Statistics on the size and growth of the U.S. federal government, along with the rhetoric of President Franklin Roosevelt, seem to indicate that the Great Depression was the event that started the dramatic growth in government spending and intervention in the private sector that has continued to...

Bringing together the classic defense of liberty and democracy, the political economy of hierarchy, endogenous growth theory, and the new institutional economics on growth, we propose a new institutional theory that identifies democracy's unique advantage in prompting economic growth. We contend...

Societies in Western civilisation enforce their rules through formal institutions such as secularism (SES), whereas in less developed civilisations often rely on informal institutions such as religion (RES). The present paper attempts to explain the determinants of societies’ choice between...

The New Institutional Economics (NIE) has its early roots in Cliometrics. Cliometrics began with a focus on using neoclassical theory to develop and test hypotheses in economic history. But empirical consideration of economic and political development within and across countries is limited,...

This paper attempts to establish a theoretical foundation for regional policy. While mainstream economics tends to create a theory of even development, equilibrium, and market-induced harmony, this paper focuses on economic activities being qualitatively different as carriers of economic growth,...

Imagine this: a mere century ago, the purchasing power of an average American was one-tenth of what it is today. But what will it take to sustain that growth through the next century? And what can be said about economic growth to aspiring nations seeking higher standards of living for their...

In the late 1990s, as economists looked back the development period in Africa since 1970s, they put forward the notion “African growth tragedy” , meaning that Africa's poor growth and resulting low income is associated with low schooling, political instability, underdeveloped financial...

Project evaluation is one of crucial step where the decision makers should decide which one of the project produce more benefit and increase effectiveness or more efficiency within constraint of investment budget. The project objective is creating additional outcome where the project led...

The famous 1956 contribution by Robert Solow was always thought to be central to positive, or descriptive, economic growth theory. We show that it is also at the core of optimal growth, because the Fisher equation of competitive equilibrium is nothing short of an Euler equation; it corresponds...

Simon Kuznets was born and educated in Russia and the Soviet Ukraine. He completed his economic education and adopted his research methodology in the United States where Wesley Mitchell was a major influence during his early career. Though scarred by the trauma of displacement, eviction, and...