FOREIGN THREATS,TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS AND THE RISE AND DECLINE OF IMPERIAL CHINA

This paper addresses why technological progress occurred off‐and‐on in Imperial China but came to a standstill at around the time of the European Renaissance, leading to the decline of Imperial China. We suggest that the threat of war could have induced innovative activities as well as the accumulation of public capital, which led to the development of a modern sector in Imperial China. Using numerical simulation, we find a stagnated equilibrium in an agrarian economy under low threats of war and another with a high level of technological knowledge, public capital and a vibrant modern sector under strong threats. Long periods of peace would have the opposite effect. Some supportive historical evidence from urbanization is provided.     

THE MECHANICS OF ECONOMIC GROWTH THROUGH CAPITAL ACCUMULATION AND TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS*

This study develops a model wherein capital is used in final goods production and research and development (R&D) activities. This arrangement generates changes of the equilibrium capital allocation corresponding to capital endowment, which engenders a regime change from capital based growth with decreasing returns to R&D based perpetual growth. These two growth phases account for the polarization of economies. The model also engenders multiple equilibria on capital allocation—which emerge during the middle stages of capital accumulation—accounting for leapfrogging and the instability of the economic growth of developing countries with medium capital accumulation.     

改革开放以来山东省城镇化进程中的主要问题与发展对策

改革开放以来,以农村工业化为主要源动力、以小城镇数量及城市市区的双重扩张为特征的粗放型城镇化发展模式,在推动农村产业结构调整、促进农业剩余劳动力转移的同时,亦给山东全省经济、社会的健康、持续发展造成了诸多方面的影响。新世纪坚持以人为本、以科学发展观为指导思想,山东省城镇化发展的总体方针应该是:进一步强化大城市建设;积极合理发展中等城市;重点发展小城市;有选择、有重点地发展小城镇。在此基础上,就推进全省城镇化有序、健康发展的相关对策进行了探讨。     

SHARED PATENT RIGHTS AND TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS

We study how to reward innovators who build on one another. Rewards come in the form of patents. Because patent rights are scarce, the optimal allocation involves sharing: More than one innovator's patent is in force at a given time. We interpret such allocations as patents that infringe one another as licensing through an ever growing patent pool and as randomization through litigation. We contrast the rate of technological progress under the optimal allocation with the outcome if sharing is prohibitively costly. Avoiding sharing initially slows progress and leads to a more variable rate of technological progress.     

TESTING CATCHING‐UP BETWEEN THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: “GROWTH RESISTANCE” AND SOMETIMES “GROWTH TRAGEDY”

This paper provides empirical evidence that there is no convergence between the GDP per‐capita of the developing countries since 1950. Relying upon recent econometric methodologies (non‐stationary long‐memory models, wavelet models and time‐varying factor representation models), we show that the transition paths to long‐run growth (the catch‐up dynamics) are very persistent over time and non‐stationary, thereby yielding a variety of potential steady states (conditional convergence). Our findings do not support the idea according to which the developing countries share a common factor (such as technology) that eliminates per‐capita output divergence in the very long run. Instead, we conclude that growth is an idiosyncratic phenomenon that yields different forms of transitional economic performance: growth tragedy (some countries with an initial low level of per‐capita income diverge from the richest ones), growth resistance (with many countries experiencing a low speed of growth convergence), and rapid convergence.     

金融结构、技术进步与产业结构升级*——基于跨国数据的经验验证

本文分析了金融结构通过技术进步对产业结构产生的不同作用机理,并通过具有代表性的30个包含发达国家与发展中国家的数据,检验了金融结构对产业结构的影响效果。实证结果表明,在考虑技术转移的情况下,适宜的金融结构可通过技术进步对产业结构升级有较显著的正向作用,而金融发展水平对产业结构升级的影响效果并不显著为正。       

国际贸易、技术进步和中国工业行业的生产率增长

本文研究了一国的最优银行结构怎样随着经济中资本的积累而变化。我们证明了,经济增长过程中,随着资本的积累,最优银行结构所要求的银行规模越来越大。对这种银行结构的偏离会导致福利的严格下降,并有可能使经济中某些成员无法获得银行服务。本文的结论说明,我国作为一个发展中国家,由于资本的相对稀缺,更应该发展中小银行。这样可以促进经济的成长并提高福利。     

考虑技术进步和结构变化的宏观能源回弹效应估算

考虑到技术进步和结构变化引致的宏观能源回弹效应影响广泛但相关研究不足,本文使用多部门增长核算法和LMDI指数分解法,分别对技术进步和结构变化引致的能源回弹效应构建估算模型,进而估算我国2005年—2019年含6个细分部门的整体经济和含18个细分部门的工业能源回弹效应。研究显示,在整体经济和工业层面,技术进步引致的能源回弹效应在研究期内一直存在,结构变化引致的能源回弹效应仅在部分年份存在。近年来,工业结构变化呈现如下趋势：即仅促进了经济增长却没有促进能耗强度下降。本文的研究可为进一步完善能源效率政策提供重要参考。     

R&D, TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS AND EFFICIENCY CHANGE IN INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITIES

The objective of this paper is to estimate total factor productivity growth (TFP) in an international and sectoral setting using two alternative approaches based on the estimation of parametric stochastic frontiers and non-parametric production frontiers (DEA). The TFP is decomposed into two components, technological progress and efficiency change, that can also be interpreted as the results of the innovation and catching-up process, respectively. Finally their relationship is tested with a set of potential explanatory variables that includes R&D expenditures, international competition, and structural characteristics. It appears that the distinction between technological and efficiency performances does matter and must be taken into account in the design of industrial policy.     

ECONOMIES OF SCALE AND SCOPE: THE CASE OF SPECIALTY HOSPITALS

The recent growth of physician‐owned hospitals specializing in orthopedic and surgical specialty services in the United States has generated considerable controversy, yet there is little understanding of the economic logic of organizing hospital services around these single specialties. This article takes a multiple output hospital cost function approach to an empirical investigation of whether single specialty hospitals (SSHs) exhibit economies of scale and economies of scope as keys to new insights into that logic. We applied generalized estimating equation techniques to a sample of 80 SSHs and 883 general hospital competitors over the 1998–2008 period. Results indicated large underlying scale differences across the organizational types. Simulation analysis revealed the potential for exploitation of economies of scope gained from shifting output from SSHs to general hospitals. (JEL I18, L23)     

THE SHADOW ECONOMIES OF THE ASIA-PACIFIC

Abstract.  Despite continuous government attempts to increase taxpayer compliance, the shadow economy continues to offer a way for taxpayers to evade their taxpaying obligations. The consequences are clear: policy-makers have increasingly imperfect knowledge about the state of economic affairs as shadow economy activity expands. We provide the first known estimates of the shadow economy for 17 Asia-Pacific countries. We show that, not only have these activities grown over the last ten years, but countries with relatively thin taxpayer compliance initiatives experience the greatest shadow economy activity.     

THE MICRO‐DYNAMICS OF CATCH‐UP IN INDONESIAN PAPER MANUFACTURING

In this study we analyze the micro‐dynamics of catch‐up in Indonesian paper manufacturing, using a two‐country plant‐level dataset for the period 1975–97. We apply data envelopment analysis (DEA) to measure to what extent Indonesian paper mills are catching up with Finnish mills in terms of technical efficiency. Three questions are addressed: What is the distribution of Indonesian plant technical efficiency vis‐à‐vis the technological frontier? What is the role of entry, exit, and survival in Indonesia for catch‐up in the paper industry as a whole? In what ways do catching‐up plants in Indonesia differ from non‐catching‐up plants? We find that on average the Indonesian paper industry moved closer to the technological frontier during the 1990s. However, catch‐up has been a highly localized process in which only a few large establishments have achieved near best‐practice performance, while most other plants have stayed behind.     

中国区域经济重心漂移与均衡化走势

调整国土空间结构是优化要素配置、促进区域协调的重要途径。本文运用重心模型和重心分解模型对中国区域经济重心的演化进行了分析与验证。结果表明：2003年和2004年是中国区域经济空间格局演变的转折时期,在此之后中国区域经济重心走向均衡化。在驱动机制上,2003年之后政府干预的作用趋于减弱,人力资本成为驱动经济重心向中西部漂移的新力量。在演化力度与演化次序上,固定资产投资、GDP、进出口总额和消费重心构成了雁阵漂移模式。