An evolutionary model of long term cyclical variations of catching up and falling behind

We generalize a single-country model of endogenous growth to the case of a multi-country world economy in which technology transfer and behavioral imitation are the possible means of interaction between countries. The model is evolutionary in the sense that the economies are disaggregated by behaviourally heterogeneous firms, market selection occurs, and the innovation process is uncertain and stochastic. We demonstrate that this structure leads to a complex process of convergence and divergence over time that can be characterized as 1/f noise. Spectral analysis of measures of convergence for six core OECD countries in the period 1870–1989 reveals a similar pattern in the empirical data.     

Entry and growth in a perfectly competitive vintage model

A perfectly competitive vintage-knowledge model of Schumpeterian growth is introduced to study the relation between growth, technology-lifetime, entry, and productivity-dispersion. The incentive to innovate is generated by the productivity-dispersion (latent in traditional vintage models) between new and old plants, rather than by monopoly rents. The model has a unique steady-state REE with endogenous growth. The endogenous extent of entry constitutes a buffer, dampening the effect of research-efficiency and completely neutralizing the effect of population size or population growth rates on per-capita income levels and growth rates. Variations of research-efficiency lead to a negative relation between growth and vintage-lifetime and a non-monotonic relation between growth and productivity-dispersion.     

参数异质性、经济趋同与中国区域经济发展

本文首次采用分量回归方法来研究中国城市间经济的趋同方式。已有文献研究大都采用条件均值回归的实证方法,无法从本质上揭示不同地区本身存在的异质性而导致的增长方式的差别,本文利用中国182个地级及以上城市的数据,先采用OLS方法,然后采用Koenker和Hallock(2001)发展的条件分量回归的方法,对城市之间的经济趋同方式进行了检验。结果表明,与OLS方法不同,我们发现参数异质性的证据,表明不同城市的经济增长方式存在差异。新古典经济增长模型认为存在条件收敛,但分量回归的结论不支持这个预测。我们发现条件收敛不是普遍现象,增长率分布处于低分位点的地区存在条件收敛特点,但对于增长率分布处于高分位点的地区而言,结论并不显著。这一结果对于制定区域经济协调发展的政策非常重要。     

Anticipation effects of technological progress on capital accumulation: a vintage capital approach

Due to embodied technological progress new generations of capital goods are more productive. Therefore, in order to study the effects of technological progress, a model must be analyzed in which different generations of capital goods can be distinguished. We determine in what way the firm adjusts current investments to predictions of technological progress. In the presence of market power we show that a negative anticipation effect occurs, i.e. current investments in recent generations of capital goods decline when faster technological progress will take place in the future, because then it becomes more attractive to wait for new generations of capital goods. In case that only investments in new machines are possible, actually a whole wave of anticipation phases arises.     

我国汽车产业技术赶超的进入成本

本文在对技术赶超进入成本理论进行探讨的基础上,对我国国内汽车产业技术赶超的进入成本条件及成本效应进行了分析,以期明确国内汽车产业技术赶超的进入成本约束状况。     

Empirics of hills,plateaus, mountains and plains: A Markov-switching approach to growth

Most economic growth research has been aimed at explaining cross-country differences in average growth rates. However, it is well known that growth experiences differ over time within a country almost as much as they differ among countries. This paper builds on Pritchett's (2000) [Pritchett, Lant, Understanding patterns of economic growth: searching for hills among plateaus, mountains, and plains, World Bank Economic Review, May 2000, 14 (2), 221–250.] observation that the growth process can be thought of as transitions between different growth regimes and proposes a framework for systematic analysis of such regimes and the dynamics of the transitions. I estimate a Markov-switching regression to characterize four distinct growth regimes and transitions between them. The results show that countries switch among regimes of stable growth, “miracle” catch-up, stagnation and crisis with the transition probabilities determined by the quality of institutions. Better institutions appear to improve long-run growth by making episodes of fast growth more persistent. Low average growth rates in countries with weak institutions are a result of these countries spending more time in stagnation regimes rather then being incapable of fast growth at all. Weak institutions do not rule out growth takeoffs but limit their sustainability. The approach directs attention to shifts in growth performance and highlights the fact that identical average growth rates can mask very distinct growth paths.     

技术效率、资本深化与地区差异——基于随机前沿模型的中国地区收敛分析

本文提出了基于随机前沿生产函数的地区增长差异分析框架,将各地区劳均产出差距分解为劳均资本差异、经济规模差异和全要素生产率差异三个部分。利用改革时期的省级数据,本文发现尽管要素投入仍然是中国经济增长的主要源泉,但全要素生产率是造成地区差异的重要原因,在地区劳均产出差异中的贡献份额不断提高,将成为今后中国地区增长差异的主要决定力量。而且,1990年以来中国地区全要素生产率呈现出绝对发散趋势,严重的技术扩散壁垒加剧了体制转轨过程中的“马太效应”,短期内地区差距不会随经济发展而缩小,政府需要通过适当的政策对地区发展进行调节,尤其要促进地区间技术扩散,使各地区更好地分享技术创新和体制创新的成果。     

Explaining slow diffusion of energy-saving technologies; a vintage model with returns to diversity and learning-by-using

This paper studies the adoption and diffusion of energy-saving technologies in a vintage model. An important characteristic of the model is that vintages are complementary: there are returns to diversity of using a mix of vintages. We analyse how diffusion patterns and adoption behaviour are affected by complementarity and learning-by-using. It is shown that the stronger the complementarity between different vintages and the stronger the learning-by-using, the longer it takes before firms scrap old vintages. We argue that this is a relevant part of the explanation for the observed slow diffusion of energy-saving technologies. Finally, we show that an energy price tax reduces energy consumption, because it speeds up the diffusion of new energy-saving technologies and induces substitution from capital to labour.     

Catching up to the technology frontier: the dichotomy between innovation and imitation

Abstract Using data for 55 developing and developed countries, this research examines the roles of technology transfer, research intensity, educational attainment, and the ability to absorb foreign technology in explaining cross‐country differences in productivity growth. The results show that innovation is an important factor for growth in OECD countries, whereas growth in developing countries is driven by imitation. Furthermore, the interaction between educational attainment and the distance to the frontier is a significant determinant of growth in the overall sample.     

Endogenous innovation and imitation in a model of equilibrium growth

This paper provides a growth model in which innovation as well as imitation occurs. Economic growth is due to product innovations. Innovators driven by the possibility to appropriate monopoly profits do not remain in their monopolistic position forever. Latecoming imitators get into possession of the private knowledge of production through investments in R & D. Imitated products are marketed in oligopolistic markets. Imitation proves to be profitable despite a single factor market and positive imitation costs. A steady-state equilibrium with positive imitation and innovation rates as well as different market structures can be derived. Finally, the effects of industrial policy measures are discussed.     

Catching up of emerging economies: the role of capital goods imports,FDI inflows,domestic investment and absorptive capacity

We show that the impact of capital goods imports and FDI inflows on economic convergence depends on the local capacity of emerging economies to absorb superior technologies.     

A Model of Technology Gap,Product Cycle,and the Process of Catching up Between the North and the South*

The paper presents a multi-product two-country overlapping generations model of trade and innovation. We show that for a low level of innovation (unitation) in the South, firms in the North innovate at a level which guarantees a long-term technological gap between the North and the South. However, a high innovation level in the South leads to a situation where the South can catch up the North in a finite time. This model differs from the existing literature in two major aspects. a) Except for the head start of the North we assume that the North and the South are identical with respect to factor endowment and their ability to develop new goods. b) It is general enough to explain both the product cycle phenomena and the catching-up process.     

Leisure time, savings and trade patterns A two-country growth model

This paper proposes a simple two-country endogenous growth model with endogenous consumption, leisure time and wealth accumulation. The model examines possible causes for the world economic growth and the existence and persistence of trade patterns between countries with different preferceces and human capital under internationally free capital mobility. We show how differences in preferences in consumption, leisure time and wealth between the two countries may affect long-run world economic growth.     

Bargaining power, effective demand and technical progress: a Kaleckian model of growth

Following the Kaleckian tradition, this paper presents a demand-ledgrowth model in which the distribution of income is fully endogenised.This is done by introducing claims on income by workers andfirms. The bargaining power of these two groups affects, throughdistribution, the patterns of accumulation and inflation. Inturn, the bargaining power of workers is affected by the rateof change of employment. The paper discusses the model's static and dynamic implications,including the effects of exogenous and induced technical progress.The model confirms all the typical Kaleckian results, includingthe fact that increases in real wages may lead to acceleratingaccumulation as well as inflation. It also produces a new result:it is possible that an increase in the rate of change of labourproductivity may not lead to an increase in the rate of changeof employment.     

Three macroeconomic syntheses of vintage 1937: Hicks,Haberler, and Lundberg

Abstract

The 1920s and 1930s were years of intensive debate about economic dynamics and stabilisation policies. There was a large variety of explanations of cycles and depressions, and Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) was pitched against them. In 1937, followed three different attempts to provide synthetic expositions of macroeconomic theory that would deal with the Keynesian challenge: Hicks’ Mr. Keynes and the “Classics”, Haberler's Prosperity and Depression, and Lundberg's Studies in the Theory of Economic Expansion. This paper compares those 1937 syntheses and contrasts them with the “Neoclassical Synthesis” and the current “New Neoclassical Synthesis”.     

Uniqueness and comparative statics of Nash equilibrium in a tariff retaliation model

This paper considers uniqueness and comparative statics of Nash equilibrium of a tariff retaliation model. The approach to the problem is geometrical and reminiscent of the analysis for the free trade competitive equilibrium. If the countries have constant elasticity of substitution utility functions, some simple conditions can be used to prove uniqueness of the Nash equilibrium of the tariff retaliation game. The welfare effects of endowment changes are analyzed in terms of the standard terms of trade and volume of trade effects. If the elasticity of substitution of one of the countries is sufficiently high, immiserizing growth will not occur.