Exhaustible resources,technology choice and industrialization of developing countries

How should the world economy adapt to the increased demand for exhaustible resources from countries like China and India? To address that issue, this paper presents a dynamic model of the world economy with two technologies for production; a resource technology, which uses an exhaustible resource as an input and an alternative technology, which does not. I find that both the time path of resource extraction and the adoption of the alternative technology depend on the optimal allocation of capital across the technologies, and on the size of the capital stock in relation to the resource stock. In particular, if the capital stock is low, only the resource technology is used initially and the alternative technology is adopted with a delay. Next, I use the model to analyze the effects of industrialization of developing countries on the extraction of oil and technology choice for energy production. As a result of industrialization, the alternative technology for energy production is adopted earlier.     

From rent seeking to human capital: a model where resource shocks cause transitions from stagnation to growth

Abstract.  We present a growth model where agents divide time between rent seeking in the form of resource competition and working in a human capital sector. The latter is interpreted as trade or manufacturing. Rent seeking exerts negative externalities on the productivity of human capital. Adding shocks, in the form of fluctuations in the size of the contested resource, the model can replicate a long phase with stagnant incomes and high levels of rent seeking, interrupted by small, failed growth spurts, eventually followed by a permanent transition to a sustained growth path where rent seeking vanishes in the limit. The model also generates a rise and fall of the so-called natural resource curse: before the takeoff, an increase in the size of the contested resource has a positive effect on incomes; shortly after the takeoff, the effect is negative; and on the balanced growth path the growth rate of per capita income is independent of resource shocks.     

On the Phelps–Koopmans theorem

We examine whether the Phelps–Koopmans theorem is valid in models with nonconvex production technologies. We argue that a nonstationary path that converges to a capital stock above the smallest golden rule may indeed be efficient. This finding has the important implication that “capital overaccumulation” need not always imply inefficiency. Under mild regularity and smoothness assumptions, we provide an almost-complete characterization of situations in which every path with limit in excess of the smallest golden rule must be inefficient, so that a version of the Phelps–Koopmans theorem can be recovered. Finally, we establish that a nonconvergent path with limiting capital stocks above (and bounded away from) the smallest golden rule can be efficient, even if the model admits a unique golden rule. Thus the Phelps–Koopmans theorem in its general form fails to be valid, and we argue that this failure is robust across nonconvex models of growth.     

Stages of diversification in a neoclassical world

Recent research has documented a U-shaped industrial concentration curve over an economy’s development path. How far can neoclassical trade theory take us in explaining this pattern? We estimate the production side of the Heckscher–Ohlin model using industry data on 44 developed and developing countries for the period 1976–2000. Decomposing the implied changes in industrial concentration over time shows that at least one third of these changes seems to be explained by a Rybczynski effect. This result suggests that capital accumulation led poor countries to diversify their industrial production, while rich countries made their production more concentrated in highly capital-intensive industries.     

Intertemporal Equity and Hartwick's Rule in an Exhaustible Resource Model*

In a standard exhaustible resource model, it is known that if, along a competitive path, investment in the augmentable capital good equals the rents on the exhaustible resource (known as Hartwick's rule), then the path is equitable in the sense that the consumption level is constant over time. In this paper, we show the converse of this result: if a competitive path is equitable, then it must satisfy Hartwick's rule.     

Endogenous Growth and Publicly Funded Knowledge Accumulation

We investigate a centrally planned, infinite horizon, single good economy in which new knowledge is generated in a separate R&D sector with government subsidy. The rate of growth of new ideas is assumed to be linear in the amount of labor devoted to R&D. Perpetual growth in per capita output and consumption is sustained by the spillover effects of knowledge creation. Using an isoelastic social welfare function and a general production function, the unique balanced growth path is characterized and the conditions for balanced growth to take place derived. In analyzing standard balanced growth, we demonstrate that so long as physical capital and knowledge grow at some arbitrarily constant rates along an optimal time path, the two rates must necessarily be equal. Using a Cobb–Douglas production function, the dynamic evolution of the economy is explicitly described in closed form for each state and control variables. In particular, it is shown that the economy either (i) attains the balanced growth path from the initial time, or (ii) converges monotonically to the balanced growth path. An asymptotic balanced growth path along which labor input in manufacturing tends to zero in the long run is ruled out by the tranversality condition on knowledge.     

Endogenous inflows of speculative capital and the optimal currency appreciation path

Abstract This paper examines the optimal appreciation path of an undervalued currency in the presence of speculative capital inflows that are endogenously affected by the appreciation path. A central bank decides its appreciation policy based on three costs: (i) misalignment costs associated with the gap between the actual and long‐run equilibrium exchange rates, (ii) short‐term adjustment costs due to resource reallocation, and (iii) capital losses due to speculative capital inflows. Our model finds (1) when speculators face no liquidity shocks, the central bank tends to appreciate the currency quickly to discourage speculative capital; (2) when speculators face liquidity shocks, the central bank optimally pre‐commits to a slower appreciation path, and the appreciation takes the longest time when the probability of liquidity shocks takes intermediate values; (3) the central bank tends to appreciate the currency more quickly when it conducts discretionary policy.     

创新投入影响产业结构优化升级路径分析

以中国省级区域为研究对象,分析得出本省创新投入可以通过1条直接路径和3条间接路径影响本地及其它省产业结构优化升级,并利用ESDA、静态和动态空间面板模型进行实证研究。结果表明：直接路径下创新资金投入对本地产业结构优化升级具有明显促进效应,创新人员投入则显著提高了本省产业结构合理化水平。本省创新人员投入通过“挤占效应”阻碍了其它省产业结构高级化发展。在创新投入的“协同效应”、产业结构变迁的“趋同效应”及官产学研的“协作效应”等空间溢出机制作用下,创新资金投入通过3条间接路径促进了其它省产业结构优化升级,创新人员投入则提高了外省产业结构合理化水平。前期产业结构高级化和合理化对后期产业结构发展具有动态影响。     

路径依赖、市场进入与资源型城市转型*

资源型城市因资源而兴,但也面临转型“困境”。本文试图以经验数据证明资源型城市存在路径依赖,并分析路径依赖效应阻碍资源型经济转型的作用机理。本文研究表明,路径依赖效应通过技术与制度“双重锁定”,在经济快速增长的掩饰下“侵蚀”资源型城市产业结构升级的内生动力;在资源枯竭时期,路径依赖效应会导致城市丧失快速发展资源替代性产业的能力,严重的结构性失业、生态环境破坏以及基础设施落后使城市陷入转型“困境”,单纯市场调节很难实现资源型城市产业结构的自我修复,政府管理在产业布局中的作用显得更加重要;突破路径依赖的关键在于新企业的“市场进入”与地区人力资本水平的提升,有利于打破路径依赖锁定,推动资源禀赋优势向其他要素禀赋优势转化,使资源型城市突破路径锁定,实现转型。     

General Equilibrium Tragedy of the Commons

Many poor economies depend on open access resources for their livelihoods. Households in resource-based economies allocate their time and other factors between resource extraction and other activities. As a result, factors may shift from one sector to another as marginal returns change. This has two important implications. First, it implies potentially strong linkages between resource and non-resource sectors. Second, it means that unmanaged resources cause inefficient allocations of inputs across all sectors, and the effects of resource management spill into other sectors. We construct a local general equilibrium model that accounts for inputs that over-allocate to an open access resource and create a general equilibrium tragedy of the commons. This model describes resource rent dissipation more adequately in economies with mobile factors than a model with slowly dissipating rents. Perfectly mobile factors dissipate rent in every period, but endogenous wages cause labor and capital allocations to change with the resource stock. We use the model to illustrate medium-run impacts of a limit on capital in an artisanal fishery in Honduras. Simulation results reveal that fishery management has economy-wide impacts on prices and wages. Managers in developing countries thus should consider these linkages when implementing policies to conserve fish stocks.     

Almost sure convergence to zero in stochastic growth models

This paper considers the resource constraint commonly used in stochastic one-sector growth models. Shocks are not required to be i.i.d. It is shown that any feasible path converges to zero exponentially fast almost surely under a certain condition. In the case of multiplicative shocks, the condition means that the shocks are sufficiently volatile. Convergence is faster the larger their volatility, and the smaller the maximum average product of capital.I would like to thank Santanu Roy, John Stachurski, Lars J. Olson, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments and suggestions. The general result in section 2 owes much to the referee’s comments on an earlier version of this paper. Financial support from the 21 Century COE Program at GSE and RIEB, Kobe University is gratefully acknowledged.     

Replacing the U.S. income tax with a progressive consumption tax: A sequenced general equilibrium approach

This paper examines the welfare consequences of changing the current U.S. income tax system to a progressive consumption tax. We compute a sequence of single period equilibria in which savings decisions depend on the expected future return to capital. In the presence of existing income taxes, the U.S. economy is assumed to lie on a balanced growth path. With the change to a consumption tax, individuals save more and initially consume less. As the capital stock grows, consumption eventually overtakes that of the original path, and the economy approaches the new balanced growth path with higher consumption and a greater capital stock. Both the transition and the balanced growth paths enter our welfare evaluations. We find the discounted present value of the stream of net gains is approximately $650 billion in 1973 dollars, just over 1 percent of the discounted present value of national income. Larger gains occur if further reform of capital income taxation accompanies the change. We examine the sensitivity of the results, both to the design of the consumption tax and to the values of elasticity and other parameters. The paper also contains estimates of the time required to adjust from one growth path to the other.     

A complete characterization of optimal growth paths in an aggregated model with a non-concave production function

We use the Principle of Optimality in addition to the Euler equation in order to provide a characterization of optimal one-sector growth for all ranges of interest rates when the technology is not convex. Our key result is that the sequence of capital stocks is necessarily monotonic. For certain interest rates we show that the optimal path converges to a steady state only if the initial capital stock is above a critical level, otherwise it converges to zero. Finally, we demonstrate that the set of points for which the value function is differentiable is precisely the set of initial capital stocks from which there is a unique optimal path.     

Within-family inequalities in human capital accumulation in India

We investigate within-family inequalities in human capital accumulation in India. Indicators of the children's current stock of human capital and of investment into their continued human capital accumulation are analyzed, distinguishing between time investments and pecuniary investment into school quality. We employ a within-family model using sibship fixed effects, and find mostly negative birth order effects; that is, earlier-born children are better off. However, for time investments there is a tendency toward more positive birth order effects, especially in poor and large families. This suggests that that opportunity cost of child time matters; in poor and large families the older, more productive, siblings often need to work. The most plausible explanation for negative birth order effects in general is resource dilution at an early age. Older siblings were only children at an early age, and therefore benefited from more parental resources.     

SUSTAINABLE CONSTANT CONSUMPTION IN A SEMI‐OPEN ECONOMY WITH EXHAUSTIBLE RESOURCES*

To sustain constant consumption, Hartwick's rule prescribes reinvesting all resource rents in reproducible capital. However, Hartwick's rule is not necessarily the result of optimization. In this paper, we address this insufficiency by deriving a constant consumption path endogenously in a semi‐open economy with an exhaustible resource, which has full access to world goods and capital markets, while the resource flows are not internationally tradable. Our findings show that, due to the essentiality of both capital and resource to the production process, the economy transforms its domestic assets into foreign ones, consuming a constant interest flow from the latter.     

Dynamic optimization with a nonsmooth, nonconvex technology: the case of a linear objective function

This paper studies a one-sector optimal growth model with linear utility in which the production function is only required to be increasing and upper semicontinuous. The model also allows for a general form of irreversible investment. We show that every optimal capital path is strictly monotone until it reaches a steady state; further, it either converges to zero, or reaches a positive steady state in finite time and possibly jumps among different steady states afterwards. We establish conditions for extinction (convergence to zero), survival (boundedness away from zero), and the existence of a critical capital stock below which extinction is possible and above which survival is ensured. These conditions generalize those known for the case of S-shaped production functions. We also show that as the discount factor approaches one, optimal paths converge to a small neighborhood of the capital stock that maximizes sustainable consumption.This paper is dedicated to Professor Mukul Majumdar on his 60th birthday. His research with various co-authors in the late 70s and the 80s pioneered innovative techniques for the analysis of nonconvex dynamic optimization models – both deterministic and stochastic. Roy considers himself particularly fortunate for having had the opportunity to learn economic theory and mathematical economics from Professor Majumdar. This paper has benefited from helpful comments and suggestions by an anonymous referee. Financial support from the 21st Century COE Program at GSE and RIEB, Kobe University, is gratefully acknowledged.     

A dynamic analysis of an endogenous growth model with leisure

Summary. The main goal in this paper is to analyze an economic model of endogenous growth where human capital accumulation acts as the engine propelling economic activity. The added ingredient in our model is that agents derive utility from consumption and leisure, where leisure is defined as the amount of time devoted to those activities augmented by the level of education. Under regular conditions we show that there is a unique globally stable balanced growth path. We also provide a characterization of the behavior of our economic variables along the transition. Received: May 26, 1998; revised version: September 9, 1999     

Skilled–unskilled wage inequality,product variety,public input and increasing returns: A static general equilibrium analysis

The paper develops a four sector small open economy model with two traded final good sectors, a public intermediate good producing sector and a nontraded good sector producing varieties of intermediate goods. There are three primary factors: capital, skilled labour and unskilled labour. Industrial sector producing a traded good uses capital, intermediate goods and skilled labour as inputs. Intermediate goods producing sector also uses capital and skilled labour. Public input producing sector and the agricultural sector producing the other traded good use capital and unskilled labour as inputs. It is shown that, if production technologies are the same for the agricultural sector and the public input producing sector and if the scale elasticity of output is very low, then an increase in capital stock (unskilled labour endowment) raises (lowers) the skilled–unskilled wage ratio. However, an increase in skilled labour endowment does not produce any unambiguous effect. On the other hand, an increase in the tax rate on industrial output and/or an increase in the price of the agricultural product, armed with the same set of assumptions, lowers the skilled–unskilled wage ratio.     

Variety of products,public capital,and endogenous growth

This paper develops an extension of the endogenous growth model with variety expansion presented in Romer [Romer, P.M., 1990. Endogenous technical change, Journal of Political Economy 98, part 2, S71–S102] by considering public capital accumulation. Characterizing the transitional dynamics, the growth rate of consumption traces (and available number of intermediate goods also might trace) an S-shaped converging path to the equilibrium growth rate, similar to a logistic growth curve, if the intensity of public capital is sufficiently high. We also show that public investment enhances economic growth because it stimulates demand for intermediate goods and raises the market interest rate.     

Identifying optimal contingent fiscal policies in a business cycle model

Optimal fiscal policy is indeterminate in a dynamic and stochastic environment. The complete characterization of the fiscal policy requires the use of identification constraints. In the literature either capital taxes or debt have been restricted to be not contingent on the state of nature. We propose a different type of identification constraints to have both policy variables state-contingent. Three alternative identification conditions are considered: (i) restrictions on the dynamic and stochastic behavior of the debt path; (ii) an exogenous debt path, and (iii) an exogenous belief function. The main result indicates that the optimal capital tax is zero and constant over the business cycle for any of the identification conditions used, suggesting that is optimal for the government to use debt return as a shock absorber, keeping capital taxes constant. The result is quite different from the previous literature, which obtains very volatile capital taxes. JEL Classification: E62, H21. We are grateful to Alfonso Novales, Víctor Ríos-Rull, Javier Vallés and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions. We acknowledge financial support from Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (Ruiz and Pérez: BEC 2003-039; Manzano: BEC 2002-01995). Baltasar Manzano also acknowledges support from Xunta de Galicia (PGIDIT03PXIC30001PN, PGIDIT03CSO30001PR).