Research


Working Papers

"The Effect of Interventions to Reduce Fertility on Economic Growth" NBER Working Paper 17377, August 2011 (with Quamrul Ashraf and Joshua Wilde)

"Mobile Banking: The Impact of M-Pesa in Kenya" NBER Working Paper 17129, June 2011 (with Isaac Mbiti)

"Evaluating the Effects of Large Scale Health Interventions in Developing Countries: The Zambian Malaria Initiative" NBER Working Paper 16069, June, 2010,  with Nava Ashraf and Gunther Fink



Published / Forthcoming (selected)

"Measuring Economic Growth from Outer Space" American Economic Review, 102(2), April 2012, pp. 994-1028 .( with Vernon Henderson and Adam Storeygard)

"The Dynamics of Age Structure, Dependency, and Consumption" Journal of Population Economics Volume 25, Issue 3 (2012), Page 1019-1043
(with Heinrich Hock)..

"Post-1500 Population Flows and the Long-Run Determinants of Economic Growth and Inequality” Quarterly Journal of Economics 125:4, November 2010 (with Louis Putterman)

"Mortality Change, the Uncertainty Effect, and Retirement," Journal of Economic Growth, 15:1, March 2010 (with Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan)

"Endemic Diseases and African Economic Growth," Journal of African Economies  May, 2010

“When Does Improving Health Raise GDP?”  in Acemoglu, Rogoff, and Woodford, eds.., NBER Macro Annual 2008 (with Quamrul Ashraf and Ashley Lester).

“Economic Growth,” In The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition, edited by Steven Durlauf and Lawrence Blume, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.(with Peter Howitt).

“Accounting for the Effect of Health on Economic Growth,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122:3, August, 2007.

“Population Aging,” in New Palgrave Encyclopedia of Economics, second edition, 2008. Working Paper Version

"How Much of Cross-Country Income Variation is Explained by Health?" Journal of the European Economic Association, 1:2-3, April-May, 2003 (with Gauri Kartini Shastry)

"The Baby Boom and the Stock Market Boom" Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 105:3, 2003 (with Kyung-Mook Lim)

"Population, Technology, and Growth: From Malthusian Stagnation to theDemographic Transition and Beyond" American Economic Review, September, 2000 (with Oded Galor)

"Saving and Growth with Habit Formation" American Economic Review, June, 2000 (with Chris Carroll and Jody Overland).

"Mortality Decline, Human Capital Investment, and Economic Growth" Journal of Development Economics, 62:1, 2000, 1-23 (with Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Harl E. Ryder)

"Population Growth, Dependency, and Consumption," American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings May, 1999.

"From Malthusian Stagnation to Modern Growth," American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings May, 1999 (with Oded Galor).

"Appropriate Technology and Growth" Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1998,(with Susanto Basu).

"Intergenerational Mobility, Inequality, and Growth" Journal of Monetary Economics, 1998 (with Ann Owen).

"The Genesis and Evolution of Social Security" in Michael Bordo, Claudia Goldin, and Eugene White, eds., The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American
Economy in the Twentieth Century University of Chicago Press, 1998 (with Jeffrey Miron).

"Comparison Utility in a Growth Model" Journal of Economic Growth, December, 1997 (with Chris Carroll and Jody Overland).

"An Asset Allocation Puzzle" American Economic Review, March, 1997 (with NikoCanner and Greg Mankiw).

"The Economics of Population Aging" in Mark Rosenzweig and Oded Stark, eds., Handbook of Population and Family Economics North Holland, 1997

"The Gender Gap, Fertility, and Growth" American Economic Review, June, 1996 (with Oded Galor).

"The Effect of News on Bond Prices: Evidence from the United Kingdom, 1900-1920," Review of Economics and Statistics, June, 1996 (with Douglas Elmendorf and Mary Hirschfeld).

"Intergenerational Transfers, Aging, and Uncertainty" in David Wise, ed., Advances in the Economics of Aging, University of Chicago Press, 1996.

"Growth and Saving: A Reinterpretation," Carnegie Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, 40, June 1994 (with Chris Carroll).

"A Historical Perspectives on the Monetary Transmission Mechanism" in N. Gregory Mankiw, ed., Monetary Economics, University of Chicago Press, 1994 (with Jeffrey
Miron and Christina Romer).

"The Saving of the Elderly in Micro and Macro Data" Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1994.

"A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107(2) May, 1992. (with Greg Mankiw and David Romer)

"The Baby Boom, the Baby Bust, and the Housing Market: A Reply to Our Critics," Regional Science and Urban Economics, 21:4, 1992 (with Greg Mankiw).

"Optimal Advice for Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, February, 1990 (with Susanto Basu, Miles Kimball, and Greg Mankiw).

"The Baby Boom, the Baby Bust, and the Housing Market" Regional Science and Urban Economics 19, May, 1989. Reprinted in Economics Alert 6, November 1993. (with Greg Mankiw).

"The Worldwide Change in the Behavior of Interest Rates and Prices in 1914" European Economic Review April, 1988 (with Robert Barsky, Greg Mankiw, and Jeffrey Miron).

"The Adjustment of Expectations to a Change in Regime: A Study of the Founding of the Federal Reserve," American Economic Review June, 1987, (with Greg Mankiw and Jeffrey Miron).