Much of the analysis of economic growth has focused on the study of aggregate output. Here, we deviate from this tradition and look instead at the structure of output embodied in the network connecting countries to the products that they export. We characterize this network using four structural features: the negative relationship between the diversification of a country and the average ubiquit...

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...

versity. The author gratefully acknowledges helpful comments from two anonymous referees of this journal. 1Prior to Smith, the mercantilists were interested in this same question and thought that a nation’s accumulation of gold and silver increased its wealth, and the physiocrats argued that wealth is the product of the land, so encouraged agriculture. Thus the issue was raised before Smith’s m...

Economic development is composed of processes of structural transformation such as industrialization and urbanization. Demonstrating Thailand's success in pursuing economic development is the increase in real GDP per capita from $985 in 1960 to $6,970 in 1990. However, this has not been without negative side effects, especially in the central node of the economy, Bangkok. Indeed, industrial pol...

This paper examines cross-country patterns of economic growth by estimating a stochastic frontier production function for 80 developed and developing countries and decomposing output change into factor accumulation, total factor productivity growth, and production efficiency improvement. In addition, this paper incorporates the quality of inputs in analyzing output growth, where the productivit...

Determining the factors affecting economic growth for countries is of significant interest to the macroeconomist. In his classic article from 1956, Robert Solow proposed the model that has since become the modern standard for economic development models. His growth model, the Solow growth model, assumes a neoclassical production function with diminishing returns to capital, i.e. total income Y ...

A large body of both theoretical and empirical literature has affirmed a positive impact of human capital accumulation in the form of health on economic growth. For rich countries, however, the existing empirical evidence is mixed. This paper revisits the question whether health capital formation stimulates GDP growth in rich countries applying a new empirical methodology: the panel Granger-cau...

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 ...

While policy makers widely recognise the fact that education serves as an engine for economic growth through the accumulation of human capital, education is also strongly associated with boosting levels of social capital. Indeed, an important justification for the large expenditures on education within many democratic nations is its social, and not just economic, impact – the benefits an educat...