We modify Romer's [1990] model of endogenous technological change, incorporating population growth, capital depreciation and diminishing returns to R&D, and removing scale effects. The steady-state of the model is characterized by a system of non-linear simultaneous equations in which income per...

We study the negative correlation between natural resource-abundance and long-term income focusing on the savings-investment channel. We first present empirical evidence on this channel and then develop an OverLapping-Generations (OLG) model to study the issue. In this model, savings adjust...

This paper examines the time path of consumption and asset ownership in a small open economy. Productive physical capital is borrowed when limited liability firms write debt contracts with foreign lenders. We study three lending regimes and find that when contracts favor domestic agents over...

This paper demonstrates that the role of the personal income distribution for an economy's process of development through risky human capital accumulation critically depends on the shape of the saving function. Empirical evidence for the U.S. strongly suggests that the marginal propensity to...

We investigate the causal links between human capital, openness through trade and FDI, and economic growth using quarterly data for Thailand over the period 1973:2-2000:4. A number of hypotheses are investigated including, in particular, FDI-led growth and export-led growth, as well as the...

Countries rich in natural resources constitute both growth losers and growth winners. We claim that the main reason for these diverging experiences is differences in the quality of institutions. More natural resources push aggregate income down, when institutions are grabber friendly, while more...

In most resource-driven developing economies, a mineral-based formal sector and an informal resource sector (such as charcoal production) constitute the main economic activities, from which local dwellers derive their livelihoods. The paper examines the coexistence of formal and informal...

We consider a two-sector economy, where public infrastructure unevenly affects the productivity of the sectors. Private and public capital are produced with different technologies, and the sector producing the infrastructure is not benefiting from its services. The government provides both...

We study the compatibility of the optimal population size concepts produced by different social welfare functions and egalitarism meant as "equal consumption for all individuals of all generations". Social welfare functions are parameterized by an altruism parameter generating the Benthamite and...

This paper proposes a new mechanism based on the allocation of labor to help understand why differences among countries have remained stable. We formulate a neoclassical growth model in which agents devote time either to produce or to commit predation. Labor share is the key variable which...