The curse of natural resources in the transition economies*

The curse of natural resources is a well‐documented phenomenon for developing countries. Economies that are richly endowed with natural resources tend to grow slowly. Among the transition economies of the former ‘Eastern Bloc’, a similar pattern can be observed. This paper shows that a large part of the variation in growth rates among the transition economies can be attributed to the curse of natural resources. After controlling for numerous other factors, there is still a strong negative correlation between natural resource abundance and economic growth. Among the transition economies the prime reasons for the curse of natural resources were corruption and a neglect of basic education. In order to overcome the curse of natural resources and move to a sustainable path of development, the resource abundant transition countries should fight corruption and ensure that their resource revenues are invested in human capital or the preservation of natural capital.     

Foreign debt and economic growth

This paper empirically examines the relationship between government foreign debt and the growth rate of per capita GDP based on a total sample of 77 countries, as well as sub‐samples of various regions. Cross‐sectional estimates of the coefficient of foreign debt based on the total sample have a negative sign, but are not always statistically significant. Available data from African countries indicate that foreign debt and the growth rate of per capita GDP were negatively related at a high level of significance. For industrialized and Latin American sub‐samples, this relationship is negative but statistically insignificant. The sub‐sample Asian and other developing countries show a positive but insignificant relationship. JEL classification: F34, H6, O23.     

Existence of a competitive equilibrium in a one sector growth model with heterogeneous agents and irreversible investment

Summary. We prove existence of a competitive equilibrium in a version of a Ramsey (one sector) model in which agents are heterogeneous and gross investment is constrained to be non negative. We do so by converting the infinite-dimensional fixed point problem stated in terms of prices and commodities into a finite-dimensional Negishi problem involving individual weights in a social value function. This method allows us to obtain detailed results concerning the properties of competitive equilibria. Because of the simplicity of the techniques utilized our approach is amenable to be adapted by practitioners in analogous problems often studied in macroeconomics. Received: September 13, 2001; revised version: December 9, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" We are grateful to Tapan Mitra for pointing out errors as well as making very valuable suggestions. Thanks are due to Raouf Boucekkine and Jorge Duran for additional helpful discussions. We also thank an anonymous referee for his/her helpful comments. The second author acknowledges the financial support of the Belgian Ministry of Scientific Research (Grant ARC 99/04-235 “Growth and incentive design”) and of the Belgian Federal Goverment (Grant PAI P5/10, “Equilibrium theory and optimization for public policy and industry regulation”). Correspondence to: C. Le Van     

沼渣花卉栽培营养基质应用研究

以猪粪和牛粪为主的沼渣作为原料,复配木屑、草炭和蛭石,形成5种适合喜酸性花卉的栽培基质,并在比利时杜鹃上进行栽培试验.在对不同基质组分理化性状分析的基础上,研究5种栽培基质对杜鹃植株营养生长,生殖生长的影响;及基质pH值的变化特点,为沼渣类基质的应用奠定基础.     

Book production and the onset of modern economic growth

We provide a new data set on per capita book production as a proxy for advanced literacy skills, and assess this relative to other measures. While literacy proxies very basic skills, book production per capita is an indicator for more advanced capabilities. Growth theory suggests that human capital formation plays a significant role in creating the ‘wealth of nations.’ This study tests whether human capital formation has an impact on early-modern growth disparities. In contrast to some previous studies which denied the role of human capital as a crucial determinant of long-term growth, we confirm its importance.      

“Ideas” driven growth: the OECD evidence

This paper estimates the parameters of the ideas production function crucial to recent ideas-driven growth models. Using U. S. patents granted to residents in OECD countries to generate the stock of commercially used ideas, we provide evidence for two main findings. First, at the level of the production of ideas, we find evidence of increasing returns to scale in the stock of ideas and number of researchers, but marginal decreasing returns in each one of these factors. Second, we provide evidence of the association between ideas growth and economic growth for the OECD as a whole in the long run.JEL Classification: 031, 040The author would like to thank the helpful comments made by two anonymous referees, and by the editor, of the PEJ. The helpful discussions with Professor Mário Rui Silva are grateful acknowledged, too.     

Capital in the Twenty-First Century: Reinterpreting the fundamental contradiction of capitalism

At a theoretical level this article discusses Piketty’s hypothesis that the distribution of income and wealth tends to become more concentrated over time when the rate of return on capital is greater than the growth rate of real output. We develop a post Keynesian model of growth and distribution showing that once capital is differentiated from wealth, the increase in income and wealth concentration actually occurs when the rate of valorization of financial and real estate assets is greater than the growth rate of real output, and that this situation may be triggered by financial liberalization.     

中国外贸增长方式转变的评价指标体系与实证研究

从外贸规模、外贸结构、外贸效益、外贸可持续发展、外贸竞争力五个方面建立外贸增长方式及其转变的评价指标体系,以中国1995—2008年的数据,对外贸增长方式转变成效进行了实证研究表明,从总体上来看,外贸增长方式转变已有成效;规模指标显示外贸规模不断扩大;结构指标显示外贸结构在波动中优化,但优化程度与规模增长相比显得不足;效益指标、可持续发展指标、外贸竞争力指标,都有一定程度的上升。但贸易结构有待进一步优化,贸易条件需要进一步改善,环境、资源指标需要进一步提高,外贸增长方式转变的任务仍然十分艰巨。     

高技术产品、出口贸易和经济增长：来自吉林省域经济的经验证据

依据1978~2009年吉林省出口贸易和经济增长数据,考察吉林省出口贸易发展基本趋势并对比评价吉林省出口贸易省域竞争力。回归分析评价吉林省高技术产品出口与出口贸易关联性,发现高新技术产品对出口贸易增长作用明显。利用HP滤波分解出吉林省出口贸易和经济增长三类成分的作用关系检验,结果发现,滞后期的出口贸易与国内生产总值的三类成分Granger因果关系显著,表明出口贸易可以通过经济体内要素耦合作用而作用于经济增长。而同期仅水平序列的出口贸易与国内生产总值有明显的相关性,表明出口贸易对经济增长拉动作用明显但二者同步性有限。