Romes without empires: Urban concentration,political competition,and economic development

Many developing economies are characterized by the dominance of a super metropolis. Taking historical Rome as the archetype of a city that centralizes political power to extract resources from the rest of the country, we present evidence that urban concentration, as proxied by the limited number of cities with national soccer league titles in a country, negatively affects long-run economic development. Utilizing cross-country data from 103 countries observed over half a century (1960–2009), we show that there is a strong and robust negative relationship between concentration of economic wealth and political power across urban nodes and long-run economic outcomes, including log per capita income and average years of schooling. The explanation that best seems to fit the evidence runs from centralization of economic power to lack of inter-elite political competition across space to inferior economic outcomes in the long-run. To establish causality we use identification through heteroskedasticity, which does not rely on standard exclusion restrictions.     

On the relationship between GDP and health care expenditure: A new look

In this paper we analyze the relationship between income and health expenditure in 31 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. We focus on the differences between short and long term elasticities and we also check the adjustment process of health care expenditure to changes in per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and its cyclical and trend components. In both cases, we test if results differ in countries with a higher share of private expenditure on total health expenditure. Econometric results show that the long-run income elasticity is close to unity, that health expenditure is more sensitive to per capita income cyclical movements than to trend movements, and that the adjustment to income changes in those countries with a higher share of private health expenditure over total expenditure is faster.     

Frontiers and sustainable economic development

Exploiting new resource “frontiers,” such as agricultural land and mineral reserves, is a fundamental feature of economic development in poor economies. Yet frontier-based development is symptomatic of a pattern of economy-wide resource exploitation in developing economies that: (a) generates little additional economic rents, and (b) what rents are generated are not being reinvested in other sectors. Such development is inherently unsustainable. The following paper explains this phenomenon, and provides evidence that long-run expansion of agricultural land and oil and natural gas proved reserves across poor economies is associated with lower levels of real income per capita. The paper proposes a frontier expansion hypothesis to explain why the structural economic dependence of these economies on frontier land expansion and resource exploitation is not conducive to sustained long-run growth. The key to sustainable economic development in poor economies will be improving the economic integration between frontier and other sectors of the economy, targeting policies to improved resource management in frontier areas and overcoming problems of corruption and rent-seeking in resource sectors.      

Does environmental quality influence health expenditures? Empirical evidence from a panel of selected OECD countries

In this paper we examine the role of environmental quality in determining per capita health expenditures. We take a panel cointegration approach in order to explore the possibility of estimating both short-run and long-run impacts of environmental quality. Our empirical analysis is based on eight OECD countries, namely Austria, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK for the period 1980-1999. We find that per capita health expenditure, per capita income, carbon monoxide emissions, sulphur oxide emissions and nitrogen oxide emissions are panel cointegrated. While short-run elasticities reveal that income and carbon monoxide emissions exert a statistically significant positive effect on health expenditures, in the long-run in addition to income and carbon monoxide, we find that sulphur oxide emissions have a statistically significant positive impact on health expenditures.     

PUBLIC EDUCATION, FERTILITY INCENTIVES, NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMIC GROWTH AND WELFARE

Using a simple overlapping generations model of neoclassical growth, we analyse the effects of both child allowances and the system of public education on the rate of fertility, the per capita income and the individual lifetime welfare. The essential message of the present paper is that developed countries plagued by below-replacement fertility and income stagnation may raise per capita income and the rate of fertility at the same time by increasing the public education expenditure rather than by resorting to child allowances. The latter, in fact, are found to be harmful for long-run neoclassical economic growth and, in contrast with the common belief, for the rate of population growth as well. Moreover, welfare analysis has shown the existence of a Pareto-efficient welfare-maximizing educational contribution rate.     

PERMANENT INCOME, CONVERGENCE AND INEQUALITY AMONG COUNTRIES

The literature on inequality has generally focused on the analysis of annual per capita income. This paper adopts a different approach by considering the life-cycle dimension of inequality and convergence between economies from 1960 to 2000. We analyze the present value of the set of incomes individuals obtain throughout their whole life (permanent income). On the basis of this approach, various simulations are made to determine the effect on inequality in permanent income of variables such as survival rates and the long-run growth rates in current income. The results indicate that survival rates are an important source of inequality. Inequality in permanent income is about one third higher than in current income. The implication of this finding is that if the whole life-cycle dimension is not considered, the level of inequality among economies is being underestimated.     

Health and the evolution of welfare across Brazilian municipalities

This paper describes the pattern of reductions in mortality across Brazilian municipalities between 1970 and 2000, and analyzes its causes and consequences. It shows that, as in the international context, the relationship between income and life expectancy has shifted consistently in the recent past. But reductions in mortality within Brazil have been more homogeneously distributed than across countries. We use a compensating differentials approach to estimate the value of the observed reductions in mortality. The results suggest that gains in life expectancy had a welfare value equivalent to 39% of the growth in income per capita, being therefore responsible for 28% of the overall improvement in welfare. We then use a dynamic panel to conduct a preliminary assessment of the potential determinants of these gains. We show that improvements in education, access to water, and sanitation seem to be important determinants of the dimension of changes in life expectancy not correlated with income.     

Health and the evolution of welfare across Brazilian municipalities

This paper describes the pattern of reductions in mortality across Brazilian municipalities between 1970 and 2000, and analyzes its causes and consequences. It shows that, as in the international context, the relationship between income and life expectancy has shifted consistently in the recent past. But reductions in mortality within Brazil have been more homogeneously distributed than across countries. We use a compensating differentials approach to estimate the value of the observed reductions in mortality. The results suggest that gains in life expectancy had a welfare value equivalent to 39% of the growth in income per capita, being therefore responsible for 28% of the overall improvement in welfare. We then use a dynamic panel to conduct a preliminary assessment of the potential determinants of these gains. We show that improvements in education, access to water, and sanitation seem to be important determinants of the dimension of changes in life expectancy not correlated with income.     

Economic and other determinants of infant and child mortality in small developing countries: the case of Central America and the Caribbean

This analysis involves empirically testing a theoretical model among 22 Central American and Caribbean countries during the 1990s that explains differences in infant and child mortality. Explanatory measures capture demographic, economic, health care, and educational characteristics. The model is expected to allow for an assessment of the potential impact of structural adjustment and external debt. It is pointed out that birth rates and child mortality rates followed similar patterns over time and between countries. In this study's regression analyses all variables in the three models that explain infant mortality are exogenous: low birth weight, immunization, gross domestic product per capita, years of schooling for women, population/nurse, and debt as a proportion of gross national product. As nations became richer, infant mortality declined. Infant mortality was lower in countries with high external debt. In models for explaining the birth rate and the child mortality rate, the best fit included variables for debt, real public expenditure on health care, water supply, and malnutrition. Analysis in a simultaneous model for 10 countries revealed that the birth rate and the child mortality rate were more responsive to shocks in exogenous variables in Barbados than in the Dominican Republic, and more responsive in the Dominican Republic than in Guatemala. The impact of each exogenous variable varied by country. In Barbados education was four times more effective in explaining the birth rate than water. In Guatemala, the most effective exogenous variable was malnutrition. Child mortality rates were affected more by multiplier effects. In richer countries, the most important impact on child survival was improved access to safe water, and the most important impact on the birth rate was increased real public expenditure on education per capita. For the poorest countries, findings suggest first improvement in malnutrition and then improvement in safe water supplies. Structural adjustment variables were found to have small impacts on the birth rate or limited impacts on child survival in poorer countries.     

湖南农村居民消费结构分析

本文首先利用恩格尔系数和消费支出构成对湖南农村居民消费现状进行了分析,结果表明湖南农村居民目前还处于温饱阶段,不过已逐渐开始向小康阶段过渡;然后借助1995—2007年《中国统计年鉴》和《湖南统计年鉴》中的湖南农村居民人均纯收入,以及食品、衣着、居住、家庭设备用品及服务、交通通信、教育文化娱乐服务、医疗保健以及杂项商品与服务八类人均全年消费支出数据,建立了扩展的消费支出系统(ELES模型),并利用该模型对湖南农村居民年均基本消费支出水平、边际消费倾向和需求收入弹性进行分析。结果表明,湖南农村居民消费结构正处于从生存型向发展型和享受型过渡的阶段。     

Infant mortality,relative income and public policy

Do health outcomes depend on relative income as well as on an individual's absolute level of income? We use infant mortality as a health status indicator and find a significant and positive link between infant mortality and income inequality using cross-national data for 93 countries. Holding constant the income of each of the three poorest quintiles of a country's population, we find that an increase in the income of the upper 20% of the income distribution is associated with higher, not the lower infant mortality. Our results are robust and not just caused by the concave relationship between income and health. The estimates imply a decrease in infant mortality by 1.5% for a one percentage point decrease in the income share of the richest quintile. The overall results are sensitive to public policy: public health care expenditure, educational outcomes, and access to basic sanitation and safe water can explain the inequality–health relationship. Thus, our findings support the hypothesis of public disinvestment in human capital in countries with high income inequality. However, we are not able to determine whether public policy is a confounder or mediator of the relationship between income distribution and health. Relative deprivation caused by the income distance between an individual and the individual's reference group is another possible explanation for a direct effect from income inequality to health.     

On poverty traps,thresholds and take-offs

Recent studies on economic growth focus on persistent inequality across countries. In this paper we study mechanisms that may give rise to such persistent inequality. We consider countries that accumulate capital in order to increase the per capita income in the long run. We show that the long-run growth dynamics of those countries can generate a twin-peak distribution of per capita income. The twin-peak distribution is caused by (1) locally increasing returns to scale and (2) capital market constraints. These two forces give rise to a twin-peaked distribution of per capita income in the long run. In our model investment decisions are separated from consumption decisions and we thus do not have to consider preferences. Empirical evidence in support of a twin-peak distribution of per capita income is provided.     

Subsidizing healthcare in the presence of market distortions

The paper develops a three-sector full-employment general equilibrium model for a small open developing economy with exogenous labour market imperfection and a non-traded sector providing healthcare services, the consumption of which generates positive externalities. Our main objective is to show that the optimal consumption subsidy to healthcare, if solely judged from the standpoint of economic growth, is strictly positive (zero) when the production technology of the healthcare sector is of the variable (fixed) coefficient type. However, in the variable coefficient case, the optimal per capita expenditure on healthcare crucially hinges on the degree of labour market imperfection and the quality of services provided by the healthcare sector. The latter result can possibly be considered as a theoretical justification why the magnitude of per capita public spending on healthcare services is significantly lower in the developing countries compared to that in the developed nations. Besides, using the Sen's (1974) index of social welfare that takes into consideration both the growth and income inequality aspects, we have proved that the optimal health subsidy is positive irrespective of the nature of production technology of the healthcare sector. Furthermore, most of these results are found to be valid even in the presence of Harris-Todaro type unemployment. Finally, the results lead to a few important policy implications in the context of the developing countries.     

广东省城镇居民人均消费影响因素研究

笔者通过建立广东省城镇居民人均消费性支出的计量经济模型,对影响广东省城镇居民消费支出的可能因素进行分析,发现城镇居民人均收入、城镇居民消费价格总指数及城镇居民收入差距对广东省城镇居民人均消费性支出,具有重要的影响.而利率因素因受目前我国宏观经济运行环境及居民消费心理惯性等因素的影响,对城镇居民消费行为并未产生预期的影响.     

The dynamic linkages between economic growth,environmental quality and health in Greece

Increasing economic activity ignoring environmental quality may distort economic growth, leading to a negative rate. The expected deterioration of health in the near future may lead to further environmental degradation, with a continuation of a spiral-type path towards worsening growth and efforts to catch up with the developed economies. Τhis article examines the dynamic interdependence between economic activity, health quality and environmental degradation for Greece over the period 1960–2012. We employ Kuznets-type models and apply several co-integration techniques along with Granger causality tests. The results reveal strong causal effects, running from income towards CO₂ and infant mortality. In the multivariate context, a significant long-run impact is directed towards infant mortality, with economic growth performing rather exogenously.     

The determinants of health care expenditure in Australia

The objective of this article is to examine the long-run relationship and short-run dynamics of the health care expenditure in Australia during the period 1960–2003. Consistent with the conventional findings, the income elasticity for health care is found to be greater than one, suggesting that health care is a luxury good in Australia. Demographic structure is found to exert a significant positive impact on health care expenditure. An increase in the accessibility to health care services is associated with higher per capita real health care expenditure. Finally, public funding of health care appears to have a contributory effect on the formation of health care expenditure in Australia.     

Does state-level per capita income affect juvenile delinquency? An empirical analysis for Indian states

While average juvenile crime rates across India has dropped in recent decades, juvenile property crime rates (total juvenile crimes divided by state population) has actually gone up from 15% in 2000-01 to about 20% in 2013-14. There is huge variation across states when it comes to juvenile crime rates. The literature on juvenile crime in the Indian context is scant. This paper aims to fill the gap in the literature by undertaking a comprehensive analysis of juvenile delinquency related to property crimes across Indian states. Results show that state income per capita has a non-linear impact on incidences of juvenile crime across Indian states - rising when the income starts growing for relatively poorer states but increasing at a diminishing rate when state income per capita rises further. When a poor state gets relatively richer, both opportunities to commit crime and returns from property crime increases. However, as the state grows even richer, growth of employment and state facilities including rehabilitation and redistribution, improve. Further, we find that states with the lowest income per capita and highest level of adult crime face the steepest increase in juvenile crime rates for a rise in state income per capita.     

Educational Attainment and Regional Economic Performance in Mexico

A growing number of studies confirm the importance of educational attainment and human capital investment as a means for improving per capita income performance. In developing countries, attention to this linkage has primarily been carried out using national data aggregates. For relatively large countries such as Mexico, it is helpful to conduct similar analyses that document regional market income patterns. This paper utilizes 2000 census data for all 31 states and the Federal District in Mexico City to quantify regional income performance. Similar to other studies conducted using regional data in higher income economies, results confirm strong links between education and incomes across Mexico.     

Technology,convergence, and growth in the European Union

This paper contains an empirical analysis of growth and convergence in the European Union using a cross-country data set covering the period 1950–92. It seeks an answer to the question why some countries in Europe manage to catch up, while others, most notably the poorest ones, apparently do not. The empirical evidence provided in the paper points to several responsible factors. The distance of the economy to the technological leader differed across economies, which contributed to differences in convergence and growth behavior. In addition, the finding of conditional convergence implies that economies converge to different steady state levels of income per capita. Poor economies, like Portugal, Greece, Spain, and Ireland, presumably converge to a lower steady state level of income per capita, which leads to persistent differences in income per capita. Funding for this project was provided in part by the Securities Industry Foundation for Economic Education, the Council on Economic Education in Maryland, and the Towson State University Faculty Development and Research Committee.     

中国地区居民生活水平比较——基于全球夜间灯光数据

当衡量一国或地区居民生活水平时,统计学上一般有收入和消费两种视角。本文利用城乡住户调查中的人均可支配收入和国民经济核算中的居民消费水平,以全球夜间灯光数据为参照,综合收入端与消费端信息,对1997—2016年中国31个地区的真实生活水平进行比较分析。研究证实,灯光亮度与消费水平和人均可支配收入之间均存在显著的线性关系,可以用来估算真实生活水平。根据不同模型的回归结果得到,真实生活水平的最优无偏估计中消费水平的权重范围为（2795%,3831%）,人均可支配收入水平的权重范围为（6169%,7205%）。相对于消费水平,人均可支配收入更能准确地反映真实生活水平。本文进一步分析发现,样本期内居民生活水平增速小于人均GDP增速,可见经济的发展并未完全转化为生活水平的提高。中西部地区与东部地区的生活水平仍然存在巨大差距,东部地区的平均生活水平分别是中部和西部地区的17倍和21倍。