Population growth,soil fertility,and agricultural intensification

This paper presents a renewable resource model of soil fertility with a nonconvexity in the net benefit function. In this setting, recurring cycles of cropping and fallow can be the optimal soil management strategy. The model is used to illuminate the Boserup discussion of agricultural development, in which population growth leads to agricultural intensification, defined as an increase in cropping frequency. Previous formal models of the Boserup hypothesis focus on the land-labor ratio rather than cropping frequency and have not directly incorporated soil fertility dynamics. These models assume a convex production technology and are not optimistic about the prospect for agricultural development without technological progress. This paper explicitly models soil fertility dynamics and demonstrates that nonconvexities in the production technology are an important feature of the use of long fallow periods for soil management. As population grows, and the demand for food increases, the importance of the nonconvexity diminishes and more frequent cropping becomes economical. Given a nonconvexity in the production technology, it is possible, though not necessary, that average labor productivity increases with agricultural intensification. Thus, it is possible to reconcile the greater labor requirement of intensive farming with an increase in average labor productivity. In addition, Boserup argued that a larger and denser population facilitates the development of economic and social infrastructure which improve agricultural productivity.     

Regional innovation and competitiveness in a dynamic representation

This paper combines the various strands of literature on knowledge and innovation as drivers of regional growth in an evolutionary model, representing the internal dynamics of a regional system focusing on Arthurian dynamic increasing returns to scale. The model shows how different evolutionary patterns can arise starting from identical local systems, and that the effects of policies are different depending on the state of the system. Simulation evolutionary economic geography models also allow to represent the complexity of spatial economic development without radically simplifying it and to formalize concepts which are otherwise only expressed—by economic geographers—as logical arguments.     

Economic growth, labor market and demographic patterns

This study addresses the dynamic interaction between income growth, patterns of demographic variables, and characteristics of the labor market. We attempt to provide an endogenous explanation for the origin and nature of long-run sustained oscillations in the population and in economic variables. First, we develop an economic growth model containing unemployment. The resulting dynamics reveal that the emergence of irregular sustained oscillations is related to the lack of sensitivity in wage growth to changes in the employment rate. Next, labor force growth is endogenized in the basic model through micro-founded fertility choices of individuals. By introducing the endogenous fertility rate into the basic model, we generate a demographic transition. Next, consistent with Malthusian cycle literature, the inevitable time lag between individual reproductive decisions and subsequent market needs, in conjunction with a highly specialized labor force, appear to be the primary source of such long-run oscillations. Finally, the model predicts that raising the age of entry into the labor force increases economic growth.     

Accounting for economic evolution: Fitness and the population method

The theme of this paper is the general population dynamics of evolutionary processes, and, in particular, a number of accounting concepts that are central to any understanding of evolutionary processes of the variation-cum-selection retention kind. A population perspective, for example, turns out to be crucial to the study of the competitive process in economic systems defined at the level of industries, sectors and markets. Business rivalry, underpinned by differential innovative activity, is the basis of the differential survival and growth of competing economic activities and the strategies deployed to create sustainable differences in competitive selection characteristics are at the core of the capitalist dynamic interpreted as an adaptive, evolutionary process. This kind of evolutionary argument is necessarily concerned with growth rate dynamics and the explanation of the diversity of growth rates across entities in a population. However, the following discussion does not provide any causal explanation of economic evolution in terms of the determinants of growth rate differences, rather it provides a bookkeeping scheme in which different causal theories may be set and compared. Growth dynamics and structural change are the two central features of variation/selection processes within populations and I explore them in terms of three themes: namely, Logistic Growth Accounting; Competition Accounting; and, the Price Theorem. The unifying theme that links all three is their relation to the population method in evolutionary theory.      

中国未来不同生育水平下的经济增长后果比较研究

对中国未来90年不同生育水平下的经济增长后果进行了人口-经济动态模拟。在生育水平过低导致劳动力减少过快、人口老龄化过重、劳动负担加重的情况下,将使经济增长大大放缓;而较高的生育水平下,虽然经济增长速度略快,但是人均GDP增长速度慢于中方案生育水平下的经济增长,并且人均GDP水平也具有较大差异。完善当前生育政策,使生育水平稳定在1.9-2.0之间,如此人口在本世纪缓慢地减少也将有利于我国的经济增长和人均生活水平的提高。同时,在低生育水平下,依靠劳动增加和资本积累的粗放型经济增长将不复存在,经济发展方式转变是必然选择,技术创新、技术进步将是未来经济增长首要源泉。     

Satiation in an evolutionary model of structural economic dynamics

This paper presents the problem of satiation of consumption and technology in relation to a model of evolutionary endogenous growth. The model represents an attempt to provide an evolutionary economic micro foundation to Pasinetti's scheme of the structural economic dynamics of an economy that is based on only labour and knowledge. The micro foundation is based on a set of rules that makes endogenous the demand coefficients, the labour coefficients, and the number of available sectors. Through process innovations firms increase their productivities with respect to individual goods, but a growth slowdown takes place unless the benefits from specialisation are exploited at still higher levels. Another cause for slowdown is related to an Engelian hierarchy of goods. As the standard of living grows, existing sectors and consumption goods satiate, so new sectors need to be provided by product innovations in a sufficient pace to keep up with the labour that is displaced from old sectors.     

The microfoundations of business cycles: an evolutionary, multi-agent model

This work presents an evolutionary model of output and investment dynamics yielding endogenous business cycles. The model describes an economy composed of firms and consumers/workers. Firms belong to two industries. The first one performs R&D and produces heterogeneous machine tools. Firms in the second industry invest in new machines and produce a homogenous consumption good. Consumers sell their labor and fully consume their income. In line with the empirical literature on investment patterns, we assume that firms’ investment decisions are lumpy and constrained by their financial structure. Simulation results show that the model is able to deliver self-sustaining patterns of growth characterized by the presence of endogenous business cycles. The model can also replicate the most important stylized facts concerning micro- and macro-economic dynamics.     

Management Ability, Long-run Growth, and Poverty Traps

This study establishes an R&D-based growth model that includes the functional difference between labor and human capital in the production of goods. In our analysis, human capital is used by the managers in the manufacturing process. Such an allocation of human capital yields three possible steady states: endogenous growth, poverty traps, and multiple equilibria. Economies are sorted into these steady states according to the endowments of labor, human capital, and knowledge. Thus, the obtained steady states explain some economic growth patterns, such as polarization and leapfrogging of economies.     

Competition,variety and technological evolution: A replicator dynamics model

In this paper a model of technological evolution based on replicator dynamics is developed. Such a model is based on a twin characteristics representation of product technology and on a population approach. The model can give a general representation of technological evolution, but this paper concentrates on the relationship between variety and competition. Variety is considered to be a very important variable influencing economic development. By means of the characteristics and population approach adopted in this paper it is possible to distinguish between inter-and intra-technology competition. In this paper it is demonstrated that the variety of the system can only increase if intra-technology competition is more intense than inter-technology competition. Intuitively this implies that new technologies will only be able to emerge if incumbent technologies experience the competition coming from the new ones to be weaker than their own internal competition.     

Democracy and Development: Cruel Dilemma or Symbiotic Relationship?

The paper dissects the hypothesis that democracy is inimical to economic development. The historical origin of this perspective is presented and its key theoretical and empirical assumptions are examined and assessed. The chief conclusion is that there is no necessary tradeoff between democracy and development. When compared to authoritarian regimes, democracy is more likely to foster an environment that facilitates the innovative and entrepreneurial process so essential for sustained development. On the other hand, democracy is better for development only when accompanied by an expansion of markets and competition. Democracy without markets is unlikely to deliver significant growth. In this context, liberalized international trade can act in a productive symbiosis with democratic institutions to promote development by facilitating bilateral flows of ideas, knowledge, goods, services, and technology.     

Specialization,product development,evolution of the institution of the firm,and economic growth

This paper considers the effects of the division of labor on economic growth and welfare in a general equilibrium environment where changes in individual specialization and product development can proceed simultaneously. The nature of the dynamic equilibrium is shown to depend on the interaction of transaction efficiency, economies of specialization, and economies of complementarity. Where the dynamic equilibrium involves evolution in the division of labor, this will be associated with increased per capita real income and hence economic growth. It is also shown that the emergence of firms is an aspect of the evolution of division of labor if transaction efficiency for a producer good is lower than that for labor used to produce this good.     

技术进步研究评析

作为人类改造自然的一切知识的总和,技术进步象一条涓涓溪流始终贯穿于整个经济增长与发展史,技术的进步是推动经济增长与发展的基础,经济学家们就技术进步对一国经济发展的影响进行研究是在对经济增长影响因素的理论探索中逐步展开的,许多经济学流派都曾关注过技术进步并试图将技术进步溶入其理论框架,从不同角度不同程度地用技术进步来解释经济增长的源泉和增长过程。本文从亚当.斯密体现在积累及劳动分工上的技术进步因素开始,循经济增长理论的发展时序,分别进一步评析了熊彼特的技术创新理论、以索洛经济增长模型为代表的新古典增长模型以及色彩斑斓的内生经济增长理论,各大理论流派均认同技术进步一定会推动经济增长和发展,但人类显然还没有找到一把普适的经济发展的"魔杖",关于技术进步与经济增长的理论研究在不断延续展开着。     

The Division of Labor, Capital, Communication Technology and Economic Growth: The Case of China 1952–99

The implications of the division of labor, capital, and technology for economic growth have long been a fundamental issue in development economics. This paper employs the bounds testing approach to cointegration to examine the relationship between the division of labor, capital accumulation, communication technology, and economic growth for China over the period 1952–99. We find that in the long run, capital stock and the division of labor both have statistically significant positive effects on growth, while in the short run the effects are not significantly positive. Telecommunication technology, rather surprisingly, has a statistically insignificant impact on growth both in the long run and in the short run. Our findings indicate that there exists a long run equilibrium relationship between capital and the division of labor on the one hand, and economic growth on the other, thereby lending support to the division of labor theory of growth.     

Firms and industries in evolutionary economics: lessons from Marshall, Young, Steindl and Penrose

Evolutionary economists have tended to assess firms and industries separately, neglecting the role of their interaction in the process of economic growth and development. We trace the separation of firms and industries to the introduction of population thinking in the discipline of industrial economics, including some broadly evolutionary analyses. If researchers conflate a population of firms with an industry, they introduce “thin” means of relating firms to one another and to industries. Despite his device of the ‘representative firm’, Marshall develops “thick” means of relating firms to industries by means of their internal and external organizations. Penrose avoids the notion of industry by focussing on heterogeneous and potentially mobile firms. Young and Steindl develop mundane explanations of firms’ relations within groups and locate the impetus for economic growth in a poorly understood environment. We conclude that evolutionary economists should revisit firms’ boundaries, not in the sense of explaining the existence of firms but in a relating and communicating sense in which boundaries signify the selective means of firms’ relationships.     

人口结构、人力资本结构与经济增长

经济发展过程伴随着人口结构的改变以及人力资本结构的改变,这种改变又影响着经济增长方式。本文刻画了这两种结构,考察工作家庭与退休家庭、体能资本与知识资本、通用性知识资本与专用性知识资本在经济增长过程中的作用。笔者发现,一个经济社会在其发展的早期阶段,主要是依靠体能资本和专用性知识资本促进经济数量上的增长和赶超,之后主要依靠通用性知识资本实现质量型经济增长。     

Knowledge externalities,innovation and growth in European countries: the role of institutions

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the linkages between institutions and economic growth in the European context and highlights innovation as the intermediate variable that drives this interplay. Building on the literature in the evolutionary approach to the economics of innovation and in the economic growth theory with a political economic perspective, we assume that knowledge externalities can fully take place where institutions guarantee a level playing field in the access to knowledge. We estimate the effects of a set of relevant institutional variables on the growth rate of technological knowledge and per capita GDP for a sample of European countries. The empirical analysis confirms that institutions that tend to equalise opportunities to innovate significantly amplify the impact of an exogenous increase in the knowledge base on the growth rate of per capita GDP.     

内生性产业集群、产业分工网络和产业生产价值链——一个基于分工演进和专业化的产业发展分析的新框架

文章以内生性的专业化和分工为基础,构建了一个内生性产业集群和产业分工网络发展的一般均衡模型,分析了在经济一体化背景下产业集群、产业分工网络和专业化生产之间的内在关联和作用规律。模型的结论认为,国家(产业)间的制度效率与竞争强度之间存在着循环效应,而这种循环效应能够决定产业集群的布局和配置,决定各国在产业价值链上的位置,并最终决定经济增长的状态。尤其是,一国技术(经济)系统的制度效率的进步将会增加市场交易的需求,进而扩展产业分工的网络规模;而这又将推动产业集群的发展,扩大产业网络的范围,提升该国在产业生产价值链上的位置。     

演化经济学框架下环保技术扩散研究——以熔炼压缩炼铁技术的扩散为例

在分析传统框架下扩散模型的局限性及环保技术扩散的特殊性的基础上,以SRT的扩散为例,尝试用演化经济学的框架来探讨环保技术的扩散问题。技术的扩散是技术竞争的动态演化、企业家和异质采用者、制度和政治等共同作用的结果,因此,从一个更广泛的演化经济学的框架来理解技术扩散,特别是环保技术的扩散是很有必要的。     

地方政府竞争、土地垄断供给与城市化发展失衡

文章基于地方政府竞争和土地垄断供给的双重视角,利用中国1999—2012年的省级面板数据,对人口城市化与空间城市化的发展失衡现象及其内在机理进行了系统研究。理论研究发现,地方政府间以经济增长和财政收入增加为导向的竞争机制,为地方政府偏重推进空间城市化、忽视推进人口城市化提供了内在激励,而土地的政府垄断供给则为地方政府通过经营土地来实施这种偏重空间城市化的行为提供了手段。这两个因素叠加在一起,导致了人口城市化与空间城市化的发展失衡。实证检验发现,地方政府间竞争越激烈,土地供给数量越多,人口城市化与空间城市化发展失衡的程度就越严重。这表明,地方政府竞争和土地垄断供给对城市化发展失衡确实存在显著正向影响。推进地方政府竞争模式和土地供给制度改革,是实现中国人口城市化与空间城市化均衡发展的有效途径。     

Evolution and the growth process: Natural selection of entrepreneurial traits

This research suggests that a Darwinian evolution of entrepreneurial spirit played a significant role in the process of economic development and the dynamics of inequality within and across societies. The study argues that entrepreneurial spirit evolved non-monotonically in the course of human history. In early stages of development, risk-tolerant, growth promoting traits generated an evolutionary advantage and their increased representation accelerated the pace of technological progress and the process of economic development. In mature stages of development, however, risk-averse traits gained an evolutionary advantage, diminishing the growth potential of advanced economies and contributing to convergence in economic growth across countries.