The conditions for sustainable growth and development are among the most debated topics in economics, and the consensus is that institutions matter greatly in explaining why some economies are more successful than others over time. This book explores the relationship between economic conditions, growth, and inequality.

One of the most enduring questions in economics involves how a nation could accelerate the pace of its economic development. One of the most enduring answers to this question is to promote exports -either because doing so directly influences development via encouraging production of goods for export, or because export promotion permits accumulation of foreign exchange which permits importation of high-quality goods and services, which can in turn be used to expand the nation's production possibilities. In either case, growth is said to be export-led; the latter case is the so-called "two-gap" hypothesis (McKinnon, 1964; Findlay, 1973). The early work on export-led growth consisted of static cross-country com parisons (Michaely, 1977; Balassa, 1978; Tyler, 1981; Kormendi and Meguire, 1985). These studies generally concluded that there is strong evidence in favour of export-led growth because export growth and income growth are highly correlated. However, Kravis pointed out in 1970 that the question is an essen tially dynamic one: as he put it, are exports the handmaiden or the engine of growth? To make this determination one needs to look at time series to see whether or not exports are driving income. This approach has been taken in a number of papers (Jung and Marshall, 1985; Chow, 1987; Serletis, 1992; Kunst and Marin, 1989; Marin, 1992; Afxentiou and Serletis, 1991), designed to assess whether or not individual countries exhibit statistically significant evidence of export-led growth using Granger causality tests.

The study provides a major reassessment of the scale and scope of China’s resurgence over the past half century, employing quantitative measurement techniques which are standard practice in OECD countries, but which have not hitherto been available for China.

He presents evidence that long-run growth can be attributed to variances in hypothalmic activity."--BOOK JACKET.

The conditions for sustainable growth and development are among the most debated topics in economics, and the consensus is that institutions matter greatly in explaining why some economies are more successful than others over time. Probing the long-term effects of early colonial differences on immigration policy, land distribution, and financial development in a variety of settings, Understanding Long-Run Economic Growth explores the relationship between economic conditions, growth, and inequality, with a focus on how the monopolization of resources by the political elite limits incentives for ordinary people to invest in human capital or technological discovery. Among the topics discussed are the development of credit markets in France, the evolution of transportation companies in the United Kingdom and the United States, and the organization of innovation in the United States.

What accounts for the varying long term growth patterns across developing countries? Why were some economies able to achieve sustained and rapid growth in the past three decades, while others failed? In Social Capability and Long-Term Economic Growth, an impressive panel of economists come together to develop a theory of long-term growth, focusing on the dynamic relationship between the social capability to manage scarce resources and long-term growth. Various theoretical issues concerning social capability are explored, and in-depth case-studies of the development experiences of Asian, Latin American, and socialist economies are presented with significant empirical findings. The authors argue that a nation's social capability to efficiently manage human resources is a crucial ingredient for sustaining growth. This study is a serious response to the important question of how a poor developing country can transform itself into a developed one, and its findings offer valuable insight to the development of a long-term growth theory and to economic development policies.