Title of dissertation: PRODUCTIVITY DISPERSION, PLANT SIZE, AND MARKET STRUCTURE Sasan Bakhtiari, Doctor of Philosophy, 2008 Dissertation directed by: Professor John Haltiwanger Department of Economics Ample evidence from micro data suggests that productivity at establishment level is dominated by idiosyncratic factors. The productivity differences across establishments are very large and persi...

We demonstrate by mathematical analysis and systematic computer simulations that redistribution can lead to sustainable growth in a society. In accordance with economic models of risky human capital, we assume that dynamics of human capital is modeled as a multiplicative stochastic process which, in the long run, leads to the destruction of individual human capital. When agents are linked by fu...

The Industrial Revolution decisively changed economy wide productivity growth rates. For successful economies, measured efficiency growth rates increased from close to zero to close to 1% per year in the blink of an eye, in terms of the long history of humanity, seemingly within 50 years of 1800 in England. Yet the Industrial Revolution has defied simple economic explanations or modeling. This ...

This chapter provides a broad framework for our analysis by enumerating the factors that affect the supply of high quality youth to the armed forces. These factors are derived from existing economic models of enlistment supply. A more detailed discussion of these models can be found in Warner and Asch (1995) and Kilburn and Klerman (forthcoming). The chapter also enumerates the data sources we ...

Microorganisms are the main engines of elemental cycling in this planet and therefore have a profound impact on both organic and mineral substrates. As such, past and present human-made structures and cultural heritage can be negatively affected by microbial activity. Processes such as bioweathering (rocks and minerals), biodeterioration (organic substrates) or biocorrosion (metals) participate...

This article takes a critical look at the equity premium puzzle—the inability of standard intertemporal economic models to rationalize the statistics that have characterized U.S. financial markets over the past century. A summary of historical returns for the United States and other industrialized countries and an overview of the economic construct itself are provided. The intuition behind the ...

One of the major aims of the Structural Adjustment Programs, except from correcting short-term imbalances in the economy and creating an environment for sustained economic growth has been, according to the World Bank, to correct the urban-bias politics in Africa. The World Bank uses neo-classic economic models in their analysis of the characteristic of the urban-bias as well as its outcomes. Ac...

Historical data, theory and computer simulations support a connection between growth and economic inequality. Our present world with large regional differences in economic activity is a result of fast economic growth during the last two centuries. Because of limits to growth we might expect a future world to develop differently with far less growth. The question that we here address is: “Would ...

Incorporating the decision of how to organize the acquisition, use, and communication of knowledge into economic models is essential to understand a wide variety of economic phenomena. We survey the literature that has used knowledge-based hierarchies to study issues such as the evolution of wage inequality, the growth and productivity of firms, economic development, and the gains from internat...

A series of hypotheses is presented about the relation of national energy use to national economic activity (both time series and cross-sectional) which offer a different perspective from standard economics for the assessment of historical and current economic events. The analysis incorporates nearly 100 years of time series data and 3 years of cross-sectional data on 87 sectors of the United S...