Oded Galor

Income Distribution and Macroeconomics

This paper analyzes the role of income distribution in macroeconomic analysis. The study demonstrates that the long-run equilibrium depends on the initial distribution of income. In accordance with empirical evidence concerning the correlation between income distribution and output, an economy that is characterized by a relatively equal distribution of wealth is likely to be wealthier in the long run. The study may, therefore, provide an additional explanation for the persistent differences in per-capita output across countries. Furthermore, the paper may shed light on cross-countries differences macroeconomic adjustment to aggregate shocks.

Convergence?: Inferences from Theoretical Models

This essay suggests that the convergence controversy may reflect, in part, differences in perception regarding the viable set of competing testable hypotheses generated by existing growth theories. It argues that in contrast to the prevailing wisdom, the traditional neo-classical growth paradigm generates the club convergence hypothesis as well as the conditional convergence hypothesis. Furthermore, the inclusion of empirically significant variables such as human capital, income distribution, and fertility in conventional growth models, along with capital market imperfections, externalities, and non-convexities, strengthens the viability of club convergence as a competing hypothesis with conditional convergence.

Ability-Biased Technological Transition, Wage Inequality, and Economic Growth

This paper develops a growth model in which the endogenous evolution of technological change and wage inequality is consistent with the observed pattern in the US and several other countries in the last two centuries. The evolution of the economy and its impact on wage inequality is based upon three central elements that appear consistent with empirical evidence.

The Distribution of Human Capital and Economic Growth

This paper analyzes the interaction between the distributionof human capital, technological progress, and economic growth.It argues that the composition of human capital is an importantfactor in the determination of the pattern of economic development.The study demonstrates that the evolutionary pattern of the humancapital distribution, the income distribution, and economic growthare determined simultaneously by the interplay between a local home environment externality and a global technologicalexternality. In early stages of development the local home environmentexternality is the dominating factor and hence the distributionof income becomes polarized; whereas in mature stages of developmentthe global technological externality dominates and the distributionof income ultimately contracts. Polarization, in early stagesof development may be a necessary ingredient for future economicgrowth. An economy that prematurely implements a policy designedto enhance equality may be trapped at a low stage of development.An underdeveloped economy, which values equality as well as prosperity,may confront a trade-off between equality in the short-run followedby equality and stagnation in the long-run, and inequality inthe short-run followed by equality and prosperity in the longrun.

Migrants' Savings, the Probability of Return Migration and Migrants' Performance

This paper highlights a difference between migrants and the native-born namely a positive probability of return migration. The analysis demonstrates that this probability results in migrants saving more than comparable native-born. This differential may explain why even if all workers are perfectly homogeneous in skills migrants often outperform the native-born in the receiving economy. (EXCERPT)

Existence, uniqueness, and stability of equilibrium in an overlapping-generations model with productive capital

This paper analyzes the existence, uniqueness, and stability of a steady-state equilibrium in an overlapping-generations model with productive capital. It is shown that for any feasible set of well-behaved preferences there exists a production function that satisfies the Inada conditions under which the economy experiences global contraction and the steady-state equilibrium is characterized by the absence of production and consumption. The study establishes a strengthened Inada condition which is necessary to preclude global contraction. and sufficient conditions for the existence of a unique and globally stable non-trivial steady-state equilibrium.

Population, Technology, and Growth: From the Malthusian Regime to the Demographic Transition

This paper develops a unified model of growth, population, and technological progress that is consistent with long-term historical evidence. The economy endogenously evolves through three phases. In the Malthusian regime, population growth is positively related to the level of income per capita. Technological progress is slow and is matched by proportional increases in population, so that output per capita is stable around a constant level. In the post-Malthusian regime, the growth rates of technology and total output increase. Population growth absorbs much of the growth of output, but income per capita does rise slowly. The economy endogenously undergoes a demographic transition in which the traditionally positive relationship between income per capita and population growth is reversed. In the Modern Growth regime, population growth is moderate and income per capita rises rapidly.

Trading Population for Productivity: Theory and Evidence

This research argues that the differential effect of international trade on the demand for human capital across countries has been a major determinant of the distribution of income and population across the globe. In developed countries the gains from trade have been directed towards investment in education and growth in income per capita, whereas a significant portion of these gains in less developed economies have been channeled towards population growth. Cross-country regressions establish that indeed trade has positive effects on fertility and negative effects on education in non-OECD economies, while inducing fertility decline and human capital formation in OECD economies.

THE DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION AND THE EMERGENCE OF SUSTAINED ECONOMIC GROWTH

The demographic transition that swept the world in the course of the last century has been identified as one of the prime forces in the transition from stagnation to growth. The unprecedented increase in population growth during the early stages of industrialization was ultimately reversed and the demographic transition brought about a significant reduction in fertility rates and population growth in various regions of the world, enabling economies to convert a larger share of the fruits of factor accumulation and technological progress into growth of income per capita. This Paper examines various mechanisms that have been proposed as possible triggers for the demographic transition, assessing their empirical validity, and their potential role in the transition from stagnation to growth.

Chapter 4 From Stagnation to Growth: Unified Growth Theory

Abstract The transition from stagnation to growth and the associated phenomenon of the great divergence have been the subject of an intensive research in the growth literature in recent years. The discrepancy between the predictions of exogenous and endogenous growth models and the process of development over most of human history, induced growth theorists to advance an alternative theory that would capture in a single unified framework the contemporary era of sustained economic growth, the epoch of Malthusian stagnation that had characterized most of the process of development, and the fundamental driving forces of the recent transition between these distinct regimes. The advancement of unified growth theory was fueled by the conviction that the understanding of the contemporary growth process would be limited and distorted unless growth theory would be based on micro-foundations that would reflect the qualitative aspects of the growth process in its entirety. In particular, the hurdles faced by less developed economies in reaching a state of sustained economic growth would remain obscured unless the origin of the transition of the currently developed economies into a state of sustained economic growth would be identified, and its implications would be modified to account for the additional economic forces faced by less developed economies in an interdependent world. Unified growth theory suggests that the transition from stagnation to growth is an inevitable outcome of the process of development. The inherent Malthusian interaction between the level of technology and the size and the composition of the population accelerated the pace of technological progress, and ultimately raised the importance of human capital in the production process. The rise in the demand for human capital in the second phase of industrialization, and its impact on the formation of human capital as well as on the onset of the demographic transition, brought about significant technological advancements along with a reduction in fertility rates and population growth, enabling economies to convert a larger share of the fruits of factor accumulation and technological progress into growth of income per capita, and paving the way for the emergence of sustained economic growth. Variations in the timing of the transition from stagnation to growth and thus in economic performance across countries reflect initial differences in geographical factors and historical accidents and their manifestation in variations in institutional, social, cultural, and political factors. In particular, once a technologically driven demand for human capital emerged in the second phase of industrialization, the prevalence of human capital promoting institutions determined the extensiveness of human capital formation, the timing of the demographic transition, and the pace of the transition from stagnation to growth.