In this paper we estimate a model of the determinants of economic and social development that takes seriously three of the criticisms of panel data models in the existing growth literature: that long run coefficients are biased because the lagged dependent variable is not strictly exogenous; that they are biased because of slope coefficient heterogeneity; and that they are biased because of exp...

This paper examines whether growth regressions should incorporate dualism and structural change. If there is a differential across sectors in the marginal product of labour, changes in the structure of employment can raise aggregate total factor productivity. The paper develops empirical growth models that allow for this effect in a more flexible way than previous work. Estimates of the models ...

An unresolved debate in the development literature concerns the impact of gender inequality on economic growth. Previous studies have found that the effect varies, depending on the measure of inequality (wages or capabilities). This paper expands that discussion by considering both the shortand long-run, evaluating the effects of gender equality in two types of economies—semi-industrialized eco...

This paper examines the role of high-technology trade, IPRs and FDI in determining a country’s rate of innovation and economic growth. The empirical analysis is conducted using a unique panel data set of 47 developed and developing countries from 1970 to 1990. The results suggest that: (1) high-technology imports are relevant in explaining domestic innovation both in developed and developing co...

In this paper we aim at studying to what extent spillovers between firms may foster economic growth. The attention is addressed to the spillovers connected with the R&D activity that improves the quality of the goods firms supply. Our model develops a growth theory framework and we assume that firms spread around a circle. Our study assesses that spillovers between neighbors affect the probabil...

This paper analyzes how property rights affect the allocation of firms’ available resources among different types of assets. In particular, we investigate empirically for a large number of countries whether firms in environments with more secure property rights allocate available resources more towards intangible assets and consequentially grow faster. We find that improved asset allocation due...

This paper analyses the role played by foreign direct investment (FDI) as a mechanism through which technology flows between countries. After a short review of the existing literature it is observed that aggregate studies do not obtain evidence of the existence of technology spillovers amongst the OECD countries. These results oppose the presumption among many academics and policy-makers that F...

This study examines empirically the impact of income polarization on economic growth in an unbalanced panel of more than 70 countries during the 1960–2005 period. We calculate various polarization indices using existing micro-level datasets, as well as datasets reconstructed from grouped data on income distribution taken from the World Income Inequality Database. The results garnered for our pr...

The consensus of the aid effectiveness literature is that foreign aid is effective at spurring economic growth in recipient countries. However, economic growth is heterogeneous in nature, driven by a number of different activities within an economy. This paper contributes to the literature by disaggregating the Gross Domestic Product of recipients in order to investigate the type of economic gr...

The Industrial Revolution and the Demographic Transition are the two great forces that explain the upward march of modern incomes. This paper sets out the empirical realities attempts to unify these events through theories of human capital investment have to meet. The major difficulty is to form an explanation which connects them which can also reconcile the seeming differences in fertility beh...