Includes bibliographical references and index.

Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Brief Contents
Contents
Preface
About the Author
Chapter 1 The Facts to Be Explained
1.1 Differences in the Level of Income among Countries
Box: Total GDP Versus GDP per Capita
1.2 Differences in the Rate of Income Growth among Countries
Growth's Effect on the Level of Income
Box: Working With Growth Rates
Growth during Recent Decades
Box: Growth Versus Business Cycles
Growth since 1820
Growth before 1820
Box: Income Inequality between and within Countries
Economic Growth as Seen from Outer Space
1.3 Conclusion
Appendix Measuring and Comparing GDP Using Purchasing Power Parity
Chapter 2 A Framework for Analysis
2.1 The Economics of Sylvania and Freedonia: A Parable
2.2 From Parable to Practice
The Production function
From Income Levels to Growth Rates
2.3 What Can We Learn From Data?
Scatter Plots and Correlations
Box: Randomized Controlled Trials
Box: Learning From Historical Data
2.4 Conclusion
Chapter 3 Physical Capital
3.1 The Nature of Capital
3.2 Capital's Role In Production
Using a Production function to Analyze Capital's Role
Box: Capital's Share of National Income
Factor Payments and Factor Shares
3.3 The Solow Model
Determination of Capital per Worker
Box: The Rise and Fall of Capital
Box: Measuring Change Over Time
Steady states
Box: Steady State: A Noneconomic Example
The Solow Model as a Theory of Income Differences
The Solow Model as a Theory of Relative Growth Rates
3.4 The Relationship Between Investment and Saving
Explaining the Saving Rate: Exogenous Versus Endogenous Factors
The Effect of Income on Saving
Box: Government Policy and the Saving Rate
3.5 Conclusion
Box: The Rise and Fall of Capital Revisited
Appendix Further Exploration of the Cobb-Douglas Production Function and the Speed of Convergence in the Solow Model
Chapter 4 Population and Economic Growth
4.1 Population and Output Over the Long Run
Population over the long run
The Malthusian Model
Box: The Power of Population
The Breakdown of the Malthusian Model
4.2 Population Growth in the Solow Model
Population Growth and Capital Dilution
A Quantitative Analysis
4.3 Explaining Population Growth
Mortality Transition
Fertility Transition
The Interaction of Fertility and Mortality
4.4 Explaining the Fertility Transition
Reduced Fertility: The Means
Box: Family-Planning Programs and Their Effects
Reduced Fertility: The Motives
4.5 Conclusion
Appendix More Formal Description of the Total Fertility Rate, Life Expectancy, and Net Rate of Reproduction
Chapter 5 Future Population Trends
5.1 Forecasting Population
Forecasting Mortality
Forecasting Fertility
Box: Aids in Africa
Box: The Tempo Effect
Demographic Momentum
Population in the Very Long Run
Box: How many People Can the Earth Support?
5.2 The Economic Consequences of Demographic Change
The Slowdown in Population Growth
Population Aging
Redrawing the World Map
Going for the Gold
5.3 Conclusion
Chapter 6 Human Capital
6.1 Human Capital in tHe Form oF HealtH
The Effect of Health Differences on Income
Modeling the Interaction of Health and Income
Box: Health and Income Per Capita: Two Views
6.2 Human Capital in the form of Education
Changes in the Level of Education
Box: The Economic Effects of Malaria
Education and Wages
Human Capital's Share of Wages
Box: The College Premium in the United States
6.3 How Much of the Variation in Income across Countries Does Education Explain?
A Quantitative Analysis of the Impact of Schooling Differences among Countries
6.4 Conclusion
Box: Human Perfectability and the Growth Slowdown
Chapter 7 Measuring Productivity
7.1 Productivity in the Production Function
7.2 Differences in the Level of Productivity among Countries
Measuring Productivity Differences among Countries
The Contribution of Productivity to Income Differences among Countries
Box: Problems with Measuring Capital—and Their Implications for Measuring Productivity
Box: Mathematical Extension
Box: The Relative Importance of Productivity and Factor Accumulation
7.3 Differences in the Growth Rate of Productivity among Countries
Measuring Countries' Productivity Growth
The Contribution of Productivity to Growth Differences among Countries
7.4 Conclusion
Box: A Tale of Two Cities
Chapter 8 The Role of Technology in Growth
8.1 The Nature of Technological Progress
Technology Creation
Transfer of Technology
Determinants of R&D Spending
8.2 Patents and Other Forms of Intellectual Property Protection
Problems with the Patent System
Alternatives to Patents
8.3 Modeling the Relationship Between Technology Creation and Growth
One-Country Model
Two-Country Model
Box: International Technology Transfer
8.4 Barriers to International Technology Transfer
Appropriate Technology
Tacit Knowledge
Box: Embodied Technological Progress and Leapfrogging
8.5 Conclusion
Mathematical Appendix
Incorporating Technological Progress into the Solow Model
Chapter 9 The Cutting Edge of Technology
9.1 The Pace of Technological Change
Technological Progress before the 18th Century
Box: Some Milestones of Technological Progress
The Industrial Revolution
Technological Progress since the Industrial Revolution
9.2 The Technology Production function
Box: General-Purpose Technologies
The Relationship between Technology Level and the Speed of Technological Progress
Box: Science and Technology
Decreasing Returns to Scale in Technology Production
Implications for the Future of Technological Progress
Box: Where is the Cutting Edge of Technology?
9.3 Differential Technological Progress
Differential Technological Progress: Two Theoretical Examples
Technological Progress in the Real World: Goods versus Services
Technological Progress in the Real World: Information Technology
Box: Predicting Technological Progress
Too Optimistic
Too Pessimistic
9.4 Conclusion
Mathematical Appendix
An Improved Version of the Technology Production Function
Chapter 10 Efficiency
10.1 Decomposing Productivity Into Technology and Efficiency
Analyzing Cross-Country Data
10.2 Differences in Efficiency: Case Studies
Central Planning in the Soviet Union
Textiles in 1910
Differences in Productivity Within an Industry
Subsurface Coal Mining in the United States, 1949–1994
10.3 Types of Inefficiency
Unproductive Activities
Idle Resources
Misallocation of Factors among Sectors
Misallocation of Factors among Firms
Technology Blocking
Box: Finance and Growth
10.4 Conclusion
Chapter 11 Growth in the Open
11.1 Autarky Versus Openness
Measuring Output in an Open Economy
Globalization: the Facts
Globalization: The Causes
Box: Tariffs, Quotas, and other Trade Restrictions
11.2 The Effect of Openness on Economic Growth
Growth in Open versus closed economies
How Changes in Openness Affect Growth
The Effect of Geographical Barriers to Trade
11.3 Openness and Factor Accumulation
Growth with capital mobility
Assessing the Free-Capital-Flow Model
11.4 Openness and Productivity
Trade as a Form of Technology
Box: The Rise and Fall of Consolidated Alchemy
Openness and technological progress
Openness and efficiency
11.5 Opposition to Openness
Anti-Globalization
Exploitation of Workers
Inability of Poor Countries to Compete
Environmental Exploitation
Loss of National Sovereignty
The Hidden Price of Foreign Capital
Hypocrisy on the Part of Rich Countries
11.6 Conclusion
Chapter 12 Government
12.1 Defining Government's Proper Role in the Economy
The Case for Government Intervention in the Economy
The Case Against Government Intervention in the Economy
Swings of the Pendulum
12.2 How Government Affects Growth
Rule of Law
Taxation, Efficiency, and the Size of Government
Planning and Other Industrial Policies
The Other Path
Planning is not Always a Failure
Civil Conflict
12.3 Why Governments do Things that are Bad for Growth
Some other Goal
Corruption and Kleptocracy
Self-Preservation
Government Regulation: Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand?
12.4 Why Poor Countries have Bad Governments
Causation Running from Income to Government Quality
Box: Democracy and Economic Growth
Causation Running from Government Quality to Income
12.5 Conclusion
Questions For Review
Chapter 13 Income Inequality
13.1 Income InequalIty: the Facts
Using the Gini Coefficient to Measure Income Inequality
The Kuznets Hypothesis
Is Growth Good for the Poor?
13.2 Sources of Income Inequality
Explaining the Recent Rise in Income Inequality
13.3 Effect of Income Inequality on Economic Growth
Effect on the Accumulation of Physical Capital
Effect on the Accumulation of Human Capital
Income Inequality, Income Redistribution, and Efficiency
Sociopolitical Unrest in Response to Income Inequality
Empirical Evidence
13.4 Beyond Income Distribution: Economic Mobility
13.5 Conclusion
Chapter 14 Culture
14.1 The Effect Of Culture On Economic Growth
Openness to New Ideas
Hard Work
Saving for the Future
Trust
Box: What Parking Tickets Say about Culture
Box: Pitfalls of Cultural Explanations for Economic Growth
Social Capital
Box: Importance of Social Capital at the Village Level
Social Capability
Box: Changes in Appropriate Culture
14.2 what DetermineS Culture?
Climate and natural resources
Cultural homogeneity and Social Capital
Population Density and Social Capability
14.3 Cultural Change
Box: Determinants of Cooperation: an Experimental Approach
Economic Growth and Cultural Change
Government Policy and Cultural Change
Media and Cultural Change
14.4 Conclusion
Chapter 15 Geography, Climate, and Natural Resources
15.1 Geography
Location, Trade, and Growth
Guns, Germs, and Geography
Geographic Concentration and Spillovers
Geography's Effect on Government
15.2 Climate
Climate and Agricultural Productivity
Climate and Disease
Climate and Human Effort
15.3 Natural Resources
The Relationship Between Natural Resources and Growth
Explanations for the Resource Curse
15.4 Conclusion
Box: Resources and Early Industrial Development: The Case of Coal
Chapter 16 Resources and the Environment at the Global Level
16.1 Natural Resource Concepts
Nonrenewable Resources
Renewable Resources
Property Rights over Resources
Resources and production
16.2 Incorporating Natural Resources into the Analysis of Economic Growth
Box: Resource Disasters
Revising National Accounts
Resource Prices
Box: The Bet
Why Resource limitations do not prevent economic Growth
Box: Resource-Saving Technologies
Nitrogen
Rubber
Nuclear Fusion
Solar Energy
16.3 Growth and the Environment
The Environmental Kuznets Curve
Box: The Environmental Kuznets Curve in London
Global Warming
16.4 Conclusion
Appendix
Appendix Technological Improvement versus Resource Depletion
Chapter 17 What We Have Learned and Where We are Headed
17.1 What We have Learned
Factor accumulation
Productivity
Fundamentals
17.2 What the Future Holds
Will Growth Make us happy?
What Will happen to the World income distribution?
Will technological Progress Continue apace?
What is the Future of World demographics?
Will Global economic integration Continue?
Will shortages of natural resources Constrain economic Growth?
17.3 A Final Thought
References
Glossary
Index
Credits

Economic Growth
(International Edition)
Why are some countries rich and others poor? David N. Weil, one of the top researchers in economic growth, introduces students to the latest theoretical tools, data, and insights underlying this pivotal question. By showing how empirical data relate to new and old theoretical ideas, Economic Growth provides students with a complete introduction to the discipline and the latest research. With its comprehensive and flexible organization, Economic Growth is ideal for a wide array of courses, including undergraduate and graduate courses in economic growth, economic development, macro theory, applied econometrics, and development studies.