This paper views the growth and convergence process of the four Visegrad economies - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia - through the lens of the open economy, stochastic neoclassical growth model. We use a unified framework to understand both the long-run convergence path and...

We propose a framework for understanding recurrent historical episodes of vigorous economic expansion accompanied by extreme asset valuations, as exhibited by the U.S. in the 1990s. We interpret this phenomenon as a high-valuation equilibrium with a low effective cost of capital based on...

We study optimal growth under learning. We extend the Mirman-Zilcha stochastic growth results characterizing optimal programs for general utility and production functions to the case of learning. We then use recursive methods to study the effect of learning on the dynamic program by considering...

This paper examines the implications of capital utilization for the dynamics of growth and convergence. Optimal decisions by economic agents regarding the utilization of capital lead to empirically plausible speeds of convergence in one-sector models of economic growth, thereby providing a...

This paper studies the differences between private and government provision of infrastructure. Capital utilization decisions and their differential role in determining market prices for capital goods under the two regimes of infrastructure provision serve as a critical transmission mechanism for...

For economists and political scientists - as much as for tourists seeking adventure - China is intriguing. It is huge and enormously populous. It has a multi-layered ancient culture and history. It has become fully engaged with the global economy in recent years, and the blistering growth of its...

This paper studies the different mechanisms and the dynamics through which demography is channeled to the economy. We analyze the role of demographic changes in the economic development process by studying the transitional and the long-run impact of both the rate of population growth and the...

This paper develops a classical-Marxian macroeconomic model to examine the growth and distributional consequences of education. First, the role of education in skill formation is considered and it is shown that an expansion in education will promote growth and have beneficial distributional...