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This paper lists theoretical reasons why neoclassical models of one-sector growth imply that nations with identical economic structures need not converge to the same steady state or balanced growth path, and outlines the empirical significance and policy implications of conditional nonconvergence. We survey poverty traps in both convex and nonconvex economies with complete market structures. Among the potential causes of traps are subsistence consumption; distorted international trade in intermediate inputs; demographic transitions when fertility is endogenous; technological complementarities in the production of consumption goods, financial intermediation services, manufactures, or human capital; coordination failures among voters; various restrictions on borrowing; indivisibilities in human capital formation or child rearing; and monopolistic competition in product or factor markets.

We introduce an informational asymmetry into an otherwise standard monetary growth model and examine its implications for the determinacy of equilibrium, for endogenous economic volatility, and for the relationship between steady-state output and the rate of money growth. Some empirical evidence suggests that, for economies with low initial inflation rates, permanent increases in the money growth rate raise long-run output levels. This relationship is reversed for economies with high initial inflation rates. Our model predicts this pattern. Moreover, in economies with high enough rates of inflation, credit rationing emerges, monetary equilibria become indeterminate, and endogenous economic volatility arises.

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