Technological catch-up or resource rents?

This paper studies contribution of capital deepening, technological progress and efficiency improvement to economic growth while focusing on cross-country data, and thus finds itself at the crossroads of growth and development accounting. We take a production frontier approach to growth accounting and choose DEA as the frontier estimation method. To explore the effects that windfall gains from natural resource use have on growth, output data are corrected for pure natural resource rents—part of GDP figures not earned by either labor or capital. Taking into account countries’ natural resources, we find that in the two decades from 1970 to 1990 the average contribution of technological catch-up to per worker output growth was, if anything, negative on the worldwide scale and this trend continued till the mid 1990ies. Analysis of efficiency estimates also shows a possible change over the period of 1970–1990 in the effect of natural resources on country’s performance     

技术进步、效率变化、资本积累与我国地区服务业发展

本文用非参数生产前沿方法将我国1978—2007年服务业劳均产出增长分解为效率变化、技术进步和资本积累的贡献三个部分,并用方差分解方法估算了各部分对地区服务业劳均产出增长率差异的贡献,然后采用核密度分布方法分析了上述三个部分对地区服务业发展的影响。研究发现：（1）技术进步是促进各地区服务业增长的重要因素,其作用随资本积累的提高呈上升趋势;（2）效率虽然对服务业经济增长的平均贡献较小,但却是各地区服务业增长率差异的主要原因;（3）资本积累在不同时期对地区服务业增长的贡献差别很大,其作用随时间发展呈上升趋势。     

Production Costs,Scale Economies,and Technical Change in U.S. Textile and Apparel Industries

The elimination of quotas in textiles and apparel poses new threats from import competition. To survive, the sectors need to find least-cost methods of production. The production–cost structure of the U.S. textile and apparel industries is examined using a dual cost framework. A translog cost function is used to measure substitution elasticities between inputs, scale economies, and the nature of technical change. The scope for factor substitution in textiles remains limited with all substitution elasticities being less than unity. Labor and materials are complements in apparel production, but there is evidence of substitution between capital and labor. The rate of technical change is higher in textiles than in apparel. Given the intense import competition from low wage countries, in both industries, technical progress is labor saving. Overall, economies of scale are larger in apparel; however, scale economies have continued to increase in textiles.This research was supported by a grant from the National Textile Center.     

试论技术进步与贸易失衡

节约劳动的技术进步会提高资本生产率和回报率,相对降低劳动的报酬,使发达国家把越来越多的劳动相对密集的生产转移到发展中国家。同时,技术进步使发达国家财富正效应增强,提高预期收入,从而使消费增加,储蓄减少。而发展中国家由于劳动的报酬相对降低,会出现相反的情况,结果导致资本从发展中国家流出,发达国家出现贸易逆差。     

The Effects of Remittances on Output per Worker in Sub‐Saharan Africa: A Production Function Approach

This paper uses a production function to examine the channels through which remittances affect output per worker in 31 Sub‐Saharan African countries from 1980 to 2010. Lagged remittances increase physical capital per worker, average years of schooling and total factor productivity, but the effectiveness of remittances varies with the income level of the recipient nation. Although remittances have increased both physical capital and total factor productivity among the upper middle income nations, among the lower middle income, they have increased only the physical capital. Meanwhile a reduction in institutional risk has encouraged investment and efficiency, but its relationship to the effectiveness of remittances has been inconclusive.     

Labor‐eliminating technical change in a developing economy

Developing countries face significant challenges arising from automation. While the trade theory literature has tended to focus on factor‐neutral and factor‐augmenting technical change, automation processes suggest another form of technical change is relevant: factor‐eliminating. We explore the impact of a labor‐eliminating technical change in the context of a small developing economy. Unlike labor‐augmenting technical changes, labor‐eliminating technical changes are not necessarily cost‐reducing, and thus will not necessarily be adopted. A manufacturing wage held artificially higher than at the market‐clearing level, as in the Harris–Todaro framework, increases the incentive to automate. We establish the conditions under which firms will adopt a labor‐eliminating technology, and describe the resulting changes in equilibrium outcomes. Under plausible circumstances, automation can actually lower output, and may raise both the rate and level of unemployment. Immiserizing growth becomes a possibility, and can be tied directly to the underlying wage distortion.     

Capital deepening and the rise of the factory: the American experience during the nineteenth century1

Between 1850 and 1880, capital per worker in United States manufacturing increased on average by at least 75 per cent, even after taking account of declining capital goods prices. During this same period, production shifted from small, labour‐intensive artisan shops to large capital‐intensive factories. Similar changes have occurred in many other countries at the same stage of industrialization. Establishment‐level data from the federal censuses of manufacturing, however, reveal that the shift in production in the United States accounts for a modest amount of the increased capital per worker. There, at least, capital deepening seems to have occurred in almost all firms everywhere.     

Engels’ pause: Technical change, capital accumulation, and inequality in the british industrial revolution

The paper reviews the macroeconomic data describing the British economy from 1760 to 1913 and shows that it passed through a two stage evolution of inequality. In the first half of the 19th century, the real wage stagnated while output per worker expanded. The profit rate doubled and the share of profits in national income expanded at the expense of labour and land. After the middle of the 19th century, real wages began to grow in line with productivity, and the profit rate and factor shares stabilized. An integrated model of growth and distribution is developed to explain these trends. The model includes an aggregate production function that explains the distribution of income, while a savings function in which savings depended on property income governs accumulation. Simulations with the model show that technical progress was the prime mover behind the industrial revolution. Capital accumulation was a necessary complement. The surge in inequality was intrinsic to the growth process: technical change increased the demand for capital and raised the profit rate and capital’s share. The rise in profits, in turn, sustained the industrial revolution by financing the necessary capital accumulation. After the middle of the 19th century, accumulation had caught up with the requirements of technology and wages rose in line with productivity.     

Accounting for the stock of human capital: Selected evidence and potential implications

Accounting for the Stock of Human Capital: Selected Evidence and Potential Implications. — Given the observed distribution of output and labor across countries, most capital flows should be from rich to poor countries. As is shown for a limited sample of countries, accounting for differences in the stock of human capital substantially reduces the implicit cross-country rate of return differentials. Additionally, accounting for human capital externalities based on independent empirical evidence, turns around the predicted rate of return differentials in favor of rich countries. Hence, the world economy may converge to a rather unequal distribution of incomes as long as human capital accumulation is neglected as the key variable limiting economic development.     

Institutions,Capital, and Growth

The international development community has encouraged investment in physical and human capital as a precursor to economic progress. Recent evidence shows, however, that increases in capital do not always lead to increases in output. We develop a growth model where the allocation and productivity of capital depends on a country's institutions. We find that increases in physical and human capital lead to output growth only in countries with good institutions. In countries with bad institutions, increases in capital lead to negative growth rates because additions to the capital stock tend to be employed in rent‐seeking and other socially unproductive activities.     

Agricultural productivity and rural incomes in England and the Yangtze Delta,c.1620–c.18201

The productivity of agriculture in England and the Yangtze Delta are compared c.1620 and c.1820 in order to gauge the performance of the most advanced part of China vis‐à‐vis its counterpart in Europe. The value of real output is compared using purchasing power parity exchange rates. Output per hectare was nine times greater in the Yangtze Delta than in England. More surprisingly, output per day worked was about 90 per cent of the English performance. This put Yangtze farmers slightly behind English and Dutch farmers c.1820, but ahead of most other farmers in Europe—an impressive achievement. There was little change in Yangtze agricultural productivity between 1620 and 1820. In 1820, the real income of a Yangtze peasant family was also about the same as that of an English agricultural labourer. All was not rosy in the Yangtze, however, for incomes there were on a downward trajectory. Agriculture income per family declined between 1620 and 1820, even though income per day worked changed little since population growth led to smaller farms and fewer days worked per year. The real earnings of women in textile production also declined, since the relative price of cotton cloth dropped—possibly also because a larger population led to greater production. The implication is that the Yangtze family, unlike the English family, had a considerably higher real income c.1620, and that period was the Delta's golden age.     

金融发展与增长源泉：要素积累、技术进步与效率改善

本文通过基于DEA的经济增长核算框架将中国28个省市的劳均GDP增长分解为了劳均资本积累、技术进步和技术效率改善三个部分的贡献,然后采用GMM动态面板回归技术分别检验了在1994—2003年间金融发展对这三者的影响,研究发现,金融发展显著加速了劳均资本的积累,但其却阻碍了技术进步和技术效率的改善。本文的研究为理解中国金融发展与经济增长问的关系提供了新的视角和经验证据,金融发展通过不同的机制对经济增长产生了不同的效应可以解释为何“金融引导经济增长”这一命题在中国难以成立。     

澜湄流域制造业生产阶段数测算及其影响因素研究

在全球投入产出模型框架下,测算澜湄流域制造业生产阶段数,并对影响澜湄流域制造业生产分割程度的因素进行实证分析。结论为:澜湄流域制造业生产阶段数整体上呈上升趋势,生产结构复杂度明显增加,国际和国内外包呈互补关系;经济规模、研发强度及劳动力水平对澜湄流域制造业生产分割长度具有显著促进作用,资本化率、服务业增加值比重、FDI流入及私营部门的国内信贷量占GDP的比重,对澜湄流域制造业生产分割长度具有负面影响。因此,澜湄流域国家应积极改变参与全球分工的方式,提高金融市场开放程度,吸引外资的同时注重外资质量,并加大教育经费投入,增加研发创新和人才培养,提高劳动力水平,加快发展交通运输业和信息技术服务业。     

中部工业的要素产出弹性、替代弹性的实证研究——基于超越对数生产函数的面板模型的估计

在考虑生产函数的区域异质性、时期异质性、产业异质性的基础上,构建了一个包含资本、劳动、技术三种要素投入的超越对数生产函数模型。结果表明:资本和劳动的边际生产率具有递减特征,且资本和劳动具有互补性,而技术的边际生产率具有递增特征。资本和劳动的替代弹性具有缓慢下降的趋势,且数值大小小于1。技术进步差异水平在不断缩小,且技术进步为资本增强型技术进步和劳动偏向性技术进步。     

Fertility,income distribution,and economic growth: theory and cross-country evidence

The authors perform discriminatory, empirical tests of a theoretical model that predicts that family size adversely affects output per capita and nonsteady state growth rates. Neoclassical models posit that adverse output and nonsteady growth rates are affected by labor force growth (LFG) or population growth (PG). This study tests whether family size (FS) will be more significant than LFG or PG in explaining differences in economic growth (EG) rates across countries during 1960-88. A proxy variable for the public education system was used to separate government interventions on human capital formation from market forces. Data were obtained for 73 countries, which exclude centrally planned economies, oil-producing countries, and those with less than 1 million population. The empirical test is run with 58-country, 45-country, and 96-country samples to test for robustness and reliability. The empirical test supports the theoretical model. It demonstrates that equal distribution of income and smaller FS enhance EG. With income inequality, the effect of FS was significant, and the effect of the LFG rate or PG rate was insignificant. With a given FS, LFG was positively correlated with EG. A reduction of the net fertility rate by one point would increase the worker output growth rate by 0.25%, and the differences in growth rates between high- and low-fertility countries would be 1%. An increase in the income share of the bottom 60% would increase the growth rate of worker output by about 1%. Higher investments in public or private education would be conducive to growth.     

基于时变随机前沿生产函数的上海工业增长因素分析

本文应用时变随机前沿生产函数和行业面板数据．测算出1995-2004年上海工业32个行业的动态劳动、资本产出弹性，技术进步率和技术效率变化率；在此基础上进一步得到各因素对工业产值增长的贡献度。主要结论是：（1）上海工业增长主要依赖资本投入的高速增长和加速的技术进步率；（2）资本增长比技术进步对上海工业产值的增长有更大的贡献度，而要实现工业可持续增长，必须依靠更快的技术进步；（3）上海工业总体的技术效率变化率向下变化，说明市场自由竞争的加剧导致了不同行业或企业的技术效率差距在拉大．这有利于行业资源优化配置和上海工业可持续发展。     

LeChatelier Effects for the Competitive Firm under Price Uncertainty

The intuition that constrained choices are less elastic as well as suboptimal is confirmed by LeChatelier's principle in economic models of optimizing behavior for environments with no uncertainty. For a competitive entrepreneurial firm facing output price uncertainty, risk preferences interact with possibilities for substituting between capital and labor in production to determine the presence or absence of LeChatelier effects for labor demanded. LeChatelier's principle holds without qualification for output supplied in the neighborhood of any long-run equilibrium with respect to both monotone likelihood ratio improvements in the price distribution and increases in risk aversion. Global LeChatelier predictions, however, are unattainable.     

Farm size,land yields and the agricultural production function: An analysis for fifteen developing countries

The paper analyzes the relationship between factor inputs, land yields and labor productivity for farms of different size on the basis of FAO farm management data for 15 developing countries. For all but three countries a strong negative correlation is found between farm size on the one side, and factor inputs and yields per hectare on the other. The fitting of unconstrained production functions to the above data suggests that in only few cases the decline in yields for increasing farm size can be attributed to decreasing returns to scale. The higher yields observed in small farms are mainly to be ascribed to higher factor inputs and to a more intensive use of land. Therefore, where conspicuous labor surpluses exist, the superiority of small farming provides solid arguments in favor of land redistribution. Such an agrarian reform would determine higher output, higher labor absorption and a more equitable income distribution, thus contributing in a decisive manner to the alleviation of rural poverty. The paper also provides estimates of cross-sectional production functions for the 15 countries analyzed. Empirical relations are found between the output elasticities of land, labor and intermediate inputs and physical indicators of their scarcity. The paper concludes by proposing a simple method for deriving a long-term production function for agriculture.     

Factor Use and Productivity Change in the Alcoholic Beverage Industries

Technology structure and change in the beer, wine, and spirits industries are examined here in a dual cost framework. Productivity growth in these industries has been strong and uninterrupted for the past four decades, outstripping that in the general food sector. Scale economies continue to be significant in brewing and distilling but are weak to nonexistent in winemaking. Substitution between raw materials and value-adding (labor and capital) inputs is high, implying that any reversal in factor price trends likely will bring substantial changes to production processes. Despite recent rapid increases in relative capital prices, technical change has shifted capital-material expansion paths toward capital, suggesting that new equipment is designed for its ability to save on raw material and packaging cost.     

China's value-added tax reform, capital accumulation, and welfare implications

This paper analyzes the effects of China's upcoming value-added tax (VAT) reform of removing investment from the tax base on capital accumulation and the welfare of the rich and the poor. Three alternative methods to make up for the loss of tax revenue are considered. The VAT reform with consumption tax being endogenous increases capital accumulation and the utility of both the rich and the poor. The VAT reform with the labor income tax rate being endogenous increases capital accumulation; and it decreases the utility of the rich and increases the utility of the poor (increases the utility of both the rich and the poor) if the rich has a higher rate or the same rate of time preference (if the rich has a lower rate of time preference). The VAT reform, accompanied by a cut in transfers to the poor, has no effect on capital accumulation if the rich and the poor have the same rate of time preference; it decreases (increases) capital accumulation if the rich has a higher (lower) rate of time preference; and it increases the utility of the rich and decreases the utility of the poor.