Capital accumulation through studying abroad and return migration

This paper examines the interplays among studying abroad, return migration and capital accumulation, in a dynamic general equilibrium model featuring heterogeneous ability. Households invest in education and make two migration decisions: whether to study abroad and subsequently whether to return home. The model predicts that the highest, middle and lowest-ability people choose respectively permanent migration, return migration and no migration. More interestingly, we find a novel migration cycle: returnees bring back learned-knowledge and over time, capital accumulates, attracting more return migration. Further, the usual “brain drain” in the literature can be turned into “brain gain”, by providing a subsidy to studying abroad and returning home.     

Pure rent taxation and allocation of capital in a two-sector open economy: A long-run analysis

In this paper, the long-run incidence of a tax on pure rent is analyzed in an OLG two-sector small open economy, in which one sector produces a capital good and one sector a consumer good. Contrary to what is obtained in a one-sector closed economy, a land rent tax does not necessarily foster nonhumam wealth accumulation and capital formation. The accommodating scheme for the government budget plays a crucial role for the effects of pure rent taxation. A rent tax stimulates nonhuman wealth if distortionary taxes on wealth or on income from nonland inputs are alleviated. The mechanism spurring capital formation is brought into action, instead, only when the rent tax is matched by a fall in capital taxation or, if the capital sector is capital intensive, by an increase in government spending on the capital good.     

The Role of Inflation Target Adjustment in Stabilization Policy

How and under what circumstances can adjusting the inflation target serve as a stabilization-policy tool and contribute to welfare improvement? We answer these questions quantitatively with a standard New Keynesian model that includes cost-push-type shocks. Our proposed inflation target rule calls for the target to be adjusted in a persistent manner and in the opposite direction to the realization of a cost-push shock, which is essentially a makeup strategy. The inflation target rule, combined with a Taylor-type rule, significantly reduces inflation fluctuations originating from cost-push shocks and mitigates the stabilization trade-off, resulting in a similar level of welfare to that associated with the Ramsey optimal policy.     

资本主义福利国家的必然性、局限性与面临的挑战——基于经济全球化视阈的历史唯物主义诠释和启示

资本主义福利国家的产生和发展是第二次世界大战后资本主义社会应对生产力发展和生产方式变化的自我调整，具有历史必然性，也具有自身局限性：形式上的“国家回归”没有改变资本主义私有制生产关系，无法消除资本主义社会的根本矛盾和经济危机；社会普遍高福利的实现（部分）依赖于凭借显著竞争优势在世界市场上获取的超额利润，福利模式具有排他性和剥削性，不能为落后国家所复制，也不能成为世界福利模式。因而，资本主义福利国家成为发达国家的特权，且当经济危机爆发或出现经济滞胀时，其会采取削减甚至拆除社会福利的措施以追求资本和财富的积累。随着经济全球化发展，资本积累与社会福利的矛盾日益凸显，资本主义福利国家模式面临实践上的可持续性和价值上的普适性双重挑战。借鉴资本主义福利国家的经验教训，后发国家应努力提升“结构的或根本性的竞争力”，寻求经济与社会的平衡发展；中国还应充分发挥国家制度和国家治理体系的显著优势，积极建设国家主导、福利要素多元、福利机制灵活的中国特色社会主义福利社会。     

Functional income distribution,capacity utilization,capital accumulation and productivity growth in Turkey: A post-Kaleckian analysis

The aim of this article is to examine the relation between functional income distribution, capacity utilization, capital accumulation and productivity in Turkey by identifying demand and overall regimes prevalent in the economy. For this purpose, we conducted an empirical analysis using different specifications of the post-Kaleckian model of Hein and Tarassow. This model defines and characterizes an overall regime by endogenizing productivity growth and integrating it into the models in this tradition. Empirical findings show that while the demand regime is wage-led, the overall regime turns out to be unstable in Turkey due to the destabilizing impact of productivity growth. This article contributes to the literature by being the first study that simultaneously identifies the demand and the overall regimes of an economy.     

一种基于差分相干积累的扩频信号开环同步捕获方法

将全数字接收机的结构引入到扩频接收机中,用一种前向的并行处理结构来代替传统码延迟锁定环的反馈结构,采用差分相干积累的方法捕获低信噪比扩频信号的伪码相位.仿真结果表明,这种方法能快速可靠地捕获低信噪比扩频信号的码同步,可以应用于开环的全数字扩频接收机中.     

科技型人才聚集效应的经济学分析

本文认为,科技型人才聚集现象是科技型人才流动的产物,科技型人才聚集现象发生质变时就会产生科技型人才聚集效应。科技型人才聚集效应是人才聚集效应的一种特殊形式,除了具备人才聚集效应的诸多特征外,还有其自身特点。文章提出,科技型人才流动的动因有引致性动因和驱致性动因两种,要形成人才聚集现象进而实现人才聚集效应必须同时提升这两个方面的水平。而科技型人才聚集效应边界的存在则需要地区或企业严格控制好科技型人才聚集度,使之处于最优点以保障经济水平快速有效的增长。     

Cultural determinants of human capital accumulation: Evidence from the European Social Survey

Although economists commonly view the accumulation of human capital as a key driver of economic development, what drives cross-country differences in human capital accumulation remains poorly understood. I use an epidemiological approach involving second-generation migrants to test for a possible cultural gradient in individuals’ propensity towards human capital accumulation. Results indicate a strong relationship between country-of-origin culture and human capital accumulation and are robust to using years of education instead of individuals’ engagement in human capital accumulation as the dependent variable. Drawing on dimensions of cultural differences identified in culture frameworks developed by cross-cultural researchers, results further suggest that cultural emphasis on intellectual autonomy helps explain part of the observed differences in human capital accumulation. However, further work is needed to complete our understanding of the cultural roots of individuals’ propensity towards human capital accumulation.     

Did foreign exchange holding influence growth performance during the global financial crisis?

In a context of increased foreign exchange reserves holding from emerging and developing countries, this paper investigates the diminishing return of reserves holding assumption over the most severe phase of the global financial crisis (2008Q1–2010Q4). Relying on a Panel Smooth Transition Regression model, we highlight the differential effect of the accumulation of foreign exchange reserves for a set of financial vulnerabilities variables. In a specific manner, although reserves accumulation is effective above a critical threshold to cope with vulnerabilities related to the financial channel, we show that it becomes less effective beyond a certain threshold for domestic bank vulnerabilities. Our results are robust to alternative specifications.     

Population,pensions, and endogenous economic growth

We study the effect of a declining labor force on the incentives to engage in labor-saving technical change and ask how this effect is influenced by institutional characteristics of the pension scheme. When labor is scarcer it becomes more expensive and innovation investments that increase labor productivity are more profitable. We incorporate this channel in a new dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous economic growth and heterogeneous overlapping generations. We calibrate the model for the US economy and obtain the following results. First, the effect of a decline in population growth on labor productivity growth is positive and quantitatively significant. In our benchmark, it is predicted to increase from an average annual growth rate of 1.74% over 1990–2000 to 2.41% in 2100. Second, institutional characteristics of the pension system matter both for the growth performance and for individual welfare. Third, the assessment of pension reform proposals may depend on whether economic growth is endogenous or exogenous.