ECONOMICS OF THE CANADIAN BISHOPS

The author welcomes the bishops' statement as an expression of the uniquely moral aspect of the Canadian unemployment crisis. The statement is dramatic, compassionate and deeply ethical in its concern for the Canadian economy and its people—especially for the poor, the afflicted, and the oppressed. However, the bishops' public policy recommendations are ill-advised and incompatible with the attainment of their very worthwhile goals. By relying on a quasi-Marxist economic analysis, the bishops misconstrue the role and effects of inflation, price controls, technological progress, welfare, and the labor union movement. To achieve economic progress, including a cure for unemployment, a move toward freer markets is needed—not more government intervention.     

FUNCTIONAL ESTIMATES OF JAPANESE GOVERNMENT DOMESTIC EXPENDITURES, FISCAL 1952–1963

The purpose of the paper is to describe current and constant price estimates of Japanese central and local government postwar domestic expenditures by economic type and function recently completed by Miss Yoshiko Kido, International Christian University, Tokyo, and myself. The rationale of the functional classification is to estimate those government expenditures which enhance the economy's productive capacity. Expenditures are divided into four broad functional categories: developmental, disaster repair and prevention, social welfare, and general government. These four categories are subdivided to two levels of disaggregation. We were able to break down government fixed investment, government enterprise inventory investment, current domestic transfers and subsidies into 42 functional components. For constant price series, each functional component by economic type was deflated by separate price indexes. We followed the Economic Planning Agency's procedure for the official national accounts of assuming no productivity change in the provision of government services. Our results are generally comparable to the official national accounts estimates. The major difference is that we attribute considerably more fixed investment to local governments, and correspondingly less to the central level. Government expenditures had the following characteristics. Growth was rapid; in real terms the public sector use of the economy's resources in 1963 was 2.2 times more than in 1952. The elasticity of government expenditures to GNP was unity in current prices, slightly less in real terms. The government postwar share in GNP has been smaller than in European nations and, unlike them, was not rising. This reflects the underlying growth strategy of emphasis upon private business fixed investment. Government consumption expenditures declined relative to GNP, and investment rose. Developmental expenditures comprised the largest share (40–45 per cent) of the government total. The elasticities to GNP of government expenditures by economic and functional categories are provided and discussed. A simple test was made of the cyclical relationship of government expenditures (both total and by category) to GNP. The results suggest that government expenditures, rather than contra-cyclical, were pro-cyclical in effect.     

A note on capacity utilization,productivity, and the Canadian output gap

This study revises estimates of real Canadian potential output and the real GNP gap by applying a method of directly estimating the actual and potential factor utilization rates to quarterly Canadian data. The empirical results indicate that capital utilization varies just under twice as much as labour use over the cycle. The results also suggest that labour productivity will vary procyclically, with the elasticity of productivity with respect to the employment rate estimated to be 1.42.     

EDUCATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT-THE CANADIAN CASE*

This study assesses the relationship of education and economic growth, economic development and economic progress in aggregate, in structural and in micro-economic terms on the basis of one hundred years of Canadian experience. Education is considered as a factor of input. The contribution made by knowledge resulting from additional education expands the capacity to produce, and increases the demand for goods and services and the desire for greater leisure. The dual function of education is stressed: the demand and supply effect. Education is examined both as a cause and a consequence of economic growth, economic development and economic progress, through its contribution to the quality of the labour force, earning capacity, both individual and national, productivity, the rate of economic growth and the character of economic development. The Canadian experience suggests that educational progress generally occurred in line with economic development during the first eight decades, with the real take-off in educational advancement only occurring in the last two decades, when the nation reached the stage of technological maturity and high mass-consumption. Among the reasons for the lower ratio of gross national product devoted to education in the first eight decades were the low priority attached to education, the emphasis on investment in physical capital because of its shorter pay-off period than investment in human capital, and the heavy reliance on a substantial flow of immigrants who had obtained their education and training abroad. A distinct change occurred, however, in the last two decades, partly as a result of new technological challenges and partly as the result of changes in private and public attitudes, as the recognition of the rewards of education in terms of individual advancement and social progress led to a greater willingness to devote an increasing proportion of the nation's resources to investment in human capital, long pay-off periods notwithstanding.     

NEW GNP ESTIMATES FOR THE BELGIAN ECONOMY DURING THE INTERWAR PERIOD

New GNP estimates in current and constant prices for the Belgian economy in the interwar period are presented. The series are conceptually and methodologically consistent with the post-World War Ii data and cover both the income and expenditure approaches. The new estimates differ considerably from the data that have been published before, casting new light on our present understanding of Belgian economic growth in the 1920s and 1930s.     

Canadian economic growth: random walk or just a walk?

This paper analyses the role of shocks in Canadian economic growth since 1870. It uses a nonparametric technique to evaluate the degree of presistence of an innnovation in long-run GNP. It is found that a one percent shock to Canadian GNP changes the long-run forecast of this variable by appproximately the same amount, which is characteristic of a random walk process. It is also shown that in important periods of Canadian economic growth its GNP evolved as a random walk with constant drift. With the exception of the period 1929–42, no evidence of business cycles is found. These results lead to the conclusion that movements and oscillations in the GNP of Canada since 1870 have been primarily driven by the accumulation of shocks rather than by cyclical movements.     

Global Ex-vessel Fish Price Database Revisited: A New Approach for Estimating ‘Missing’ Prices

The Global Ex-vessel Fish Price Database (Ex-vessel DB) reported in Sumaila et al. (J Bioecon 9(1):39–51, 2007) was the first comprehensive database that presents average annual ex-vessel prices for all commercially exploited marine fish stocks by nationality of the fishing fleet. It contained over 30,000 reported price items, covering the period from 1950 to the present, and supplemented missing prices with estimates based on prices from a different year, species group or fleet nationality. This paper describes a revised missing price estimation approach, focused on the computation of annual average international prices for each species group, adjusted to domestic prices using the real exchange rate based on national purchasing power parity. Key advantages of the new approach are that it allows a larger number of reported prices to be used in the price estimation, and accounts for relative price level differences that exist between countries. Our new approach should improve the estimates in regions where reported prices are scarce or non-existent by linking domestic prices to the trends in international prices. Our analysis, based on the revised ex-vessel price estimates (in real 2005 USD), shows that the global marine fisheries landings have generated total value of USD 4.2 trillion since 1950, including USD 100 billion in 2005.     

The empirical effects of competition on third‐degree price discrimination in the presence of arbitrage

Since Borenstein ( 1985 ) and Holmes ( 1989 ), a theoretical and empirical literature has emerged that examines the effects of competition on third‐degree price discrimination. Since transaction costs involved in conducting arbitrage are typically unobserved, empirical investigations in this area have largely been restricted to markets such as for air travel where arbitrage is difficult, if not impossible. Using an entirely novel dataset, this paper documents the effect of competition on price discrimination in the presence of arbitrage in the Canadian online sports betting market where prices for Canadian teams are higher than in the world market. I observe how the prices of Canadian teams change in real time in response to the presence of arbitrageurs that establish Canadian sportsbooks’ observable marginal opportunity costs. I exploit the existence of government betting outlets not subject to arbitrage to obtain reduced form counterfactual estimates of the extent to which competition affects price discrimination in the presence of arbitrage. In this new empirical environment, I find results consistent with the airline literature: competition reduces overall price dispersion and markups, but dispersion and markups shrink more for those in the “strong” market than the “weak” market.     

能源价格上涨对中国经济增长的影响

能源价格上涨对中国经济有很大影响。煤电油价格指数变动对国内生产总值和进出口贸易总额指数之间存在反相关关系,而对固定资产投资和消费者物价指数的影响不显著。为实现中国经济可持续发展,应加快建设节约型社会步伐,促进集约型经济发展,推进新能源研发及发展循环经济。     

TERMS OF TRADE AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN NINETEENTH CENTURY BRITAIN *

International trade and economic growth have been considered intimately linked in nineteenth century Britain. Conventional estimates of Britain's gross national product, however, fail to account for changes in the terms of trade and may be misleading indicators of changes in real income. Revised figures that incorporate terms of trade changes are presented here. One finding is that conventional estimates of GNP overstate growth in real income early in the century when the terms of trade deteriorated.     

Estimating average economic growth in time series data with persistency

This paper studies estimation of average economic growth in time series models with persistency. In particular, a joint estimation of the trend coefficient and the autoregressive parameter is considered. An analysis on the proposed estimator is provided. Our analysis is also extended to the case with general disturbance distributions. A nonlinear M estimator and a class of partially adaptive M estimators which adapt themselves with respect to a measure of the tailthickness are considered. The joint estimator and its partially adapted version are compared with several conventional estimators. Monte Carlo experiments indicate that the proposed estimators have good finite sample performance. We use the proposed estimation procedure to estimate the growth rates for real GNP and consumer price index in 40 countries.     

THE MEASUREMENT OF CONSTANT PRICE AGGREGATES IN CANADA*

This paper is in part directed towards a partial examination of Canadian concepts and methods used in the deflation of constant price estimates of gross domestic product from both an expenditure and industry-of-origin point of view, and in part toward certain problems arising in the development of a conceptually balancing set of accounts in real terms. It also provides reference material to allow the reader to pursue the detailed methodology and data underlying the Canadian constant price accounts.     

Twenty-five Years after Kramer: An Assessment of Economic Retrospective Voting based upon Improved Estimates of Income and Unemployment

Several studies in economics have derived estimates of economic activity in the years prior to World War II that differ significantly from official statistics. In this paper we examine the possibility that the impact of economic retrospective voting upon congressional election outcomes has been at least partially obscured by shortcomings in the official data series. To that end we re-estimate various specifications of the basic Kramer model with these revised measures of income and unemployment. Although the effect of changes in real per capita income does not depend much upon which particular income series we used, the observed impact of unemployment doubles in size when the new estimates of historical unemployment rates made by Romer (1986b) and by Darby (1976) are used. Although the evidence is less than definitive, the results of our analyses also lend credence to the proposition that economic conditions have a greater impact upon congressional voting in on-year elections than in off years, and that the incumbent party is bound to suffer a midterm penalty.     

EXPANDING IMPUTED VALUES IN THE NATIONAL INCOME AND PRODUCT ACCOUNTS*

After defining economic activity the author lists the chief types of non–market economic activities for which he has prepared estimates for the United States 1929–1973, and briefly describes his methodology and data sources. Some major findings are: (1) As of 1973 GNP adjusted to include the additional imputations was 63.5 percent larger than the official estimate. (2) At least since 1929 imputed values have grown faster than official GNP, especially when both are measured in terms of real factor costs. (3) The personal sector comprises a far larger portion of the national economy-almost one-third—when account is taken of imputed labor and property compensation, and its relative importance has grown. (4) Gross government product is more than 60 percent higher when the imputed rental value of public property is added to the compensation of general government employees. (5) Reflecting the relative growth of non-business wealth, imputed property income has risen much faster than monetized property income. This has mitigated the decline in the property share of expanded gross national income compared with its share in the official estimates.     

International comparisons of expenditure patterns

The linear expenditure system (LES) of Stone (1954) is fitted to an eight-commodity classification of personal consumption expenditures in the national accounts data of 19 countries widely dispersed in the development spectrum. Cross-country comparison of the results reveals some discernible patterns in the variations of price and expenditure elasticities as a function of GNP per head. In particular, Food's own-price and expenditure elasticities are estimated to decline in absolute value as real GNP per head increases. Overall, own-price elasticities and cross-price elasticities with respect to food appear to account for about 80% of total price responsiveness in the fitted system.     

ADJUSTING NET WORTH FOR PRICE CHANGES WITH REFERENCE TO THE CANADIAN SYSTEM OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS

This paper develops a rationale for a comprehensive measure of income and provides illustrative calculations within the Canadian System of National Accounts for making adjustments to net worth for price changes.
The paper notes that the System of National Accounts is designed to provide a number of individual aggregates measuring total production, income, savings and net worth. There is no single overall comprehensive measure which reflects the combined effect of changes in income and wealth. Such a measure is of particular importance in periods of rapid or extensive price changes which affect not only purchasing power of income but also the value of assets held and liabilities outstanding with consequences on net worth positions. This paper explores these issues and develops techniques for measuring the effects of specific and overall price changes with respect to net worth of the various sectors in the economy, illustrated with data from the integrated Canadian System of National Accounts.     

Global Distortions to Agricultural Markets: Indicators of Trade and Welfare Impacts, 1960 to 2007

Despite recent reforms, world agricultural markets remain highly distorted by government policies. Traditional indicators of those price distortions such as producer and consumer support estimates (PSEs and CSEs) can be poor guides to the policies' economic effects. Recent theoretical literature provides scalar index numbers of trade‐ and welfare‐reducing effects of price and trade policies which this paper builds on to develop more‐satisfactory indexes that can be generated using no more than the data used to generate PSEs and CSEs. We then exploit a new Agricultural Distortion database to provide time‐series estimates of index numbers for 75 developing and high‐income countries over the past half‐century.     

Are US macroeconomic series difference stationary or trend-break stationary?

This article tests for the presence of a unit-root in all time series included in the extended Nelson–Plosser data set using the statistics devised by Zivot and Andrews, Perron and Murray and Zivot. It specifies the mixed model characterization of the trend-break stationary alternative that allows for a simultaneous break in both the intercept and slope of the trend-function. It rejects the unit-root null hypothesis for real GNP, nominal GNP, real per capita GNP, industrial production, employment, GNP deflator, nominal wages, interest rate and common stock prices. Use of appropriate critical values to assess the significance of the trend-function coefficients reveals that the slope-break should be included in real GNP, nominal GNP, real per capita GNP, nominal wages, interest rate and common stock prices. The results indicate that there is less evidence against the unit-root hypothesis with the extended Nelson–Plosser data compared to the original Nelson–Plosser data.     

USLNG FUTURES INSTRUMENT PRICES TO TARGET NOMINAL INCOME

Nominal GNP targeting offers the advantage of allowing monetary policymakers to offset velocity shocks and cushion the impact of autonomous price shocks. Instability associated with the recognition lag can be minimized by fixing a futures instrument price linked to nominal GNP. In fact, if financial markets arc efficient, then a policy of fixing futures instrument prices would seem preferable to a policy feedback mechanism for any economic aggregate target which involves a recognition lag. This conclusion is robust with respect to a wide range of macroeconomic models.     

A DYNAMIC FACTOR MODEL OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IN HONG KONG

Abstract. This paper applies the single‐index dynamic factor model developed by J. H. Stock and M. W. Watson to construct (almost) real‐time estimates of economic activity in Hong Kong. The Hang Seng index, a residential property price index, retail sales and total exports are used as coincident indicators. Principal component analysis is first used to obtain an impression of the common component of the indicator series. This component and the dynamic factor identified by the Stock–Watson methodology are strongly correlated and seem to capture economic fluctuations in Hong Kong reasonably well.