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.     

Poverty Traps, Indeterminacy, and the Wealth Distribution

We consider a one-sector growth model in continuous time with a production externality and endogenous labor supply. There is a continuum of households who have identical preferences but differ with respect to their initial wealth. We show that there exist economies such that an indeterminate steady state exists for some wealth distribution but not for others. A second result is that a redistribution of wealth may drive the economy from a steady state with strictly positive output to a poverty trap in which output converges asymptotically to zero. These results indicate that differences in the wealth distribution may be responsible for drastic differences in the long-run standard of living. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D31, D50, O41.     

Convergence or divergence in cross-country growth?

In the traditional empirical convergence literature, a negative coefficient on initial income in a cross-country growth regression is interpreted as evidence of poor countries growing faster than richer ones. A key assumption in this work is that the relationship between initial income and income growth is linear. The linearity assumption is challenged in some new growth theories, and studies adopting an alternative (semi-parametric or nonlinear) econometric methodology provide support for a nonlinear specification. This paper finds evidence for nonlinear convergence. Using semi-parametric estimation we find that convergence occurs among countries with very low and very high initial incomes, suggesting that convergence clubs characterize the cross-country growth process. Our results provide further evidence for multiple-regime steady states.     

Poverty decompositions with counterfactual income and inequality dynamics

Traditional poverty accounting decomposes changes in a country's poverty headcount ratio into changes in income and inequality. We argue that this approach is unsatisfactory from the perspective of policy analysis because it compares a country in two points of time without taking the country's initial situation, and hence its potential for poverty reduction, into account. We thus suggest comparing traditional poverty decompositions with a counterfactual situation. This counterfactual indicates what a country starting from its initial situation could be expected to achieve in terms of income, inequality, and, hence, poverty developments. We construct those counterfactuals by modeling income and inequality trends characterized by convergence and a “Kuznets” relationship between inequality and development. Parameters in those relationships are estimated using PovcalNet survey data from 144 countries and we construct our counterfactual poverty predictions for 71 developing countries. While there is overall a tight relationship between actual developments and counterfactuals, we identify several cases, where both deviate from each other and discuss the policy implications. We also check for commonalities in differently performing countries and find that those who fell particularly short of expectations often underwent political transition and state fragility.     

Economic Convergence,Capital Accumulation,and Income Traps: Empirical Evidence

This paper examines the factors that increase the likelihood of economic transition to higher income status, thereby attempting to answer the question of why some economies move to a higher income country group while others do not. Using a quintile income distribution approach, we identify 62 economies that moved to a higher quintile income group in each decade from 1960s to the 2010s out of a sample of 182 economies. Our findings show that higher physical and human capital growth and oil revenues are significantly associated with a greater probability of transitioning to higher quintile income group, although their effects vary not only across income groups within a sample period but also across different periods. Our results indicate that economies that have attained substantial capital accumulation (either physical or human, or combination thereof) and/or are blessed with natural resources have avoided income traps and demonstrated a successful and often steady transition to higher income groups.     

PERSISTENCE IN CONVERGENCE AND CLUB FORMATION

In this paper, we examine the convergence hypothesis using a long memory framework that allows for structural breaks and does not rely on a benchmark country using both univariate and multivariate estimates of the long memory parameter d. Using per capita GDP gaps, we confirm the findings of non‐stationarity and long memory behavior that have been found previously in the literature using univariate tests. However, the support for these findings is much weaker when using a multivariate framework, in which case we find more evidence of stationary behavior. Based on these results, we also investigate club formation, something that would suggest the presence of conditional convergence. We describe a club formation methodology using the sequential testing criteria that we have employed in our analysis as the basis for forming clusters or clubs of countries with similar convergence characteristics.     

Patterns of Economic Development and the Formation of Clubs

This study investigates the sources of heterogeneity across a worldwide set of countries. Unspecified ex ante and unanticipated cultural (Protestant versus Catholic), geographical (continents), and institutional (OECD versus non-OECD) clubs emerge endogenously and naturally as homogeneous classes on the basis of their economic structure. The dynamics both within and across the identified groups of countries are consistent with multiple equilibrium-growth models proposed by, for instance, Azariadis and Drazen (1990), therefore strengthening the viability of the convergence club hypothesis. In particular, higher stages of development are, on average, non linearly associated with higher stages of growth.     

Modeling Guarantees,Over-Indebtedness and Financial Crises in an Open Economy

This work develops a simple framework to analyse how financial intermediaries’ balance sheet problems combined with financial guarantees make an economy more vulnerable to financial crises. A ‘double default’ problem – that is, the default of financial intermediaries on their debt repayments and of the government on its guarantees to bailout intermediaries’ losses – is modelled in this study. The possibility of multiple equilibria, including a crisis equilibrium where the government is not able or willing to honor its guarantees towards the domestic financial sector, arises from the interplay of all the above elements: financial intermediaries’ level of indebtedness, government implicit guarantees and high-risk creditors’ lending. This work also produces predictions concerning the vulnerability to a financial crisis: multiple equilibria are possible only in certain ranges of the fundamentals.     

A curse or a blessing? Natural resources in a multiple growth regimes analysis

The literature on the impact of an abundance of natural resources on economic performance remains inconclusive. In this article we consider the possibility that countries may follow different growth regimes, and test the hypothesis that whether natural resources are a curse or a blessing depends on the growth regime to which an economy belongs. We follow recent work that has used a mixture-of-regressions method to identify different growth regimes, and find two regimes such that in one regime resources have a positive impact on growth, while in the other they have a negative impact or at best have no impact on growth. Our analysis of the determinants of whether a country belongs or not to the blessed resources regime indicates that the level of democracy plays an important role while education and economic institutions have no effect.     

The share of the global energy mix: Signs of convergence?

This paper investigates the convergence behaviour regarding the share of global energy mix, as measured by primary energy consumption. Recent studies that employ stationary tests of panel data suggest that such data support the convergence hypothesis; however, some drawbacks exist, as these studies rely on methods that do not necessarily imply a sufficient condition for convergence. This paper adopts the concept of relative convergence as proposed by Phillips and Sul (2007), which employs a time‐varying, idiosyncratic component. We choose to focus on various sources’ global primary energy consumption and investigate the long‐ run dynamic behaviour by source. The key finding of this paper is that two distinct clubs of convergence of energy can be determined: renewable and non‐renewable energy clubs of convergence.     

Convergence in per capita health expenditures and health outcomes in the OECD countries

Our analysis of 19 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries over the period 1972 to 2006 provides evidence of convergence in per capita health care expenditures for 17 countries, while the US and (to a lesser degree) Norway follow a different path. A simple decomposition of per capita health expenditures reveals that the divergence of the US comes from the divergence of the ‘ratio of health care expenditures to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)’ component, while Norway's divergence is mainly caused by the ‘labour productivity’ component. Interestingly, our results suggest that convergence in per capita health expenditures among the 17 OECD countries does not lead to convergence in health outcomes. Finally, we extend our analysis to examine convergence in various determinants of health expenditures.     

International migration of entrepreneurs and the emergence of economic development traps

This paper examines the link between the emigration of entrepreneurs and the emergence of economic development traps, which has not received much attention in the existing literature. We develop a theoretical model, where the economy is divided into a traditional and a modern sector. Entrepreneurs establish firms in the modern sector to produce varieties of differentiated goods. Positive spillover effects exist in the modern sector. We show that the emigration of entrepreneurs can cause economic development traps, where the productivity of the modern sector remains low, and more importantly, the economy is stuck in the traditional structure. In the typical case, the development traps exhibit strong history dependence. Under certain conditions, regardless of the initial endowment of entrepreneurs, economic development traps are unavoidable. By examining the effect of government policy intervention to correct the market failure arising from spillover effects, our study also provides a theoretical foundation for government policies used by some developed countries to attract foreign entrepreneurs.     

Non-convex aggregate technology and optimal economic growth

This paper examines a model of optimal growth where the aggregation of two separate well behaved and concave production technologies exhibits a basic non-convexity. First, we consider the case of strictly concave utility function: when the discount rate is either low enough or high enough, there will be one steady state toward which the convergence of the optimal path is monotone and asymptotic. When the discount rate is in some intermediate range, we will find sufficient conditions for having either one equilibrium or multiple equilibria steady state. Depending to whether the initial capital per capita is located with respect to a critical value, we show that the optimal paths monotonically converge to one single appropriate equilibrium steady state. Second, we consider the case of linear utility and provide sufficient conditions to have either unique or two steady states when the discount rate is in some intermediate range. In this range, we give conditions under which the above critical value might not exist, and the economy attains one steady state in finite time, then stays at the other steady state afterward. P. Michel passed away when this research was completed. This paper is dedicated to his memory as a friend and colleague. N. M. Hung and C. Le Van thank the referee for vey helpful remarks and criticisms. They are grateful to Takashi Kamihigashi for very fruitful discussions. They also thank J.-F. Leclerc for editing the final version of this paper.     

Power, Distributive Conflicts, and Multiple Growth Paths

This article shows that multiple growth paths may occurin a politico-economic model of endogenous growth. This multiplicityis characterized by the coexistence of the low-tax, low-capital-flightequilibrium and a high-tax, high-capital-flight equilibrium.The likelihood of multiplicity is crucially related to the structureof power in society—namely, it is necessary that the politicallydecisive agents have a greater access to international capitalmarkets than the average in the economy.     

Nonstationarity and Stochastic Stability of Relative Income Clubs

The recent literature on “convergence” of cross‐country per capita incomes has been dominated by the two hypotheses of “global convergence” and “club‐convergence,” pertaining to limits of estimated income distribution dynamics. Utilizing a new measure of “stochastic stability,” we establish two stylized facts regarding short‐ and medium‐term distribution dynamics. The first is non‐stationarity of transition dynamics, in the sense of changing transition kernels, and the second is emergence, disappearance, and re‐emergence of a “stochastically stable” middle income group. This middle income group emerges as the gap between rich and poor clubs gets larger, and it changes the dynamics of transition to and from the rich and poor clubs, eventually narrowing the gap between the poor and rich as the middle club vanishes. Analyzing the stochastic stability of middle‐income groups is thus a first step toward understanding higher‐order dynamics of narrowing or widening of the gap between rich and poor countries.     

Partial Delegation in a Model of Currency Crisis

This paper shows that, in a fixed exchange-rate system with an escape clause, delegating the decision on the magnitude of realignment to an inflation-averse central banker reduces the range of realignment costs for which the policy-maker necessarily devalues. Stressing the influence of devaluation expectations on currency crises, it is also shown that this strategy of delegation reduces the width of the multiple equilibria zone within which self-fulfilling crises occur, thus promoting further the exchange-rate system's stability. The higher the central banker's degree of inflation aversion, the greater is this reduction.     

A computational analysis of core convergence in a multiple equilibria economy

We examine the structure of the core of a trading economy with three competitive equilibria as the number of traders (N) is varied. The core first splits into two pieces at N=5 and then splits a second time into three pieces at N=12. Both of these splits occur not at a point but as a contiguous gap. We find that the speed of convergence of the core toward the three competitive equilibria is not uniform but when N is large, the convergence rate is approximately of the order 1/N.     

Non-Linearity and Cross-Country Dependence of Income Inequality

We use top income data and the newly developed regime-switching Gaussian mixture vector autoregressive model to explain the dynamics of income inequality in developed economies within the past 100 years. Our results indicate that the process of income inequality consists of two equilibria identifiable by high inequality and high income fluctuations, and low inequality and low income fluctuations. Our results also imply that income inequality in the United States is the driver of income inequality in other developed economies. High wages and capital gains are found to be the likely channels for the U.S. influence.     

Poverty Dynamics,Violent Conflict,and Convergence in Rwanda

This paper analyzes the poverty impact of the violent events that affected Rwanda in the 1990s. The main objective of the paper is to identify systematically potential mechanisms linking violent conflict with changes in poverty across provinces and households in Rwanda before and after a decade of violence. In accordance with emerging literature on the long‐term economic effects of violent conflict, we find empirical evidence for economic convergence between richer and poorer Rwandan provinces and households following the conflict shocks. Using a small but unique panel of households surveyed before and after the conflict period, we find that households whose house was destroyed or who lost land ran a higher risk of falling into poverty. We do not find much evidence for an economic effect of violent deaths at the household level due to substitution effects of labor within the household. Non‐violent deaths however seem to increase income per adult equivalent for the survivors. Results are shown to be robust to sample selection and IV models.