Partial fiscal decentralization and demand responsiveness of the local public sector: Theory and evidence from Norway

This paper provides an empirical test of a principal tenet of fiscal federalism: that spending discretion, when granted to localities, allows public-good levels to adjust to suit local demands. The test is based on a simple model of partial fiscal decentralization, under which earmarking of central transfers for particular uses is eliminated, allowing funds to be spent according to local tastes. The greater role of local demand determinants following partial decentralization is confirmed by the paper’s empirical results, which show the effects of the 1986 Norwegian reform.     

Decentralization and economic growth revisited: an empirical note

Although it is theoretically expected that decentralization leads to efficient provision of local public services and stimulates economic development, there is a mixed picture of the decentralization effect on economic growth across earlier empirical studies. Using the instrument variables (IV) technique with the latest cross-country data for the period from 1997 to 2001, this paper found that fiscal decentralization has a significant positive impact on per capita GDP growth. Therefore, when the focus is placed on the latest information on the economic situation in the latter 1990s, decentralization, particularly on the fiscal expenditure side, is instrumental in economic growth.     

中国财政分权与地方基础设施供给的实证分析

在我国,自上而下的政绩考核机制激励着地方追求短期经济增长,导致其在基础设施投资上拥有很高的热情。文章实证分析了该结论,并用模型论证经济增长、城市化和财政分权等因素是导致地方基本建设支出增长的主要原因。     

中国财政分权与地方基础设施供给的实证分析

在我国,自上而下的政绩考核机制激励着地方追求短期经济增长,导致其在基础设施投资上拥有很高的热情。文章实证分析了该结论,并用模型论证经济增长、城市化和财政分权等因素是导致地方基本建设支出增长的主要原因。     

Federalism,taxation, and economic growth

We present a model of endogenous growth where government provides a productive public good financed by income and capital taxes. In equilibrium, a decentralized government chooses tax policy to maximize economic growth, while a centralized government does not do so. Furthermore, these conclusions hold regardless of whether governments are beholden to a median voter or are rent-maximizing Leviathans. However, a decentralized government will under-provide public goods which benefit citizens directly, while a central government beholden to the median voter will optimally invest in such public goods.     

Innovation dynamics and fiscal policy: Implications for growth,asset prices,and welfare

We study the equilibrium implications of different fiscal policies on macroeconomic quantities and welfare by utilizing an endogenous growth model that matches asset pricing data well. The fiscal instruments of interest are (i) subsidies to R&D expenditure, consumption and capital investment, and (ii) cuts in labor and corporate tax rates. Our equilibrium analysis provides new insights on the interplay of innovation dynamics and fiscal policy. Importantly, we find growth and welfare to be inversely related when changing R&D subsidies. However, this depends on how well the model reproduces asset pricing dynamics. Moreover, only subsidies to capital investments and cuts in the corporate tax rate have the potential to increase both growth and welfare.     

Interactions between financial constraints and economic growth

The financial economy and the real economy are interconnected through various, complex, and evolving transmission mechanisms, whose literary coverage is far from comprehensive. In this context, we wish to contribute to the literature on the interactions between financial constraints and economic growth. We introduce financial dynamics in the R&D-based growth literature, by bringing Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist’s (1999) informational asymmetries into Romer’s (1990) growth model. With the developed framework, our main goal is to examine if and how such asymmetries impact economic growth. We find that the overall impact of this form of financial constraints on long-term growth is negative.     

Institutions,social capability,and economic growth

I discuss correlations between the historical growth of social capabilities and patterns of economic growth across world regions since the industrial revolution and especially in recent decades. Based on this analysis, I argue that the apparent relationship between institutions and economic growth results in part because better institutional performance goes hand in hand with more advanced social capabilities.     

Capital utilization, economic growth and convergence

Optimal decisions by economic agents regarding the utilization of capital lead to empirically plausible speeds of convergence in one-sector models of economic growth. The relationship between depreciation and capital utilization plays a crucial role in slowing down convergence to the steady state. Cross-country differences in the extent to which the capital utilization decision is internalized along the transition path may lead to differences in convergence rates, even for countries with similar initial and terminal conditions. Finally, by assuming a constant depreciation rate and full capital utilization, standard growth models may be overstating the magnitude of the steady-state equilibrium.     

Market‐oriented institutions and policies and economic growth: A critical survey

Abstract.  This paper surveys recent evidence suggesting that market‐oriented institutions and policies are strongly related to economic growth, focusing on studies using the economic freedom (EF) indicator of the Fraser Institute. This index is critically discussed. Also various serious shortcomings of empirical studies using this index are identified. Nevertheless, there are strong indications that liberalization, i.e. an increase in the EF index, stimulates economic growth. This paper also reviews studies on the determinants of EF. Political liberalization is often found to enhance economic liberalization, whereas there is less evidence for causality running in the other direction.     

Technology-based design and sustainable economic growth

This paper seeks to analyze how design creates economic value. The literature on knowledge-based economic development has primarily focused on innovation as the analytical lens, whereas design is the original action that leads to innovation. Despite the fundamental importance of design, existing design research has offered few insights and little guidance for national strategies due to the lack of focus on and analysis of design in an economic context. This paper addresses such gaps by linking design research and economic development theory. We first elaborate on the relationship among design, invention and innovation, describing the necessity of design activity for invention and innovation. Our analysis of the fundamental characteristics of design across contexts sheds light on the strategic importance of the accumulative nature of technology-based design for sustaining economic growth. Through the lens of technology-based design, we further quantitatively compare Singapore and three similarly-sized countries (South Korea, Finland and Taiwan). Based upon interview data, we also qualitatively examine Singapore's national strategy focusing on design. The quantitative and qualitative results align well with the Singaporean government's use of design as a strategic lever to pursue innovation-driven economic growth, and also reveal its achievements and shortfalls which indicate possible directions for strategic adjustment.     

Foreign capital inflows and economic growth of Pakistan

This study investigates the relationship of foreign capital inflows, namely foreign direct investment, workers’ remittances, and external debt with economic growth of Pakistan by employing time series data from 1976 to 2015. Cointegration results indicate that foreign capital inflows and economic growth have a significant relationship with economic growth in the long run. Ordinary least square results indicate foreign direct investment has a significant and negative effect on economic growth, whereas a significant positive effect of remittances and external debts on economic growth is found. Rolling windows analysis highlights the yearly effect of three different models. Two different sensitivity analyses confirmed that initial results are robust. The final section concludes the study and provides some policy implications.     

Does age structure forecast economic growth?

Increases in the proportion of the working age population can yield a “demographic dividend” that enhances the rate of economic growth. We estimate the parameters of an economic growth model using a cross section of countries over the period 1960 to 1980, and investigate whether the inclusion of age structure improves the model's forecasts for the period 1980 to 2000. We find that including the age structure improves the forecast, although there is evidence of parameter instability between periods with an unexplained growth slowdown in the second period. We use the model to generate growth forecasts for the period 2000 to 2020.     

Infectious diseases and economic growth

This paper develops a framework to study the economic impact of infectious diseases by integrating epidemiological dynamics into a neo-classical growth model. There is a two way interaction between the economy and the disease: the incidence of the disease affects labor supply, and investment in health capital can affect the incidence and recuperation from the disease. Thus, both the disease incidence and the income levels are endogenous. The disease dynamics make the control problem non-convex thus usual optimal control results do not apply. We establish existence of an optimal solution, continuity of state variables, show directly that the Hamiltonian inequality holds thus establishing optimality of interior paths that satisfy necessary conditions, and of the steady states. There are multiple steady states and the local dynamics of the model are fully characterized. A disease-free steady state always exists, but it could be unstable. A disease-endemic steady state may exist, in which the optimal health expenditure can be positive or zero depending on the parameters of the model. The interaction of the disease and economic variables is non-linear and can be non-monotonic.     

Individual new energy consumption and economic growth in China

We document the one-way relationship between individual new energy consumption and economic growth in China through the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model from 2004 to 2017. Our results show that individual new energy consumption has a positive effect on economic growth. Moreover, the urbanization rate, import and export trade volume and foreign direct investment all affect the individual new energy consumption in the short run. The outcome of the causality test reveals a one-way Granger causal relationship from individual new energy consumption to economic growth, from the urbanization rate, and from the import and export trade volume to new energy consumption.     

On the path-dependence of economic growth

The cumulated growth of an economy during a period of time depends on the whole economical history during this period and not only of the situation at the beginning and at the end of the interval. However, if some constraint is made on the set of possible economies, this phenomenon of history-dependence may disappear. We give a simple necessary and sufficient condition on the constraint for this to happen, generalizing results of Samuelson–Swamy and Hulten. Our approach is different, based on differential and symplectic geometry. We also solve the same question for a subsector of the economy.     

从空间扩展到网络治理:城市分散化趋势探析

以城市空间分散作为研究基点,对城市经济和行政活动进行分析,论证了当前城市成长中的分散化趋势,为当前我国城市发展及管理研究提供了有益借鉴.     

Environmental taxes,reforms and economic growth: an empirical analysis of panel data

This paper explores the relationship between environmentally related taxes and the economic growth rate. The analysis also investigates whether this relationship differs between countries that have implemented environmental tax reforms (ETRs) and those that have not. Using panel data from 31 OECD countries over the period 1994–2013, the paper finds that when we allow environmentally related tax revenues to interact with an initial level of real GDP per capita, the overall revenues of these taxes are negatively associated with the economic growth rate in the short and long term. Furthermore, we show that the higher the initial level of GDP per capita, the more environmentally related tax revenues can promote the economic growth rate. The analysis also reveals that the relationship between environmentally related tax revenues and economic growth varies between countries that have a mechanism to redistribute environmentally related tax revenues and those that do not.     

Financial crises and economic growth

This paper constructs a simple yet robust model of financial crises and economic growth where financial markets affect real economic activity. Financial markets increase real output by facilitating investment through the borrowing/lending of capital. However, the borrowing of capital is risky due to randomness in the firms’ production. Financial crises occur when output and liquid capital are insufficient to meet required loan payments and systemic defaults occur. In this model, a financial crisis caused by systemic defaults can shift the economy from an equilibrium with positive borrowing/lending to an equilibrium with no borrowing/lending. In this no-lending equilibrium, neither traditional fiscal or monetary policy tools are effective in increasing output. Fiscal and monetary policy can only increase the likelihood of the equilibrium evolving to a borrowing/lending equilibrium.     

The non-observed economy and economic growth: A meta-analysis

Academics, politicians, the public in general and researchers have great interest in the non-observed economy. However, there is divergence in its definition, accounting methodology and economic effects. In this paper we conduct a meta-analysis on the empirical literature that estimates the impact of the parallel economy on economic growth. We conclude that there is no publication bias and that the average effect of the parallel economy on economic growth is insignificant. However, the reported effects differ considerably with the type and number of countries included in the sample of primary studies, the structure of the data, the methodology used to measure the parallel economy, the number of citations of primary studies, and the year they were published.