factors predictive of countries’ growth (or not)

very long pdf report but the first N pages are an interesting high level model

productivity is the main thing. GDP divided by number of workers. labor is biggest input cost, so how efficiently you convert labor into output is everything

While lots of elements of culture can matter, the ones that I find matter most are: 1) the extent to which individuals enjoy the rewards and suffer the penalties of their productivity (i.e., the degrees of their self-sufficiency), 2) how much the people value savoring life versus achieving, 3) the extent to which innovation and commercialism are valued, 4) the degree of bureaucracy, 5) the extent of corruption, and 6) the extent to which there is rule of law.

describes a cycle of levering, when there are lots of productive investments to be made and capital is flowing, to a period of delevering, where relatively more gets spent on consumption, then paying back debts, and less on investment in infrastructure

then repeat

nice: combines explicit transfers from gov to households with regulations which effectively do the same, like forced healthcare, limits on firing, supporting unions, etc

wish that was part of the conversation more

rates each country with this scale, plus bigger breakdowns of each factor in the appendix. didn’t read but saving for reference