This paper argues that the marked reduction in the burden of parasitic and infectious diseases (PID) together with improved nutrition over the past two centuries in today's advanced countries has resulted in markedly improved physiological capital and cognitive skills and, consequently, in productivity advances. Using a unique annual dataset covering the period 1800–2011 for 21 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, it is found that health improvements can account for approximately a third of the productivity advances in the OECD countries since 1865, and that these improvements have been influential for enhancement in education, savings, innovations, life expectancy, and democracy.

Recent medical research shows that health is highly influential on learning and the ability to think laterally; however, past economic studies have failed to empirically examine the influence of health on learning, schooling, and ideas production, the main drivers of growth in endogenous growth models. This paper constructs a measure of health-adjusted educational attainment among the working age population based on their health status during the time they obtained their education. Using annual data for 21 OECD countries over the past two centuries, it is shown that health has been highly influential on the quantity and quality of schooling, innovation, and growth.

The ideas production function is at the heart of endogenous growth theory. Using data for Europe, its offshoots, and the Asian Tiger economies over the period from 1870 to 2010, this paper provides direct estimates of an ideas production function that explicitly distinguishes between the first- and second-generation endogenous growth models while allowing for human capital and international knowledge spillovers through various channels. The estimates show strong intertemporal and cross-country knowledge spillovers, provide robust support for Schumpeterian growth theory, and suggest that human capital and some channels of international knowledge spillover are influential for ideas production.

This article examines the relative importance of sticky wages and sticky prices in explaining the length and the depth of the Great Depression. Econometric evidence shows that the supply failure was an outcome of widespread price stickiness and that wage stickiness only played a minor role as a propagating factor during the first years of the Depression. Microeconomic evidence suggests that there was widespread and increasing industrial concentration during the interwar period.

This article examines the role of the agricultural crisis in the international transmission of the Great Depression and assesses the direct and indirect macroeconomic effects of the agricultural price decline. Using panel data for 16 countries, it is shown that the decline in agricultural prices adversely affected the general price level, consumption and investment. Furthermore, it is shown that the agricultural price decline was an important vehicle by which the Depression was transmitted internationally.

This paper suggests that forecasts of changes in production from production expectations can be improved by using the information contained in a reduced form macroeconomic model. The model is estimated using quarterly data for 14 OECD countries. The estimation results indicate that the forecasts of changes in production from survey production expectations can be improved by embedding the macroeconomic model into the forecast equations.