This paper explores the impact of insatiable needs on the sustainability and the direction of technological change and economic growth. In a simple framework it is shown that growth can only be sustained if either the opportunity costs of research are small at low levels of research or if some...

We introduce a framework of development in which the direction of change is determined endogenously. Which new products, which new qualities and which new techniques are introduced in the course of development is determined by the profitability of different potential innovations. We define a...

In this article we show how absolute poverty and per capita growth can be sustained simultaneously in a fully integrated world economy even in the absence of population growth. In contrast to the literature we use a model of endogenously sustained growth in which not only the intensity of...

This article examines the validity of a gains from trade proposition in a world in which the direction of technological change is determined endogenously. We first give an extreme example in which a part of the world that would smoothly develop under autarchy forever remains underdeveloped under...