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Julio Videras
Julio Videras
“Do all countries follow the same growth process?”, a paper co-authored by Professor of Economics Ann Owen and Associate Professor of Economics Julio Videras with Union College professor Lewis Davis, was published in the Journal of Economic Growth in December 2009.

The authors found that countries grow differently depending on the quality of institutions and specifically, the degree of law and order, in the country. For example, in countries with low institutional quality, higher rates of population growth are associated with lower rates of output growth. In countries with higher institutional quality, population growth is actually associated with faster growth of income per capita. Previous researchers who have used different methods have argued that geographic features of the economy affect the way in which countries grow. However, the methods used by Owen, Videras and Davis were better suited to test the effects of geography versus institutional quality in sorting countries into different growth regimes. The authors found strong evidence that institutional quality sorts countries into distinctly different growth regimes, but found no evidence that geographic features do.

This paper was a collaborative effort initiated at the National Science Foundation-funded Conference on Macroeconomic Research at Liberal Arts Colleges that Owen co-organizes with colleagues at Colgate University, Drew University, Smith College and Vassar College.

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