We construct a model where the equilibrium organization of firms changes as an economy approaches the world technology frontier. In vertically integrated firms, owners (managers) have to spend time both on production and innovation activities, and this creates managerial overload, and discourages innovation. Outsourcing of some production activities mitigates the managerial overload, but create...

This paper examines an economic union where oligopolistic firms produce by skilled and unskilled labor and do R&D by skilled labor. The planner of the union accepts new members to the union, deregulates the product market through anti-trust policy and regulates the labor market through a minimum wage for unskilled labor. Firms and workers lobby the planner for prospective policy. It is shown th...

We use a stochastic frontier approach to study the effects of political and regulatory institutions on aggregate productivity in 39 countries from 1975 to 1990. We show that technical efficiency is positively related to policies supporting laissez-faire and political structures that promote policy stability. Moreover, models of technical efficiency incorporating both measures perform better tha...

This paper investigates the effect of education and the role of technical progress on economic growth in Taiwan over the 1965–2000 period. A structural earnings function and indicator for average schooling years are applied to a measure of education, and a transcendental production function is used in the model. Findings reveal that education has a positive and significant effect on growth, but...

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...

The paper estimates an empirical relation based on Krugman’s “technological gap” model to explore the influence of the pattern of international trade and production on the overall productivity growth of a developing country. A key result is that increased import competition in medium-growth (but not in lowor highgrowth) manufacturing sectors enhances overall productivity growth. The authors als...

Banking sector openness may directly increase growth by improving the quality of financial services and increasing funds available, or indirectly by improving the efficiency of financial intermediaries, both of which may reduce the cost of financing, in turn, increase capital accumulation and economic growth. The objective of the paper is to empirically reinvestigate these direct and indirect l...

I examine a common market with the following institutions. Oligopolistic firms improve their productivity by R&D. Wages are determined by union-employer bargaining. Firms and workers lobby the authority that accepts new members and regulates unions’ and firms’ market power. The main findings are as follows. Small common markets have incentives to expand, but large ones are indifferent to new me...

I analyze the effect of inequality on economic growth in Latin America, where inequality is measured as the area of family farms as a percentage of the total area of agricultural holdings. Using data from 18 Latin American countries between 1960 and 2004, I find that inequality has a nonlinear effect on economic growth. Overall, for the countries included in this analysis, the share of family f...

We find that trade and domestic market size are robust determinants of economic growth over the 1960-1996 period when trade openness is measured as the US dollar value of imports and exports relative to GDP in PPP US$ (“real openness”). When trade openness is measured as the US dollar value of imports and exports relative to GDP in exchange rate US$ (“nominal openness”) however, trade and the s...