and show that this time is pareto optimal...