Democracy, size of bureaucracy, and economic growth: evidence from Russian regions

This article considers the impact of sub-national political systems on economic growth by applying the case of Russian regions from 2000 to 2004. It investigates two dimensions of the sub-national systems. First, it studies the influence of democracy on economic performance, providing evidence of a non-linear relationship between democracy and economic growth. Regions with high levels of democracy, as well as strong autocracies, perform better than hybrid regimes. Second, this article considers the influence of the size of the bureaucracy on economic outcomes and confirms the ??grabbing hand?? view on bureaucracy rather than the Weberian idea. Increasing the size of the bureaucracy is associated with a decline in economic performance. In addition, this article analyzes the potential interaction between these two characteristics of sub-national politics as factors of economic growth, but does not establish any robust results.     

Resource abundance, growth and welfare: A Schumpeterian perspective

This paper takes a new look at the long-run implications of resource abundance. It develops a Schumpeterian model of endogenous growth that incorporates an upstream resource-intensive sector and yields an analytical solution for the transition path. It then derives conditions under which, as the economy's endowment of a natural resource rises, (i) growth accelerates and welfare rises, (ii) growth decelerates but welfare rises nevertheless, and (iii) growth decelerates and welfare falls. Which of these scenarios prevails depends on the response of the natural resource price to an increase in the resource endowment. The price response determines the change in income earned by the owners of the resource (the households) and thereby the change in their expenditure on manufacturing goods. Since manufacturing is the economy's innovative sector, this income-to-expenditure effect links resource abundance to the size of the market for manufacturing goods and drives how re-source abundance affects incentives to undertake innovative activity.     

Public utility pricing and capacity choice under risk: A rational expectations approach

Over the last two decades there has developed an extensive literature on the theory of public enterprise pricing and capacity choice under uncertainty. A major concern has been the analysis of the rationing of consumers in states in which demand exceeds available system capacity. An issue that has been largely ignored however is the effect that consumers' probability of being rationed (system reliability) has on their demand for the service. In this paper we develop a model that reflects the intuitive notion that a more reliable service is a higher quality service, so that an increase in system reliability shifts consumers' demand curves outward. We then incorporate this effect into our analysis of the utility's optimal pricing and investment rules. Finally, we demonstrate how the value of reliability can, in principle, be estimated from generally available demand data.     

Strategy-proof and individually rational social choice functions for public good economies: A note

Summary. Serizawa [3] characterized the set of strategy-proof, individually rational, no exploitative, and non-bossy social choice functions in economies with pure public goods. He left an open question whether non-bossiness is necessary for his characterization. We will prove that non-bossiness is implied by the other three axioms in his characterization. Received: October 17, 1997; revised version: January 19, 1998     

Japanese growth and stagnation: A Keynesian perspective

This paper uses a modified Harrodian model to understand both the long period of rapid Japanese growth and the recent period of stagnation. The model has multiple steady-growth solutions when the labour supply is highly elastic, and government intervention, we argue, took the Japanese economy onto a high-growth trajectory. Labour constraints began to appear around 1970, and a combination of high saving rates and slow population growth account for the stagnation of the 1990s. This combination produces a structural liquidity trap and threatens the sustainability of attempts to ensure near full employment through fiscal policy or by running a persistent trade surplus.     

The family and the state: a public choice perspective

The Review of Austrian Economics - The family is an institution within which exchange takes place. The state depends on the productivity of families for its current and future revenues. Yet, work...     

The challenge of akrasia for the theory of rational choice

The phenomenon of akrasia, in which an actor makes a choice she regrets even while choosing it, appears problematic for theories of rational choice, which assume that an agent prefers any chosen course of action. The apparent possibility of akratic action presents a challenge to rational choice theorists, either to demonstrate that it is illusory or to show that akratic action does not violate the axioms of rational choice. The problematic status of akrasia is exhibited most sharply when set against the backdrop of praxeology. Therefore, this paper will explore whether the idea of akratic action can be reconciled with the fundamental principles of praxeology.

A note on work–leisure choice, human capital accumulation, and endogenous growth

The growth model of Lucas [Lucas Jr., R.E., 1988. On the mechanics of economic development. Journal of Monetary Economics 22 (1), 3–42] is enriched with people having the opportunity to optimally allocate a fraction of their time to non-productive activities (‘leisure’). It is found that the chosen amount of leisure reduces the steady-state rate of growth of per capita output. This implies that the association between income and welfare may not be as strong as it is usually assumed to be. The optimal allocation of time among activities depends on some of the parameters and the marginal product of physical capital per capita.     

Strategic analysis of petty corruption: Entrepreneurs and bureaucrats

This paper develops a game-theoretic model of “petty corruption” by government officials. Such corruption is widespread, especially (but not only) in developing and transition economies. The model goes beyond the previously published studies in the way it describes the structure of bureaucratic “tracks,” and the information among the participants. Entrepreneurs apply, in sequence, to a “track” of two or more bureaucrats in a prescribed order for approval of their projects. Our first result establishes that in a one-shot situation no project ever gets approved. This result leads us to consider a repeated interaction setting. In that context we characterize in more detail the trigger-strategy equilibria that minimize the social loss due to the system of bribes, and those that maximize the expected total bribe income of the bureaucrats. The results are used to shed some light on two much advocated anti-corruption policies: the single window policy and rotation of bureaucrats.     

Party voting discipline and the power of parties, legislators and states

We examine the distribution of decision-making power among the principal actors of a federal legislative system; parties, legislators, and constituencies. We are especially interested in how the balance of power between legislators and constituencies depends on the voting discipline exercised by the parties.We derive power measures that are related to the Banzhaf-Coleman index of decision-making power and illustrate with a simple example. Our power measures are novel because they are based on an explicit representation of party voting discipline as well as the structural properties of the decision-making process, whereas previous analyses concentrate on structurally determined power alone.     

Engineering bureaucracy: the genesis of formal policies, positions, and structures in high-technology firms

This article examines the impact of organizational foundingconditions on several facets of bureaucratization - managerialintensity, the proliferation of specialized managerial and administrativeroles, and formalization of employment relations. Analyzinginformation on a sample of technology start-ups in California'sSilicon Valley, we characterize the organizational models orblueprints espoused by founders in creating new enterprises.We find that those models and the social composition of thelabor force at the time of founding had enduring effects ongrowth in managerial intensity (i.e., reliance on managerialand administrative specialists) over time. Our analysis thusprovide compelling evidence of path dependence in the evolutionof bureaucracy - even in a context in which firms face intenseselection pressures - and underscore the importance of the 'logicsof organizing' that founders bring to new enterprises. We findless evidence that founding models exert persistent effectson the formalization of employment relations or on the proliferationof specialized senior management titles. Rather, consistentwith neo-institutional perspectives on organizations, thosesuperficial facets of bureaucracy appear to be shaped by theneed to satisfy external gatekeepers (venture capitalists andthe constituents of public corporations), as well as by exigenciesof organizational scale, growth, and aging. We discuss someimplications of these results for efforts to understand thevarieties, determinants, and consequences of bureaucracy.     

Evaluating latecomer growth in information technology: A historical perspective

From a low initial base it is not difficult for developing countries to close the relative digital divide with the developed countries. A more challenging and novel question is whether, because of leapfrogging and other latecomer advantages, developing countries have grown faster than developed from the same initial starting point. Or, is it the case rather that the disadvantages of being a latecomer exceed the advantages? Are there any pronounced outliers among the developing countries and what are their distinguishing characteristics? Using a number of methods and data sources I seek to answer these questions in a tentative but provocative manner.     

工资制度选择的经济机理:一种二维人力资本视角的分析

为什么不同企业以及同一企业的不同岗位会采取不同的工资支付制度?这个问题新古典理论没有回答,近年来兴起的交易成本理论、激励理论等也只给予了一定程度的解释.本文首先概括提炼出四种典型工资制度,证明其在科斯定理意义上的等价性.然后综合评析以往的几种解释及其不足.进而,尝试从一种新的二维人力资本的视角来展开分析,说明员工人力资本特性是决定工资制度选择的深层经济原因.     

Collective learning,innovation and growth in a boundedly rational,evolutionary world

We formulate a simple multiagent evolutionary scheme as a model of collective learning, i.e. a situation in which firms experiment, interact, and learn from each other. This scheme is then applied to a stylized endogenous growth economy in which firms have to determine how much to invest in R&D, where innovations are the stochastic product of their R&D activity, spillovers occur, but technological advantages are only relative and temporary and innovations actually diffuse, both at the intra and interfirm levels. The model demonstrates both the existence of a unique long-run growth attractor (in the linear case) and distinct growth phases on the road to that attractor. We also compare the long-run growth patterns for a linear and a logistic innovation function, and produce some evidence for a bifurcation in the latter case.     

A theory of the (growth of the) transnational firm: a Penrosean perspective

In this paper I apply a Penrosean perspective to the theoryof the growth of the transnational corporation (TNC). I suggestthat TNCs are the result of a dynamic interaction between endogenousfactors to the firm and external opportunities and threats,as perceived by the firm's management. Trans-border geographicaldiversification is the result of limits to domestic expansion,failed or missing markets, perceived differential opportunitiesabroad, and oligopolistic interaction. The choice of institutionalmode (foreign direct investment over putting out, subcontracting,licensing or exporting) is also the result of missing or failingmarkets, perceived differential capabilities, and oligopolisticinteraction.     

Sources of TFP growth: occupational choice and financial deepening

This paper explains and measures the sources of total factor productivity (TFP) by developing a method of growth accounting based on an integrated use of transitional growth models and micro data. We decompose TFP growth into the occupational-shift effect, financial-deepening effect, capital-heterogeneity effect, and sectoral-Solow-residuals. Applying this method to Thailand, which experienced rapid growth with enormous structural changes between 1976 and 1996, we find that 73% of TFP growth is explained by occupational shifts and financial deepening, without presuming exogenous technical progress. Expansion of credit is a major part. We also show the role of endogenous interaction between factor price dynamics and the wealth distribution for TFP. We thank Richard Rogerson for his clarifying and helpful discussion. The comments from the participants of the Minnesota Workshop in Macroeconomic Theory 2004, Stanford Institute for Theoretical Economics (SITE) Summer Workshop 2004, European Meeting and North American Summer Meeting of the Econometric Society 2004, NEUDC 2004, Iowa Conference of Economic Development, and seminars at USC Marshall School, Penn State University, UCLA, and UCSD are also appreciated. Financial support from NSF (SES-0318340) and NICHD (R01 HD27638) is gratefully acknowledged.     

国际R&D溢出与生产率增长——基于APEC视角的动态面板数据分析

本文从服务贸易进口、FDI流入和生产率积聚效应等方面扩展了CH模型,并以APEC成员作为研究对象,运用动态面板数据模型和脉冲响应函教研究了全要素生产率、技术效率和技术进步的动态变化规律,得出了全要素生产率、技术效率和技术进步存在显著的积聚效应;本国R&D资本存量有助于提升技术效率,但是能否促进技术进步刖依赖于R&D投入强度;和通过服务贸易渠道获得的国际R&D溢出对全要素生产率和技术进步均有显著的促进作用等三个一般性结论.     

Population and economic growth: a simultaneous equation perspective

This article examines the relationship between Population Growth (PG) and Economic Growth (EG) in the framework of simultaneous structural equation models. Based on Lewbel (2012), the structural parameters can be estimated using the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). Identification requires a heteroscedastic covariance restriction that appears in some models of endogeneity, measurement errors and panel data. This study obtains several findings. First, the current and lagged variables of PG negatively and positively affect EG in the short run. Second, PG does not significantly influence EG in the long run. Third, the reverse relations running from EG to PG are weak in both the short and long run, regardless of economic development conditions.