In this paper we study how privatization and deregulation of production of intermediate goods influence capital accumulation. Our model is solved under three alternative scenarios: one where the intermediate sector is composed of a public monopoly under government control, one where the...

This paper develops a quantitative theoretical model for the optimal provision of public capital. We show that the ratio of public to private capital in the U.S. economy since 1925 evolves in a manner that is broadly consistent with an optimal transition path derived from a simple growth model....

We develop a model that, at the aggregate level, is similar to the one sector neoclassical growth model, while, at the disaggregate level, has implications for the path of observable measures of technology adoption. We estimate our model using data on the diffusion of 15 technologies in 166...

The literature on horizontal innovation claims to analyse cases where unbounded endogenous growth comes from an increasing variety of intermediate goods. The present paper contends that a good sample of representative models in this literature share two essential assumptions regarding production...

This paper analyses the effects of disease and war on the accumulation of human and physical capital. We employ an overlapping-generations frame-work in which young adults, confronted with such hazards and motivated by old-age provision and altruism, make decisions about investments in schooling...

What determines the direction of technological progress is one of the central questions that economics needs to answer. By introducing a small but fundamental generalization of Acemolgu (2002) the current paper points out the key determinants of that direction. The extended model argues that...

This paper uses a new data set for cumulative national investment in formal schooling and a new instrument for schooling to estimate the national return on investment in 61 countries. These estimates are combined with data on the private rate of return on investment in schooling to estimate the...

The U.S. went through a remarkable structural transformation between 1800 and 2000. In 1800 the majority of people worked in agriculture. Barely anyone did by 2000. What caused the rapid demise of agriculture in the economy? The analysis here concentrates on the development of new consumer goods...

The stability of cyclical growth within the context of a model in Matsuyama (1999) is examined. It is shown that but for an extreme situation, the two-cycles are unique and a range of parameter values which imply the stability of such cyclical growth is derived. The growth enhancing property of...