We show that even in the absence of diminishing returns in production and technological spillovers, international trade leads to a stable world income distribution. This is because specialization and trade introduce de facto diminishing returns: countries that accumulate capital faster than average experience declining export prices, depressing the rate of return to capital and discouraging fur...

The endogenous approach to regional development policy has become central over the last decade. By employing the conditional frontier approach, this paper investigates the relative contribution to labour productivity growth of: (1) capital accumulation, (2) exogenous technical change and efficiency, and (3) endogenous technological capabilities – i.e. innovation capability and human capital. We...

We analyze the properties of credible equilibria in dynamic settings with privately informed agents, capital accumulation and a lack of societal commitment. We show that a lack of commitment tilts the social tradeoff between equality and incentives towards the former and has ambiguous implications for capital accumulation. We isolate forces that promote and retard capital accumulation in these ...

Empirical results through a fixed effects regression model show that government size has a negative effect on growth mainly through hampering capital accumulation. When a sample is divided into OECD and non-OECD countries, the negative effect of government size on capital accumulation persists for non-OECD countries but not for OECD countries.

This paper studies capital accumulation in a slightly altered, explicit OLG model. The fundamental difference with the standard model lies in the initial conditions. If a portion of the initial allocation of the capital stock is not assigned to retirees, the framework allowing for a genuine accumulation of capital is provided. Dynamic aspects of the resulting model are analyzed, including dynam...

The endogenous approach to regional development policy has become central over the last decade. By employing the conditional frontier approach, this paper investigates the relative contribution to labour productivity growth of: (1) capital accumulation, (2) exogenous technical change and efficiency, and (3) endogenous technological capabilities – i.e. innovation capability and human capital. We...

Drawing attention to the governing role of capital accumulation and its interaction with the state, this study examines the dynamics of the new wave of suburbanization in China, which is characterized by the development of new towns. New towns essentially function as a spatial fix in China’s contemporary accumulation regime. Rather than resulting from capital switching from the primary to the s...

People go to school and firms do R&D. These activities result in human capital accumulation and new ideas and technologies which make economies grow. We try to capture the interaction between human capital and R&D by allowing for endogenous human capital accumulation in an economy where the number of products and technologies expands because profit maximizing entrepreneurs do R&D. We find that,...

Should a country invest more in human or physical capital? The present paper addresses this issue, considering the impact of different factor intensities between sectors on both optimal human and physical capital accumulation. Using a two-sector overlapping generations setting with endogenous growth driven by human capital accumulation, we prove that relative factor intensity between sectors dr...

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expresse...