Written by Ryan McGuine // Sustained, long-term output per capita growth, often referred to simply as "economic growth" is the ultimate goal of most economic policy interventions. There are a number of models designed to explain how adjusting certain variables affects output per capita. The Solow Model is one of the simplest and most widely-used. Continue reading

Written by Ryan McGuine // Before inquiring into the causes of development phenomena observed, it is a good idea to first establish just what phenomena are observed. Toward those ends, Nicholas Kaldor presented a set of six stylized facts in 1961 designed to summarize what had been learned about economics in the 20th century and establish a research agenda framework. Following the same line of reasoning in the 21st century, Charles Jones and Paul Romer presented another set of six facts in 2009 — dubbed the "New Kaldor Facts." Continue reading

Written by Ryan McGuine // The term "development" broadly refers to the level of well-being that people enjoy, but quantifying well-being is not an easy thing to do. The traditional way to measure and compare levels of well-being across countries is personal income, measured as gross national income per capita, but many attempts have been made to develop more useful metrics. Continue reading