This paper evaluates relations between industrial activity and the structure of countries’ financial, ownership and legal systems. Using data on 27 industries in 14 OECD countries over the period 1970 to 1995, we evaluate whether the structure of countries` systems is associated with...

What is the impact of modern transportation technology on long-run economic change in poor countries with high trade costs?  Rail construction in colonial Sub-Saharan Africa provides a natural experiment: 90% of African rail-road lines were built before independence, in a context where...

We study the impact of growth and growth accelerations on poverty and inequality in Indonesia using a new panel dataset covering 26 provinces over the period 1977-2010.  This new dataset allows us to distinguish between mining and non-mining sectors of the economy.  We find that growth in...

The global response to a catastrophic shock to productivity which becomes more imminent with global warming is to have carbon taxes to curb the risk of a calamity and to accumulate precautionary capital to facilitate smoothing of consumption.  Our multi-region model of growth and climate change...

Many previous studies of the role of trade during the British Industrial Revolution have found little or no role for trade in explaining British living standards or growth rates.  We construct a three-region model of the world in which Britain trades with North America and the rest of the...

This paper characterises the dynamic behaviour of a growing economy where individuals `keep up with the Joneses` and face uninsurable labour income risk. Idiosyncratic uncertainty about future labour income reduces the marginal propensity to consume out of financial wealth and raises the...

Do openness to trade and higher levels of human capital promote faster productivity growth? That they do is a key implication of several versions of endogenous growth theory. To answer the question we use panel data on 93 countries spanning the 1970-2000 period. Controlling for fixed effects as...

Millennium development goal (MDG) of poverty reduction aims for halving of the head-count ratio over the period 1990-2015. Available studies draw attention to the gap between observed and required growth rates, the difficulties of sustaining the latter over time, and whether the policy stance of...

This paper examines the relation between financial, corporate and legal systems, and economic performance in different countries. It reviews international comparisons that undertake detailed analyses of individual, developed countries and studies that use large, cross-country data banks,...

This paper considers a model of endogenous growth with two sectors. It shows that it may be desirable to concentrate research in one sector, and so have unbalanced growth, but that the pressure of competition in research may cause the private sector to spread research too widely, and so have...