Pandemic effects in the Solow growth model

We show how diseases can affect economic growth in a Solow growth model, with population growth and no technical progress, but modified to include a saving rate that depends on the individual health status. We successively insert this model into the SIS (susceptible–infected–susceptible) and SIR (susceptible–infected–recovered) models of disease spreading. In these two models, the spread of the infection proceeds according to the so-called basic reproductive number. This number determines in which of the two possible equilibria, the disease-free or the pandemic equilibrium, the economy ends. We show that output per capita is always lower in the pandemic steady state, which implies a contraction in the economy's production possibilities frontier.     

Reexamination of Economic Growth, Tax Policy, and Distributive Politics

The paper examines the relationship between economic growth, tax policy, and distribution of capital and labor ownership in a one‐sector political‐economy model of endogenous growth with productive government spending financed by a proportional tax on capital income. The analysis shows that inequality in wealth and income can be positively or negatively related to the optimal tax rate. In either environment, higher inequality leads to a lower after‐tax return to capital, thereby reducing the economy's growth rate.     

Economic Growth with Foreign Capital

In growth theory, foreign investment places a small open economy in the international steady state. In applied growth theory, foreign investment is assumed to shift technology. The present growth model separates foreign from domestic capital and develops the steady state where both capital/labor ratios are stationary. A capital scarce country would attract foreign investment and may arrive at a steady state with perpetual foreign investment. Such a steady state foreign investment host is characterized by low saving and high labor growth rates, and source countries the opposite. Incomplete convergence characterizes economic growth with foreign capital.     

Median‐voter Equilibria in the Neoclassical Growth Model under Aggregation*

We study a dynamic version of Meltzer and Richard's median‐voter model where agents differ in wealth. Taxes are proportional to income and are redistributed as equal lump‐sum transfers. Voting occurs every period and each consumer votes for the tax that maximizes his welfare. We characterize time‐consistent Markov‐perfect equilibria twofold. First, restricting utility classes, we show that the economy's aggregate state is mean and median wealth. Second, we derive the median‐voter's first‐order condition interpreting it as a tradeoff between distortions and net wealth transfers. Our method for solving the steady state relies on a polynomial expansion around the steady state.     

QUANTITY OR QUALITY: THE IMPACT OF LABOUR SAVING INNOVATION ON US AND JAPANESE GROWTH RATES, 1960–2004*

This article deals with both theoretical and empirical analyses of the post‐war (1960–2004) growth for the USA and Japan. We investigated three factors contributing to growth: the growth rates of capital, labour and labour saving innovation. In Japan, the growth rate of the labour force has been much less important than its quality improvement—i.e. labour saving technical change—while in the USA, the growth rates of labour and population have contributed more than their quality improvement. The policy implication is that Japan's declining population can be compensated for by additional quality improvement of the existing labour force.     

DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFT,POPULATION AGEING AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN CHINA: A COMPUTABLE GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM ANALYSIS

Abstract. Using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and a given ageing profile of the population to forecast the growth path of China's economy during the twenty‐first century, this study finds that: population ageing leads to declining economic growth as labour supply shrinks and the rate of physical capital formation declines; households’ material living standards improve, albeit at a declining rate; falling domestic investment partially offsets declining national savings; and the resulting saving‐investment surplus generates a current account surplus and capital outflows. Finally, the main force that can sustain China's economic growth against the backdrop of population ageing is productivity improvement.     

Population dividend and economic growth in China, 1978–2018

ABSTRACT

China witnessed important demographic transitions during the past 40 years. The significant decline in fertility rate, as a result of both policy change and economic factors, generated the so-called population dividends – rising proportion of working age population – during the past several decades. This paper demonstrates important channels through which broadly defined population dividends contribute to economic growth in China, by magnifying roles of capital, by improving labor quality, alongside increases in labor supply, and by strengthening labor mobility. As population aging now takes over from population dividends as the main demographic trend, it is possible for China to continue its strong growth by focusing on both the traditional growth factors, such as further reducing the proportion of agricultural workers, and new growth factors, such as further improving productivity by strengthening human capital and weakening institutional obstacles.     

China's Recent Economic Performance and Future Prospects*

Our forecast of China's economic future is based primarily on the supply side growth accounting model. The life cycle model of household saving provides us with the most plausible explanation for a continued high rate of savings and investment. China's labor force will soon stop growing, but migration out of agriculture should have little impact on farm output while providing a steady stream of labor to the modern more productive sectors. There is also room for rapid expansion of human capital. Maintaining high productivity growth will depend primarily on strengthening currently weak institutions, notably the financial sector and, more importantly, the legal system.     

FOREIGN CAPITAL AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

This paper examines the economic implications of institutional arrangements by which foreign investors are required to reinvest a certain percentage of their capital within the host country. Our analysis shows that foreign capital inflow can produce long-lasting economic benefits to the host country only when the foreign capital reinvestment rate is sufficiently greater than the host country's saving rate. In this case, the economy evolves into a unique steady state equilibrium, which is also asymptotically stable. The paper also presents several comparative static results regarding the responses of steady state capital-labour ratio and the proportion of foreign capital in total capital to changes in the population growth rate, the rate of capital depreciation, the host country's saving rate and the foreign capital reinvestment rate.     

Demographic change and long‐term growth in China: Past developments and the future challenge of aging

This paper explores the influence of demographic changes, particularly the sharp decline in fertility and the evolution of the population age structure, on economic development in China. A general equilibrium overlapping generations model with endogenous decisions on fertility, educational investment, and factor accumulation is employed for our analysis. The family support provided by children to the elderly, which is a component of traditional culture in Chinese society, is also considered. We find that technological changes matter most for growth. Demographic changes, on average, account for approximately 4% of the growth in China, while the effect is negative in the pre‐1980 period. With an extension to include population aging, we find that aging is not necessarily adverse to growth. This finding reflects the fact that a longer life expectancy requires more savings and makes educational investment in children more attractive, which accelerates physical capital and human capital accumulation. However, if the social norm of family support for aging parents is strict, aging will significantly increase the children's burden and crowd out physical and human capital accumulation.     

中国工业结构变化与技术进步率增长研究——对中国1985—2009年工业“结构红利假说”的检验

要素流动推动着经济结构的变化,并且影响着技术进步水平的增长。在估计37个行业的技术进步与资本存量的基础上,本文利用偏离一份额法分析了工业结构变化的技术进步率增长效应。研究发现我国各行业之间的技术进步率在不断改善,资本和劳动力的流动较明显倾向于第二、三类产业;资本要素对技术进步率增长的贡献主要来源于内部增长效应;劳动力变化对技术进步的影响较大,但是主要依靠内部增长效应来促进技术进步率的增长,其中劳动力的流动对第三类产业具有显著的“结构红利”。     

TEMPORARY EMIGRATION AND WELFARE: THE CASE OF LOW‐SKILLED LABOR

This article studies the implications of temporary emigration for the welfare of a source country. The framework is one of general equilibrium, where the economy's stocks of both capital and labor are endogenously determined by the saving and migration decisions of optimizing agents. Simulations of the model suggest that for realistic values of the parameters, welfare of nonmigrants of the source country is maximized when the migrants are employed abroad for a period in the range of roughly 8–12 years. The ideal duration is found to be an increasing function of the international wage differential, migration costs, and the degree to which the rights of migrants are protected in the host country.     

CHINA'S ECONOMIC GROWTH: WHAT DO WE LEARN FROM MULTIPLE‐BREAK UNIT ROOT TESTS?

This paper investigates China's economic growth by performing multiple‐break unit root tests on the data of national and sectoral output and output per worker to identify their steady‐state and transitional growth paths. The evidence generated suggests that the growth behaviour of the Chinese economy is consistent with endogenous growth theory. The results of multiple‐break unit root tests are then explained within the endogenous growth framework, using historical observations on how the evolution of economic institution/environment causes changes in some institutional parameters and hence in the steady‐state growth rate of GDP per worker.     

A CLOSED‐FORM SOLUTION FOR DETERMINING THE BURDEN OF PUBLIC DEBT IN NEOCLASSICAL GROWTH MODELS

This paper develops a new approach, termed as the stock approach, to calculate the steady‐state output loss caused by public debt in neoclassical growth models. The novelty of our stock approach is that it provides a closed‐form solution to the steady‐state output‐debt relationship. The main conclusion of the paper is that the steady‐state burden of public debt is country‐specific in neoclassical growth models and it decreases with the private saving rate and increases with the population growth rate, with the exception of the special case where Ricardian equivalence holds.     

Scale Effects,Savings and Factor Shares in a Human Capital-based Growth Model with Physical Capital Accumulation

Using a balanced-growth model with physical and human capital accumulation, we analyze quantitatively the long-run effects of changes in the savings rate and in income distribution (i.e. the shares of physical and human capital in income) on investment in skill acquisition, income growth, and the ratio of human to physical capital. In the long run, the ratio of physical to human capital is constant, so that these two factor inputs can grow at the same rate. This rate is a function of the economy's exogenous technological and preference parameters and depends positively on the share of skills invested in human capital formation. We also find that population growth is neither necessary nor conducive to economic growth, that the level of real income depends linearly on the level of human capital and that it is independent of population size.     

A NOTE ON “A ONE‐SECTOR NEOCLASSICAL GROWTH MODEL WITH ENDOGENOUS RETIREMENT”: EXISTENCE OF MULTIPLE STEADY STATES*

This note extends Matsuyama's 0–1 endogenous retirement choice model to the framework with continuous endogenous retirement choice to study the consumption‐saving decision and capital accumulation in an overlapping generation model. The conditions for the existence of multiple steady states have been derived. In contrast to the 0 or 1 labour choice, the partial retirement may be a stable steady state under the continuous endogenous retirement choice in the second period. And this implies that partial retirement may be a stable optimal choice. Also, we find that the retirement choice depends on the initial capital stock when there are multiple steady states.     

The EU Growth Strategy and the Impact of Aging

The paper looks at the main challenges to raise potential growth in the EU. It examines recent progress made regarding the structural reform efforts in EU product, labor, and financial markets, and it attempts to assess their impact on overall macroeconomic performance in terms of output and (un‐)employment. The paper then proceeds to analyze the likely consequences of population aging for the growth rate of potential output and per capita incomes, emphasizing the fairly dramatic economic and budgetary implications of the decline in the EU's working‐age population if governments do not take offsetting policy actions.     

Unemployment and Growth in the Long Run: an Efficiency‐Wage Model With Optimal Savings*

An efficiency‐wage model of steady‐state equilibrium with labor‐augmenting technical progress is developed to explore the long‐run relationship between unemployment and growth. The rate of productivity growth is either specified exogenously or determined endogenously. In both cases, we preserve key results of the Shapiro–Stiglitz efficiency‐wage analysis without growth. Our model, however, also yields some striking new results. For instance, an exogenous increase in the growth rate may raise the rate of efficiency‐wage unemployment, and a once‐for‐all rise in the labor force may reduce the unemployment rate in the endogenous‐growth case.     

工业化中政府作用的动态经济学分析

中国工业化进程中政府起到了重要作用。本文立足于新中国工业化历程,在动态经济学框架内,讨论政府通过对劳动密集型产业征税而对资本密集型产业扶持来推动工业化的问题。在理论模型的基础上,通过数值模拟,分析了稳态下税率与各经济部门的资本、产出以及社会总资本、总产出存在的倒"U"型关系,并且对税率与政府税收之间的倒"U"型关系进行了讨论。本文认为政府对劳动密集型产业过度提取不仅不利于劳动密集型产业发展,也不利于经济总量与政府税收的增长,甚至不利于资本密集型产业的可持续增长。本研究与结论部分解释了历史上我国优先发展重工业难以维系的原因,并部分揭示了当前亟需调整经济结构的内在机理。     

Steady growth,policy shocks,and speed of adjustment under embodiment and putty-clay

This inquiry addresses the question of adjustment speed by appealing to a model founded on embodied technical progress and putty-clay capital. It postulates a CES production structure along with static wage-expectations and derives the steady-growth solution. It also derives comparative dynamic properties involving the economic life of capital. Discussion then turns to policy shocks, which disrupt the steady state through separate changes in the rates of saving, progress, and population expansion. Simulations track the responses to those perturbations, disclosing the relationships of adjustment speed to the elasticity of substitution, embodiment rate, capital weight, and changed saving coefficient.