The paper considers maximum likelihood estimation of dynamic panel structural equation models with latent variables and fixed effects (DPSEM). This generalises the structural equation methods where latent variables are measured by multiple observable indicators and where structural and measurement models are jointly estimated to dynamic panel models with fixed effects. Analytical expressions fo...

The restaurant business in Mexico is spilling about 40 million dollars a year. Domino `s Pizza is the industry leader, with a market share of 39%. His closest competitor, Pizza Hut, have the 3.9%. What do they do to compete in a market almost dominated by Domino `s Pizza? What strategy should be used Little Caesars to get a bigger market share? In the following paper, through some qualitative m...

We investigate the role of initial conditions at colonial independence on economic growth in Africa in the post-independence period using Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA). A key innovation in our estimation methodology is that we incorporate parameter heterogeneity in model averaging as well as try to mitigate the endogeneity problem present in growth regressions. In order to ensure that differen...

This paper looks at the historical evolution of the relationship between an economy's structure and the corresponding political system, starting from feudal times. We show why, in an early agricultural phase, aristocratic political systems prevail, while democracies tend to emerge with the industrial phase, while at the same time the legal system regulating the intergenerational transfers of pr...

This paper examines the relationship between fertility and human capital investment and its implications for economic growth, focusing on the effects of declining mortality. Unlike the existing literature, this paper stresses the role of uncertainty about the number of surviving children. If the marginal utility of a surviving child is convex, then there will be a precautionary demand for child...

Growth, Inequality and Poverty Relationships This paper examines the causal relationship between inequality and a number of macroeconomic variables frequently found in the inequality and growth literature. These include growth, openness, wages, and liberalisation. We review the existing cross-country empirical evidence on the effects of inequality on growth and the extent to which the poorest i...

This paper evaluates the empirical relation between the level of "nancial intermediary development and (i) economic growth, (ii) total factor productivity growth, (iii) physical capital accumulation, and (iv) private savings rates. We use (a) a pure cross-country instrumental variable estimator to extract the exogenous component of "nancial intermediary development, and (b) a new panel techniqu...

This paper establishes a simple model of long run economic and political development, which is driven by the inherent technical features of di¤erent production factors, and political con‡icts among factor owners on how to divide the outputs. The main capital form in economy evolves from land to physical capital and then to human capital, which enables their respective owners (landlords, capital...