REASSESSING THE IMPACT OF BARRIERS TO CAPITAL ACCUMULATION ON INTERNATIONAL INCOME DIFFERENCES∗

Can barriers to capital accumulation account for large differences in GDP per capita? We reconsider the claim that these barriers have an amplified effect on income levels in a model where both modern and traditional sector technologies are active. We show that this claim is not correct. We do find, however, that the removal of barriers to capital accumulation can cause large changes in the employment shares of labor.Thus the model can account for an important stylized fact of the development process, with labor moving from the traditional to the modern sector as income levels rise.