Search Results
Working Paper
Institutions Do Not Rule: Reassessing the Driving Forces of Economic Development
The pursuit to uncover the driving forces behind cross-country income gaps has divided economists into two major camps: One emphasizes institutions, while the other stresses non-institutional forces such as geography. Each school of thought has its own theoretical foundation and empirical support, but they share an implicit hypothesis?the forces driving economic development remain the same regardless of a country?s stage of development. Such hypothesis implies a theory that the process of development in human history is a continuous improvement in income levels, driven by the same forces, and ...
Journal Article
Changes in Income Gaps Might Overstate Changes in Welfare Gaps
Changes in income of rich and poor households might overstate changes in welfare because the cost of goods favored by the rich is rising faster than the cost of goods consumed mainly by the poor and middle class.