This essay develops a theory of the evolution of international income levels. In particular, it augments the Hansen-Prescott theory of economic development with the Parente-Prescott theory of relative efficiencies and shows that the unified theory accounts for the evolution of international...

We construct a model of economic growth in which firms adopt more advanced technologies. In order to advance its technology, a firm must make an investment. The size of this investment depends on the size of the technology adoption barriers in the firm's country. Assuming a Markov chain for...

This article argues that a natural implication of an innovation-based theory of growth is that slow development facilitates the formation of special interest groups. We demonstrate this in a growth model where innovations take the form of new goods and new production processes, and where factor...

Why is the adoption of more productive technologies more fiercely resisted in some societies than in others? This paper examines the role of market size and free trade in determining whether firms or workers resist the adoption of more advanced technologies. It puts forth a model whereby the...

This paper puts forth a unified theory of growth that captures a number of relevant features of countries' transitions from stagnant, predominantly rural economies to vibrant, industrialized economies that have been overlooked by the literature. In our theory, increasing variety of consumer...

Why did the Industrial Revolution start sometime in the 18th century in England and not earlier and in some other country? This paper argues that the key to the start of the Industrial Revolution was the expansion and integration of markets that preceded it. Due to less regulation, increasing...

Although many of the worst performing countries over the post-World War II period were autocracies, many of the best were likewise autocratic. At the same time, no long-lived autocracy currently is rich whereas every long-lived democracy is. This paper proposes a theory to account for these...