A General Approach to Welfare Measurement through National Income Accounting*

A framework is developed for analyzing national income accounting using a revealed welfare approach that is sufficiently general to cover, both the standard discounted utilitarian and maximin criteria as special cases. We show that the basic welfare properties of comprehensive national income accounting, previously ascribed only to the discounted utilitarian case, extend to this more general framework. In particular, under a wider range of circumstances, it holds that real NNP growth (or, equivalently, a positive value of net investments) indicates welfare improvement. We illustrate the applicability of our approach in the Dasgupta–Heal–Solow model of capital accumulation and resource depletion.     

The Rise, Fall and Sustainability of Capital-Resource Economies

In debates about green accounting it is sometimes argued that a positive value of aggregate investments indicates that an economy is developing sustainably. Asheim (1994) and Pezzey (1994) have shown that this is wrong, using a version of the well-known Dasgupta–Heal economy (with one capital and one non-renewable resource stock) as a counterexample. Asheim's proof referred to the unproved assumptions that in such an economy a higher rate of time preference induces higher initial consumption and vice versa, and that "optimal" consumption is initially rising and then falling. Here we show that these assumptions do hold true under certain circumstances, thereby also proving some of Dasgupta and Heal's other conjectures about sustainability.     

Constant-utility paths in a resource-based economy

This paper analyzes a social planner's solution in a resource-based economy under a constant-utility criterion. The utility function includes social progress in a multiplicative form. The resulting paths of consumption include the patterns of growth that are conventionally used in the literature. A closed form solution, derived for the Dasgupta-Heal-Solow (DHS) model, includes the Solow–Hartwick result as a special case. This paper extends the link between the utilitarian criterion and the maximin for the cases with finite elasticity of marginal utility. The result also implies that economic growth in a resource-based economy may be slower than exponential; therefore, the expression for utility with social progress may become a more appropriate measure of sustainable growth than the percentage of consumption growth.     

Increasing returns,exhaustible resources,and optimal growth

It is shown that in an optimal growth model having inputs of flows from an exhaustible resource and services of reproducible capital, constant returns to scale is boundary separating paths of non-steady state development from those of steady development including asymptotic steady state growth. The absence of growth in output was observed by Dagsupta and Heal, and Solow for the case of non-increasing returns to scale.     

A generalized hazard rate

We present a general class of probability functions in which the hazard rate depends on both time and a shift parameter. It is used, for example, to generalize a model of innovation due to Loury and Dasgupta and Stiglitz.     

Optimal cyclicity and chaos in the 2-sector RSS model: An anything-goes construction

We present a simple and transparent construction that furnishes, for any pre-chosen dynamic, particular instances of the 2-sector version of the Robinson–Solow–Srinivasan model that yield the chosen dynamic, including optimal topologically chaotic programs and those that exhibit cycles of any given period. The construction is expressed in terms of ξ, the marginal rate of transformation of capital from one period to the next with zero consumption, an important summary statistic of the model discovered by Khan and Mitra. Our construction relies on theorems due to Li–Yorke and Sharkovsky, and complements earlier work on chaotic dynamics in the RSS model.     

Natural resources in the theory of production: the Georgescu-Roegen/Daly versus Solow/Stiglitz controversy

Abstract

This paper provides a theoretical and methodological account of an important controversy between neoclassical resource economics and ecological economics from the early 1970s to the end of the 1990s. It shows that the assumption of unbounded resource productivity in the work of Solow and Stiglitz–and the related concepts of substitution and technical progress–rest on a model-based methodology. On the other hand, Georgescu-Roegen’s assumption of thermodynamic limits to production, later revived by Daly, comes from a methodology of interdisciplinary consistency. I conclude that neither side provided a definitive proof of its own claim because both face important conceptual issues.     

Stochastic technical change,non-renewable resource and optimal sustainable growth

We develop a stochastic endogenous growth model involving a non-renewable resource, in which innovation arrivals are governed by a non-stationary Poisson process. Using a CRRA analytical example, we characterize the optimal trajectories of the model and analyze the effects of uncertainty in the sense of Rothschild and Stiglitz by computing a mean-preserving spread. We show that increased variability in the innovation process always implies a smaller optimal R&D effort, since this leads to a reduced marginal rate of return. Effects on the other variables of the model may also be unambiguously identified depending upon the relative risk aversion of agents, the social discount rate and the marginal arrival rate of innovations. Finally, we investigate the conditions under which, on average, the economy reaches a sustainable growth path.     

Sustainable per capita consumption under population growth

We establish two investment rules for maximal constant per capita consumption under exogenous population growth, one in terms of total capital stocks and the other in terms of per capita capital stocks. Both rules show the importance of the development of future population growth. The investment rules are illustrated in the one-sector model of capital accumulation, the DHSS model of capital accumulation and resource depletion, and the Stollery–d’Autume–Schubert model in which natural capital provides amenities. Application to recent empirical evidence indicates that actual genuine savings might be insufficient to sustain per capita consumption, when future population growth is combined with a large per capita consumption-wage gap.     

Is an Exhaustible Resource Economy Sustainable?

The paper focuses on two alternative concepts of sustainability dominating the literature: (i) maximum permanently maintainable consumption level (Fisherian income) and (ii) the amount of consumption that leaves total value of wealth intact (Hicksian income). In the context of a pure exhaustible resource economy, the author derives an explicit relationship between the two sustainability criteria and shows that while such an economy is not sustainable in the former sense, it is in the latter sense provided social preferences are represented by a logarithmic utility function. The implications of the two concepts for greening of national income are derived. Finally, the paper shows the range of values of the parameters of the model for which the utilitarian optimal path can be close to paths satisfying the alternative sustainability criteria, suggesting that such outcomes are less likely for very poor resource‐dependent countries than for the rich ones.     

Technology Adoption Costs and Productivity Growth: The Transition to Information Technology

Using two panels of U.S. manufacturing industries, this paper estimates capital adjustment costs from 1961 to 1996. I find that from 1974–1983 adjustment costs rose sharply—they more than doubled from about 3% of output to around 7%. Moreover, this increase is specifically associated with a shift to investment in information technology. But such large adoption costs imply that the Solow residual mismeasures productivity growth: Adoption costs are resource costs representing an unmeasured investment. I find that when this investment is included, productivity grew about 0.4% per annum faster than official measures during the 1970's and early 1980's, reducing the size of the productivity “slowdown.” Indeed, estimated productivity growth rates were roughly the same from 1974–1988 as from 1949–1973. Thus technology transitions critically affect productivity growth measurement. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: O30, O47, E22.     

PATTERNS OF TRADE AND GROWTH UNDER INCREASING RETURNS: ESCAPE FROM THE POVERTY TRAP*

We consider a two-sector model of intertemporal resource allocation in which the investment good sector exhibits an initial phase of increasing returns in production. The economy maximizes a discounted sum of one period utilities derived from the consumption good. If it is autarkic, it may face a poverty trap from which it cannot escape even if it follows an optimal policy. If it engages in trade with the outside world as a price taker, it may escape from the trap. The optimal patterns of production and trade are analysed for such an economy.     

On a Uniform Turnpike of the Third Kind in the Robinson-Solow-Srinivasan Model

On using McKenzie's taxonomy of optimal accumulation in the long-run, we report a ``uniform turnpike' theorem of the third kind in a model original to Robinson, Solow and Srinivasan (RSS), and further studied by Stiglitz. Our results are presented in the undiscounted, discrete-time setting emphasized in the recent work of Khan-Mitra, and they rely on the importance of either a strictly concave felicity function, or on the value of a ``marginal rate of transformation', ξσ, from one period to the next not being unity. We argue that our results, when viewed through the lens of turnpike theory, have a broader relevance to intertemporal optimization theory, as developed in economics by Ramsey, von Neumann and their followers.      

Characterizing the sustainability problem in an exhaustible resource model

We provide a general condition under which consumption can be sustained indefinitely bounded away from zero in the continuous time Dasgupta–Heal–Solow–Stiglitz model, by letting augmentable capital substitute for a non-renewable resource. The assumptions made on the production function are mild, thus generalizing previous work. By showing that Hartwick?s rule minimizes the required resource input per unit of capital accumulation, and integrating the required resource input with respect to capital, we obtain a complete technological characterization without reference to the time path. We also use the characterization result to establish general existence of a maximin path.     

Optimal human capital policies under the endogenous choice of educational types

This study examines optimal human capital policies under nonlinear labor and capital income taxes in the presence of consumption value of education in a two‐period setting. We show that when individuals can choose educational types differing by the relative importance of consumption value and production value, education subsidies for low‐type individuals should not equal an efficient level that offsets distortions induced by nonlinear taxes on labor and capital income. Our findings imply that education policy does not restore efficiency, or the Diamond–Mirrlees production efficiency theorem fails. Moreover, capital income taxation is optimal, which means that the Atkinson–Stiglitz theorem breaks down.     

Path-dependent economic growth with technological trajectory

This paper develops an integrated model of neoclassical and endogenous growth, which accounts for both income inequalities across countries and the convergence hypothesis, while all the growth stylized facts are satisfied. The model in this paper assumes that an economy industrializes in two stages. In the first stage, the economy starts industrialization through factor accumulation (the Solow stage); and after sufficient factor accumulation, it switches to the second stage of endogenous growth through innovation (the AK stage). Therefore, it becomes crucial to determine when switching from the Solow to the AK stages is implemented. We model this switching problem as a two-stage optimal control and show that the growth rate declines during the Solow stage, while in the AK stage it becomes constant. In addition, we draw several policy implications.     

R & D intensity with endogenous concentration evidence for finland

This paper presents a simultaneous equation model of industrial structure and research and development expenditure based on propositions put forward in recent theoretical work primarily by Dasgupta and Stiglitz. The model is estimated from Finnish cross-sectional data using both a standard 2SLS-procedure and a procedure allowing for dichotomous endogenous variables. The results support the main hypotheses concerning the relationships between market structure and R & D-intensity. R & D activity is clearly more intense where markets are concentrated and products are differentiated. Moreover, this activity, far from destroying the foundations of market power, seems to enhance it.     

Koopmans recursive preferences and income convergence

Stiglitz (Econometrica 37 (1969) 382) shows income convergence in a many-agent Solow growth model with integrated capital markets (ICM). The many-agent Ramsey model (MARM) without ICM also gives income convergence. With a MARM, equal discount rates, and ICM, convergence of incomes (as opposed to product per capita) cannot occur. These results depend upon fixed saving propensities (Stiglitz) or separable additive preferences (Ramsey). Non-convergence of incomes is shown when preferences are identical Koopmans separable (KS). Endogenous discount rates may violate KS. A model for that case is developed when, even under favourable assumptions, oscillations or chaotic dynamics may result.     

Optimal redistributive taxation when government's and agents' preferences differ

Paternalism, merit goods and specific egalitarianism are concepts we sometimes meet in the literature. The thing in common is that the policy maker does not fully respect the consumer sovereignty principle and designs policies according to some other criterion than individuals' preferences. Using the self-selection approach to tax problems developed by Stiglitz [Stiglitz, J.E., 1982. Self-selection and Pareto-efficient taxation. Journal of Public Economics 17, 213–240] and Stern [Stern, N.H., 1982. Optimum taxation with errors in administration. Journal of Public Economics 17, 181–211], the paper provides a characterization of the properties of an optimal redistributive mixed tax scheme in the general case when the government evaluates individuals' well-being using a different utility function than the one maximized by private agents.     

The transition to an oil contraction economy

A normative analysis of the problem of optimal extraction of a nonrenewable resource is considered. The economy depends on the essential nonrenewable resource and the rate of the resource extraction is increasing over time. At some point the government gradually switches to a sustainable (in sense of non-decreasing consumption over time) pattern of the resource extraction. Different approaches are offered for the construction of the paths of switching to decreasing resource use. Some seemingly attractive short-run policies of switching to decreasing extraction can run counter to long-run criteria. If we consider the maximin principle, applied to the negative shock on the output percent change, as the short-run criterion, then the optimal transition path can be consistent with the long-run government goals. It is shown analytically and numerically that there are values of parameters for the transition paths of extraction that consumption along these paths is asymptotically constant or infinitely growing. A new approach to the Rawlsian maximin criterion which allows for growth of consumption is offered.