Government spending should be regarded as a social and political phenomenon, not merely as a technical choice. We argue that there is an implicit contract between the organized elites and politicians which often leads to a pro-elite allocation of public resources. A natural and simple taxonomy...

Explicitly accounting for certain basic physical laws governing the “earth” sector dramatically enriches our ability to explain a high degree of diversity in observed patterns of economic growth. We provide a theoretical explanation of why some countries have been able to sustain a more or...

This paper explores the conditions for sustainable development through two models of economic growth that elucidates two extremes; an open economy with constant prices, and a closed economy with endogenous prices. Sustainable development is easier to achieve in the case of the former than the...

Three new structural factors underlie the latest great world crisis: (1) the incorporation of highly populated countries into the growth process; (2) The increasing scarcity of the environment and certain natural resources; (3) the dramatic concentration of wealth and income in the advanced...

This paper characterizes the optimal use of sanitary and phytosanitary standards to prevent the introduction of harmful pests and diseases through international trade. Because established pest and disease infestations grow and spread over time their introduction has intertemporal consequences....