We model core demands for better governance (political, economic and institutional), more employment and less consumer price inflation using a methodological innovation on the complete elimination of cross-country differences in signals susceptible of sparking social revolts. The empirical evidence based on 14 MENA countries show that the Arab Spring was predictable in 2007 to occur between Jan...

A growth model is developed for an open dual economy. Th e economy expands due to a higher growth rate of labour productivity in the modern sector through the Kaldor-Verdoorn channel and higher eff ective demand through a Keynesian channel. Th e model incorporates a retardation mechanism aff ecting the slopes of productivity and output growth schedules as labour surplus and economies of scale d...

This paper investigates the growth experience of one country in detail in order to enhance our understanding of important factors that affect economic growth. Using a two-sector model, we identify the low productivity growth in the agricultural sector as the main reason for the divergence of income per capita between Turkey and its peer countries between 1968 and 2005. An extended model that in...

Stiglitz (Econometrica 37 (1969) 382) shows income convergence in a many-agent Solow growth model with integrated capital markets (ICM). The many-agent Ramsey model (MARM) without ICM also gives income convergence. With a MARM, equal discount rates, and ICM, convergence of incomes (as opposed to product per capita) cannot occur. These results depend upon fixed saving propensities (Stiglitz) or ...

Why Is Child Labor Illegal? We present a theory of the emergence of laws restricting child labor or imposing mandatory education that is consistent with the fact that poor parents tend to oppose such laws. We find that if altruistic parents are unable to commit to educating their children, child-labor laws can increase the welfare of higher-income parents in an ex ante sense. On the basis of an...

A two-region model is proposed in this paper. Manufactured goods can be produced with cottage technology under constant returns to scale or with modern technology using differentiated intermediate goods, which are produced with increasing returns to scale technology. In the model, there may be multiple equilibria, and, in such cases, the initial conditions determine the equilibrium that the eco...

The Ben-Porath (1967) model suggests that a rise in life expectancy, and the associated rise in the lifetime labor input, brings about a rise in investment in human capital. We incorporate the leisure decision into the model and develop a necessary condition regarding the lifetime labor input for the Ben-Porath mechanism to have a positive effect on investment in human capital. We show that thi...