Was 19th century British growth steam-powered?: the climacteric revisited

This paper establishes that there are serious problems with the hypothesis that the Victorian climacteric was driven by the decline phase of steam as a General Purpose Technology. This is primarily because steam’s contribution to industrial output and labour productivity growth was stronger after 1870 than before and that the non-steam-intensive sectors exhibited an inverted U-shape in trend output growth through the 19th century, experiencing a marked slowdown between 1830 and the 1870s. Seeking to base an account of 19th century British growth primarily on the implications of steam is thus misconceived.     

Credit rationing and crowding out during the industrial revolution: evidence from Hoare’s Bank, 1702-1862

Crowding out during the British Industrial Revolution has long been one of the leading explanations for slow growth during the Industrial Revolution, but little empirical evidence exists to support it. We argue that examinations of interest rates are fundamentally misguided, and that the 18th- and early 19th-century private loan market balanced through quantity rationing. Using a unique set of observations on lending volume at a London goldsmith bank, Hoare’s Bank, we document the impact of wartime financing on private credit markets. We conclude that there is considerable evidence that government borrowing, especially during wartime, crowded out private credit.     

老龄化中国人口红利实现的可能性与途径探讨

本文首先简要回顾了有关老龄化社会的人口红利效应的相关研究。近而,利用抽样人口数据,本文预测了未来75年我国人口规模与结构的变化趋势,指出在未来的大部分年份里,从第一人口红利的角度看,人口结构很可能将对中国经济增长起负面作用;而解决未来养老问题并实现第二人口红利的关键是：从当前开始即在充分就业的前提下实现持续的、有效的资本积累。一个重要的、可行的资本积累方式就是建立积累制的养老金计划。     

Family structure, school attendance, and child labor in the American South in 1900 and 1910

Even in the early 20th century, black children were much more likely to be living apart from one or both parents than were white children. This paper examines the contribution of these racial differences in family structure to the racial differences in children’s experiences in the American South. Living apart from one or both parents was associated with lower school attendance and greater labor market participation, particularly for blacks. However, racial differences in adult literacy, household resources, and school characteristics were much more important for explaining the racial gaps in children’s activities than were racial differences in family structure.     

基于技能偏向性技术进步的经济增长动能分解

在传统Solow增长核算框架基础上引入异质性劳动投入以及技能偏向性技术进步,从而将经济增长分解为固定资本投入增长、劳动投入增长、技能结构深化、技能偏向性技术进步、中性技术进步及效率改进等五种动能。研究发现：第一,中国经济增长主要由固定资本投入以及全要素生产率增长共同驱动,其中资本投入对经济增长年均贡献率为61.64%,全要素生产率增长的年均贡献率则为35.66%,中国区别于其他中低收入国家的发展奇迹背后正是较快的全要素生产率增长;第二,即使对于高收入国家而言,资本投入仍然是主要的经济增长动能;第三,技能结构深化以及技能偏向性技术进步是全要素生产率的主要来源,二者对中国经济增长的年均贡献率分别为32.04%和21.27%;第四,资源配置效率变化是引起全要素生产率波动的主要因素,资源配置效率下降是导致2008年后中国以及大部分高收入国家全要素生产率增速放缓的主要原因。     

Paying for privilege: the political economy of Bank of England charters, 1694-1844

The Bank of England was established by Parliament in 1694 as an explicitly temporary institution, which could be dissolved upon one year’s notice after the 11-year life guaranteed by its initial charter had passed. Renewed nine times between 1694 and 1844, we argue that the element of renegotiation inherent in the Bank’s existence reflected uncertainty, by both Parliament and the Bank, and we test this hypothesis by analyzing the timing of the renewals of the Bank’s charter. We find renegotiation of the charter was initiated by Parliament when the Crown’s budgetary circumstances, shaped by unforeseen military expenditures, required additional funds and when the monopoly value of the Bank’s charter rose.     

Share liquidity, participation, and growth of the Boston market for industrial equities, 1854-1897

Financial economists have long believed that the liquidity of shares affects the level of participation in equity markets and is thus central to their deepening. This study examines the growth in industrial share liquidity that occurred in Boston over the latter half of the 19th century. From primary sources hitherto unused for scholarly investigations, namely the running annual worksheets of securities price fluctuations that underlie broker Joseph Martin’s volumes on the history of the Boston stock market, I construct broad-based indices of annual prices and returns for banking and industrial equities, as well as measures of real market capitalization. A series of vector autoregressive models then relate increases in liquidity, as measured by falling par values of industrial shares due to stock splits, write-downs and re-capitalizations, entries, and exits, to advances in prices and capitalizations among traded firms. The findings support the view that increases in participation were important for sustaining Boston as the nation’s leading industrial market until finally overtaken by New York sometime around 1900.     

结构优化对农业增长的贡献

农业结构优化可促进农业增长是学术界的共识，但许多学者在评估中国农业增长的影响因素时都没有考虑到此因素。本文采用土地生产率分解法，将农业增长的决定因素分解为非结构优化因素和结构优化因素，利用中国1979～2004年土地生产率数据，分别计量其对农业增长的影响。结果发现：农业结构优化对中国改革开放前期的农业增长具有显著影响，而对中国改革开放后期的影响较弱。     

中国保险业发展、城市化与经济增长

本文采用我国1985年-2011年时间序列数据。检验和估计了我国保险业发展、城市化水平与经济增长的关系。结果表明：城市化水平、非寿险业发展与经济增长存在单向因果关系,而寿险业与经济增长之间因果关系不显著;城市化水平、非寿险业与经济增长存在正向关系,而寿险业对长期经济增长产生抑制效应;城市化水平对经济增长的贡献大于非寿险业对经济增长的贡献。为此,本文提出政府应加大对保险业发展的政策支持力度。均衡发展寿险业和非寿险业,重点支持县域和农村保险业的发展,拓宽保险业参与国民经济发展的途径;加快城市化建设的进程以促进保险业的发展;在城市化进程中重视非寿险业的发展。     

Real-time analysis on Japan’s labor productivity

This paper analyzes the revision to Japan’s labor productivity, measured using Japan’s System of National Accounts (SNA) data. We draw three main findings from our analysis. First, SNA data has been substantially revised in and after the second comprehensive revisions, as well as at the earlier stage of revisions. We find that the past absolute revisions to the annual growth rate of labor productivity often went beyond 1% point. Second, the annual growth rate of labor productivity has been revised upward by 0.4% points on average. We show that part of its upward revisions reflects an underestimation of employment through an increase in ‘non-response people,’ people who do not respond in the Population Census. Third, revisions to source data such as the Population Census and the Employment Status Survey are helpful to predict revisions to labor productivity growth. Our regression results suggest that labor productivity is likely to be revised upward during expansions or with low real-time estimates of value added. We conclude that the three findings indicate that labor productivity during the 2000s will experience substantial revisions in the future. This conclusion takes into account the fact that the SNA after 2000 has experienced at most one comprehensive revision. The upcoming revisions to labor productivity can be positive rather than negative.     

我国东、中、西部地区经济增长差异的因素分析:1952～2005年

本文采用Solow的增长核算方法,对1952～2005年间我国东、中、西部地区经济增长差异的因素进行测算和分析。分析结果表明:①我国地区经济增长主要来自于资本积累,全要素生产率增长对经济增长的贡献不大,劳动投入的贡献非常小;②资本投入增长速度差异是地区增长差异的主要决定因素,促进区域协调发展,需要国家给予中、西部地区更多投资倾斜政策,同时中西部地区自身应注重基础设施,人才环境等投资环境的培育和完善以吸引外来投资;③地区增长差异在一定程度上表现为生产率增长差异,加快西部地区技术进步和效率改善速度,提高其全要素生产率是缩小我国地区增长差异、继续推进西部大开发战略的有效途径之一。     

The Contribution of Wheat to Australian Agriculture from 1861 to 1939

The influence of agriculture on Australia's nineteenth and twentieth century economic development is well known. While wool's contribution is rightly celebrated, the contribution of agricultural crops has received less attention. This paper focuses on one major staple, wheat, from 1861 to 1939. Both patent data and a new measure of technological progress, the cumulative number of wheat varieties tested for local adoption, are used to quantify the contribution of agricultural innovation to growth. We find innovation in this sector made an important contribution to the growth of total factor productivity over the period.     

欠发达地区经济增长全要素生产率的测算与分析——以三明市为例

运用索洛模型对三明市经济增长的全要素生产率进行测算和分析,结果表明,改革开放以来,三明市的经济增长主要表现为资本驱动的外延式增长,新世纪以来这种趋势更明显,2000-2007年期间技术进步对经济增长的贡献度是负值。因此,本文提出,三明市应当在注重加大投入的同时,也应当注意提高投入的效益,注重科技对经济的拉动作用,尤其对于拉动全市经济发展的那些主导产业,加大科技创新投入,提高这些产业的生产率,加强这些产业的产业竞争力,实现全市经济的健康、可持续发展。     

Did banks cause the German industrialization?

In this paper, we discuss the causal relationship between growth of bank assets and economic performance (economic growth, capital accumulation, productivity). We analyze new data for German banking (Burhop, C., 2002. Die Entwicklung der deutschen Aktienkreditbanken von 1848 bis 1913: Quantifizierungsversuche. Bankhistorisches Archiv 28, 103-128.) and improved national accounting data (Burhop, C., Wolff, G.B., 2005. A compromise estimate of Germany’s Net National Product 1851-1913 and its relevance for economic growth and cycles. forthcoming, Journal of Economic History.) with several recent VAR/VEC based causality tests. Only weak evidence for a causal influence of banks on economic performance on a nation-wide level is detected. On the other hand, the results support the bank-led growth hypothesis for the modern sector of the German economy. In particular, joint-stock credit banks positively influenced capital formation during the early decades of Germany’s industrialization.     

The Services Sector as a Driver of Change: Indonesia’s Experience in the ASEAN Context

By various performance indicators, the Indonesian services sector ranks below those of its main ASEAN neighbours. This is concerning for Indonesia, given the the increased attention worldwide on the services sector as a likely source of growth, the contribution of the services sector to the competitiveness of other sectors, and the opportunities available for capturing the gains from innovation and change in services. There is scope, we argue, to increase the number of formal jobs in the sector and to dispel its reputation as the employer of last resort. We find that a restrictive policy regime contributes to the sector’s poor performance, leading to an argument for reform. We discuss a potential strategy for such reform, focusing on four factors: increasing transparency and policy information; capturing the opportunities from international commitments; and exploring the potential of, one, new technology, and, two, urbanisation.     

Assessment for Social Security Pilot in Jilin and Hei Longjiang of China

I. Introduction Since the partially-funded scheme was formally introduced into China’s social security system in 1995, combining social pooling with individual accounts (IA), some contributionsto IA have been used for current payments, as a result of transition costs. Therefore, the IA depleted, making the “combination of social pooling and individual accounts” only nominal. To achieve a partially-funded security scheme, the Central Government developed a pilot program in three northeas…     

基于全要素生产率的中韩经济增长因素分析

20世纪60年代以后,东亚经济的高速发展,特别是80年代中韩经济的快速发展引起了国内外学术界的关注,本文利用增长会计法和Malmquist指数法对中国和韩国的经济增长因素进行了分析,结果发现,2002～2009年中国全要素增长率的贡献率从1981～2001年的23.29%上升到28.88%,全要素增长率的贡献超过了劳动投入的贡献率。1981～1998年期间韩国的经济增长率为7.64%,其中,60%以上是靠资本投入来实现的,25%是依靠劳动的投入,但在1999～2009年期间全要素生产率的贡献率达到了42%,中国与韩国的经济增长开始走向依靠技术进步和创新发展的道路。     

Globalization and real wages in New Zealand 1873-1913

This paper reports annual real wage indexes for laborers and for workers more generally in New Zealand, adjusted for purchasing power parity, for the years 1873-1913. These data are used to include New Zealand in the debates surrounding international wage convergence. On the basis of time series tests we find evidence of an integrated trans-Tasman labor market. Productivity, the terms of trade, and swings in labor’s income share, rather than immigration, shaped New Zealand’s wage growth.     

上海市加工贸易对经济增长的影响分析

加工贸易已成为上海市对外贸易中的重要组成部分,其对上海的经济增长具有一定的促进作用,同时促进了产业升级、技术进步等。本文通过运用加工贸易增值率、加工贸易对上海市GDP的贡献率和拉动度、协整分析等方法分析了上海市加工贸易对经济增长的影响。分析结果表明:上海市加工贸易增值率高于全国水平;加工贸易对经济增长的贡献率和拉动度呈增长趋势;加工贸易出口对上海市经济增长有很大的促进作用。     

China's FDI and non-FDI economies and the sustainability of future high Chinese growth

This paper presents and assesses of the contribution of inward FDI to China's recent rapid economic growth using a two stage growth accounting approach. Recent econometric literature focuses on testing whether Chinese growth depends on inward FDI rather than measuring the contribution. Foreign Invested Enterprises (FIEs), often (but not exclusively) are joint ventures between foreign companies and Chinese enterprises, and can be thought of as forming a distinctive subpart of the Chinese economy. These enterprises account for over 50% of China's exports and 60% of China's imports. Their share in Chinese GDP has been over 20% in the last two years, but they employ only 3% of the workforce, since their average labor productivity exceeds that of Non-FIEs by around 9:1. Their production is more heavily for export rather than the domestic market because FIEs provide access to both distribution systems abroad and product design for export markets. Our decomposition results indicate that China's FIEs may have contributed over 40% of China's economic growth in 2003 and 2004, and without this inward FDI, China's overall GDP growth rate could have been around 3.4 percentage points lower. We suggest that the sustainability of both China' export and overall economic growth may be questionable if inward FDI plateaus in the future.