EXPLAINING THE GROWTH OF GOVERNMENT SPENDING IN SOUTH AFRICA

What determines government spending in South Africa? The paper estimates the determinants of real per capita government spending in the Republic of South Africa using annual data for the period 1960‐2007, a tumultuous period during which South Africa experienced a variety of internally imposed changes (e.g. the abolition of apartheid, changes in political institutions) and externally generated shocks (e.g. war, oil shocks). Using multivariate cointegration techniques, we find that per capita government spending, per capita income, the tax share and the wage rate are cointegrated, a result that supports the notion that government spending is associated not only with per capita income and the true cost of government service provision as given by the wage rate but also with the fiscal illusion caused by budget deficits. We also find evidence that per capita government spending was positively affected by external shocks. These external shocks seem to play a significant role in explaining the dynamics of government spending growth.     

长三角地区县域经济发展差异及其动态收敛研究

文章以长三角地区60个县（不包括区）1998—2009年间的人均GDP数据为基础,首先采用标准差系数和锡尔系数分析该地区内县域经济发展差异水平现状,然后根据经济增长收敛理论进一步对其动态收敛趋势进行实证分析。研究结果表明,长三角地区县域经济差异在1998—2009年间逐渐增大,并且基本不存在动态收敛的趋势,仅部分地区内县域经济存在俱乐部收敛。根据研究结果提出了初步的政策建议。     

Government spending and the distribution of economic growth

In the United States, total government spending, and especially government social spending, has increased greatly over the last 50 years. What effect this has had on economic growth is a subject of intense debate among politicians, policymakers, and economists. However, there has been less attention paid to the distributional effects of government spending even though economic inequality has grown greatly over the last generation and much social spending is at least indirectly intended to reduce inequality. The effects of government social spending in the United States on growth in family income at deciles of the income distribution were estimated. The results suggested that social spending but not non‐social spending was likely to increase growth in family income per capita measured over 10‐year intervals. The largest effects of social spending were for deciles below the median income. At no point in the distribution does social spending have a negative effect.     

是FDI导致中国经济“冰火两重天”?——基于省级面板数据的检验

FDI被认为是经济高速增长与居民消费严重不足"冰火两重天"式奇特现象的重要答案。本文使用1990～2009年中国省级面板数据进行的实证检验表明,FDI推动中国经济增长的同时也提高了居民人均消费支出,其影响的主要渠道可能是增加当地居民收入和地方政府社保支出份额。文章设想的FDI负向影响居民人均消费支出的社会保障支出份额效应虽然有迹象表明是存在的,但其效应被FDI增加地方政府社保支出份额效应所抵消。文章设想的FDI负向影响居民人均消费支出的收入不平等效应则被证实是不存在的。在此基础上本文得出结论,中国经济"冰火两重天"现象的原因可能需要从经济体系内部寻找,强势政府和要素市场扭曲可能才是根源,FDI流入一定程度上还修正了这种制度的缺陷。     

Deficit Estimation and Welfare Effects after the 1994 Fiscal Reform in China： Evidence from the County Level

Using simple statistical analysis of count-level budgetary data from across all of China＇s counties, the present paper examines whether the post-1994 fiscal decentralization has affected redistribution at the count-level. The new fiscal system has been less able to narrow inter-county dispersion in ftscal imbalances than the old one, even after taking intergovernmental transfer payments into account. Although with the post-1994 system there has been a modest increase in per capita welfare spending in all counties on average, much of the new-found fiscal resources have been spent on salary and administrative expenses rather than spending on public goods. Therefore, it is imperative that the reform of China＇s tax system is intensified.     

Public Debt and Economic Growth in Emerging Market Economies

This paper empirically studies the relationship between public debt and economic growth for selected emerging market economies by performing panel data estimations. The results reveal a statistically significant positive correlation between public debt and the subsequent growth rate of per capita gross domestic product (GDP). Population and investment are also positively correlated with per capita growth, whereas the initial level of real GDP per capita exerts a negative influence on growth, implying conditional convergence. Other variables such as the inflation rate, the trade balance or the exchange rate do not yield a statistically significant effect with respect to economic growth.     

Does economic growth affect urbanization? New evidence from China and the Chinese National Congress

Using a panel of Chinese provinces during 1985–2008, we propose an estimation strategy to study the within-province effect that per capita GDP growth may have on the urbanization rate. Our approach exploits the timing of the National Congress of the Communist Party, which is a 5-yearly meeting where national economic policies are debated. Because economic growth is a key policy objective and given that the Chinese fiscal system is highly decentralized, the recurring National Congress may encourage a systematic pattern of spending by provincial governments to foster growth. We find that per capita GDP growth is associated with the timing of the National Congress, and exploiting instrumental variables that convey this timing information, we also find that growth has a statistically significant effect on the urbanization rate.     

Economic growth and income inequality in the Asia-Pacific region: A comparative study of China,Japan, South Korea,and the United States

This paper builds an inequality-growth-redistribution nexus, and applies the Engle–Granger two-step ECM approach to estimate the long-run and short-run relationships between inequality and growth for four economies: China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Our estimation results support the S-shaped curve hypothesis relating GDP per capita to inequality with different starting points for the four economies. For the reverse relationship, we find a positive causal relationship for China, Japan, and the United States, indicating that increased income inequality spurred economic growth. In addition, we find mixed results on the effect of trade openness on inequality and growth. Trade openness reduced inequality in the United States and Japan, worsened it in China and had no significant effect in South Korea. In the inequality-GDP per capita relationship, exports provided an impetus to economic growth for Japan. As for redistribution, although fiscal redistributive measures reduced inequality in Japan, they played no major role in the other three countries. With regard to the inequality-GDP per capita relationship, all countries except for China show a negative effect of fiscal redistribution on GDP per capita.     

休闲时间与经济效率——来自OECD国家的证据

本文认为在考察经济增长的过程中，除了需要关注人均变量，更需要关注“时人均”变量，因为后者代表单位时间内的人均变量，可用来衡量经济效率，而经济效率是经济增长潜力的源泉。为此，本文将工作时间、受教育时间和休闲时间引入内生增长模型，并突出考虑了休闲对经济个体效率的积极作用以及休闲对技术水平的外部效应，由此刻画了休闲与经济效率之间的非线性关系。随后，在模型结论的框架下，引用21个0ECD成员国近二十多年来的面板数据研究了上述非线性关系，并具体求解到经济体的最优休闲时间。由此说明，可以通过对休闲时间的合理调整与管理来达成最理想的经济效率。     

Size and Structure of Disaster Relief when State Capacity is Limited: China’s 1823 Flood

This paper presents new archival evidence about the amount and structure of central government disaster relief during China’s devastating flood of 1823. The flood affected 20 per cent of China’s counties, and spending per capita was sizable and distributed between provinces depending on the intensity of flooding. Because of its relative small size and limited state capacity, the Chinese government ultimately spent about half of its annual tax revenues on relief during 1823. Given China’s ensuing secular economic stagnation, this is consistent with models emphasising state capacity for economic growth.     

Economic spillover effects in the Bohai Rim Region of China: Is the economic growth of coastal counties beneficial for the whole area?

This study uses panel data on the Bohai Rim Region of China to test for spatial autocorrelation, and measures economic spatial spillover effects with the space Durbin econometric model. We discuss whether the economic development of coastal counties benefits the whole area. To do this, we focus on the “distance from the coast” factor, which is influenced by transportation time. The results indicate the presence of significant spatial autocorrelation in the Bohai Rim Region. Further, economic spatial spillover effects exist in this region. “Distance from the coast” exerts a significantly negative impact on the local GDP per capita but a significantly positive impact on the GDP per capita of other districts. This means that the economic development of coastal counties does not benefit the whole region. “Value of exports” exerts a significantly positive influence on the local economy and no significant influence on other counties, while “foreign direct investment” exerts a significantly positive influence on the local economy and a significantly negative influence on other counties. “Number of employees in units” exerts a significantly positive influence on the local economy and a significantly negative influence on the other counties. The factors “primary industry's share in GDP” and “tertiary industry's share in GDP” influence the local economy positively, but the former exerts no significant influence on other counties and the latter exerts a negative influence on other counties. “Rate of fixed asset investment” influences the local economy negatively and has no significant effect on other counties. “Total retail sales of social consumer goods” has no significant influence on the local economy but a positive significant influence on the others. Finally, marine resource utilization and marine output can affect economic growth positively. On this basis, we propose policy suggestions for harmonious economic development in this region.     

A positive theory of optimal personal income distribution and growth

The core of this paper (in a microeconomic foundation on three levels—income generation, income spending, and social climate of the society) consists of a concave relationship between the (in) equality of personal income and the per capita growth rate. The results mentioned are derived in conjunction with a social welfare function which is bounded by the concave function. Furthermore, ample empirical evidence is shown for the suggestions made in this paper.     

Re‐Visiting Financial Development and Economic Growth Nexus: The Role of Capitalization in Bangladesh

This paper revisits the relationship between financial development and economic growth in Bangladesh by incorporating trade openness in production function using quarter frequency data over the period of 1976‐2012. We applied combined Bayer–Hanck cointegration approach to examine cointegration among the series. Our empirical evidence suggests that development of financial sector facilitates economic growth but capitalization impedes it. In addition, trade openness stimulates economic growth. Labour is also positively linked to economic growth. The vector error correction model Granger causality results divulge that financial development causes real per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth, and resultantly, real per capita GDP growth causes financial development in a Granger sense. The results also show that trade and labour Granger cause economic growth. The findings of the paper provide insights for policymakers to use financial development and trade openness as a tool for sustained economic growth in the long run. The paper also suggests policymakers to utilise capitalization in a way that is beneficial for economic growth of Bangladesh.     

Export diversification and income differences reconsidered: The extensive product margin in theory and application

The paper revisits the relationship between GDP per capita and diversification, using classical and more recent trade theory. Three theoretical findings are presented: (i) competitive models yield predictions only for the extensive product margin; (ii) countries continuously diversify their production and exports—a major controversy in the empirical literature; and (iii) causality runs from diversification to GDP per capita, and not the other way around. The theoretical analysis also provides indication for the appropriateness of alternative measures of diversification, and enables estimating the relationship to economic development in a gravity-type parametric specification. Using detailed data on countries’ exports, the case of re-specialization is rejected. Inference of causality reveals some evidence for GDP per capita affecting the level of diversification, but stronger support for diversification affecting GDP per capita. Generally, both variables are highly endogenous as they are both driven by the technology parameters in standard models of economic growth and international trade.     

经济自由与经济增长:来自各国的证据

本文对美国传统基金会发布的经济自由度指数与各国经济增长水平进行了实证检验.结果表明,在控制了劳动力人口、资本存量以及人力资本等变量后,经济自由度与经济增长水平之间存在非常密切的关系,从而为自亚当·斯密以来的自由经济理论提供了新的证据.本文利用工具变量法,证明了经济自由是经济增长的原因,为这方面的实证研究做出了新的贡献.希望通过上述工作能够更好地理解制度因素(特别是自由经济制度)在推动经济增长中的关键作用以及导致各国之间经济差距的根源.     

江苏省金融发展与经济增长和谐状况的实证研究

文章以人均实际GDP和金融相关率分别作为衡量经济增长与金融发展的指标,对江苏地区经济增长与金融发展的关系进行实证分析,发现二者存在协整关系,且互为格兰杰因果关系,从而为发展金融推动经济增长的观点提供了实证支持,在此基础上,提出金融发展与经济增长和谐发展的有关金融变革的思路。     

Economic development in southern black belt counties: How does it measure up?

The effects of racial concentration in shaping patterns of development in the rural South during the 1980s is examined focusing on the southern Black Belt (counties in ten southern states). Black Belt counties gained fewer or lost more manufacturing plants and tended to have more routine manufacturing than non-Black Belt counties during 1980–86. But racial concentration had little direct effect on either employment or per capita income growth. Counties with less educated populations (in both groups) had greater growth in per capita income through the influx of low-wage jobs, underscoring the importance of market forces in influencing patterns of development.     

地方财政支出与经济增长关系的实证研究——以深圳市为例

本文着重分析了改革开放后深圳市政府财政支出与经济增长的关系,发现经济增长促进了政府财政支出规模的扩张。根据各项支出对经济增长的影响,本文划分了生产性支出和非生产性支出两大类别,并利用VAR模型和脉冲响应检验了生产性财政支出冲击与非生产性财政支出冲击对经济增长的影响。通过了解这种影响模式,将为判断2010年深圳市大运会后经济增长趋向提供一种思路。     

Relief During the Great Depression in Australia and America

I compare and contrast relief efforts by governments in response to the extraordinary unemployment of the Great Depression in the US and Australia. The effectiveness of relief spending in America at the local level is discussed using recent studies estimating the relationship between relief spending and various demographic measures. I develop a new panel data set for the Australian states from 1929 through 1939. Increased income in manufacturing and rural production were associated with lower infant mortality rates and death rates and higher fertility rates. In contrast to the US experience, however, higher per capita relief spending was associated with lower birth rates.     

Policy choice and economic growth under factional politics: Evidence from a Chinese Province

This paper investigates how political elites make policy choices that have bearing on an authoritarian regime's economy, from the perspective of factional politics. A local leader makes policies primarily to secure his political survival, which is contingent on the support from either his higher-level patrons or his local grassroots constituents. Using a simple model, we show that a local politician with close factional ties to high-level patrons will invest more in sending loyalty signals to the latter to receive their protections, while a poorly-connected politician will make more effort to spur a broad-based economic growth that economically benefits his local constituents. Using a unique county level data on the factional politics of Zhejiang Province, China, we find that counties with weaker (closer) factional ties have lower (higher) tax burdens per capita, while spending more (less) on local public goods provision. The results are stable after various robustness tests.