Demographic Transitions and Economic Miracles in Emerging Asia

The demographic transition—a change from high to low ratesof mortality and fertility—has been more dramatic in EastAsia during the twentieth century than in any other region orhistorical period. By introducing demographic variables intoan empirical model of economic growth, this article shows thatthis transition has contributed substantially to East Asia'sso-called economic miracle. The miracle occurred in part becauseEast Asia's demographic transition resulted in its working-agepopulation growing at a much faster rate than its dependentpopulation during 1965–90, thereby expanding the per capitaproductive capacity of East Asian economies. This effect wasnot inevitable; rather, it occurred because East Asian countrieshad social, economic, and political institutions and policiesthat allowed them to realize the growth potential created bythe transition. The empirical analyses indicate that populationgrowth has a purely transitional effect on economic growth;this effect operates only when the dependent and working-agepopulations are growing at different rates. These results implythat future demographic change will tend to depress growth ratesin East Asia, while it will promote more rapid economic growthin Southeast and South Asia.     

Low Schooling for Girls, Slower Growth for All? Cross-Country Evidence on the Effect of Gender Inequality in Education on Economic Development

Using cross-country and panel regressions, this article investigateshow gender inequality in education affects long-term economicgrowth. Such inequality is found to have an effect on economicgrowth that is robust to changes in specifications and controlsfor potential endogeneities. The results suggest that genderinequality in education directly affects economic growth bylowering the average level of human capital. In addition, growthis indirectly affected through the impact of gender inequalityon investment and population growth. Some 0.4–0.9 percentagepoints of differences in annual per capita growth rates betweenEast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and the MiddleEast can be accounted for by differences in gender gaps in educationbetween these regions.     

Do African Countries Pay More for Imports? Yes

The debt crisis and declining living standards require carefulhusbanding of critically scarce foreign exchange in most Africancountries. But economic theory suggests that smaller countries,which import from only a few international suppliers and cannotsupport competitive markets and infrastructure, would be likelyto pay more rather than less for imports. Analysis of importunit values for 1962–87 shows that the twenty Africanformer French colonies paid a price premium of 20–30 percenton average over other importers for iron and steel imports fromFrance. The losses associated with these adverse prices totaledapproximately 2 billion dollars by 1987. The study also findsthat similar price premia (of 20–30 percent) were paidby former Belgian, British, and Portuguese colonies in Africafor imports of these products from their former rulers.     

Modeling the Impact of Agricultural Growth and Government Policy on Income Distribution in India

This article uses a limited general equilibrium model to investigatethe growth and equity effects of a variety of economic and technicalchanges and selected agricultural policies in India. It exploreshow changes in food prices, rural wages, and farm profits associatedwith the Green Revolution period affected income distributionbetween net buyers and sellers of food. The model shows thatincome gains from the Green Revolution initially accrued tothe wealthier rural groups but that after 1972–73 theywere transferred to urban consumers and that by 1980–81the per capita incomes of poor and wealthier rural groups alikewere barely above their respective 1960–61 levels. Themodel is also used in counterfactual analysis of the impactof changes in technological, demographic, investment, taxation,and income redistribution variables. Its findings indicate theimportance of trade policies for the nature of the equity outcomesfrom agricultural growth and suggest that a reduction in populationgrowth and an increase in nonagricultural employment and incomeare required to convert agricultural growth into reduced ruralpoverty.     

Globalization, Poverty, and Inequality since 1980

One of the most contentious issues of globalization is the effectof global economic integration on inequality and poverty. Thisarticle documents five trends in the modern era of globalization,starting around 1980. The first trend is that growth rates inpoor economies have accelerated and are higher than growth ratesin rich countries for the first time in modern history. Developingcountries’ per capita incomes grew more than 3.5 percenta year in the 1990s. Second, the number of extremely poor peoplein the world has declined significantly—by 375 millionpeople since 1981—for the time in history. The share ofpeople in developing economies living on less than $1 a dayhas been cut in half since 1981, though the decline in the shareliving on less than $2 per day was much less dramatic. Third,global inequality has declined modestly, reversing a 200-yeartrend toward higher inequality. Fourth, within-country inequalityin general is not growing, though it has risen in several populouscountries (China, India, the United States). Fifth, wage inequalityis rising worldwide. This may seem to contradict the fourthtrend, but it does not because there is no simple link betweenwage inequality and household income inequality. Furthermore,the trends toward faster growth and poverty reduction are strongestin developing economies that have integrated with the globaleconomy most rapidly, which supports the view that integrationhas been a positive force for improving the lives of peoplein developing areas.      

Agricultural Incentives in Developing Countries: Measuring the Effect of Sectoral and Economywide Policies

The impact of sector-specific (direct) and economywide (indirect)policies on agricultural incentives for eighteen developingcountries for the period 1975–84 are estimated. The directeffect is measured by the proportional difference between theproducer price and the border price (adjusting for distribution,storage, transport, and other marketing costs). The indirecteffect has two components. The first is the impact of the unsustainableportion of the current account deficit and of industrial protectionpolicies on the real exchange rate and thus on the price ofagricultural commodities relative to nonagricultural nontradables.The second is the impact of industrial protection policies onthe relative price of agricultural commodities to that of nonagriculturaltradable goods. We find that (1) in almost all cases the directeffect is equivalent to a tax on exportable goods (–11percent on average) and to a subsidy for importables (20 percenton average); (2) the indirect effect also taxes agriculture(–27 percent on average) and dominates the direct effect(whether the direct effect is positive or negative); and (3)the direct policies for both importables and exportables stabilizedomestic producer prices.     

What Can New Survey Data Tell Us about Recent Changes in Distribution and Poverty?

It has been claimed that in recent times the poor have lostground, both relatively and absolutely, even when average levelsof living have risen. This article tests that claim using householdsurveys for 67 developing and transitional economies over 1981–94.It finds that changes in inequality and polarization were uncorrelatedwith changes in average living standards. Distribution improvedas often as it worsened in growing economies, and negative growthwas often more detrimental to distribution than positive growth.Overall, there was a small decrease in absolute poverty, althoughwith diverse experiences across regions and countries. Almostalways, poverty fell with growth in average living standardsand rose with contraction.     

Ownership and Growth

This article suggests how state enterprises can be incorporatedinto the theoretical and empirical growth literature. Specifically,it shows that if state enterprises are less efficient than privatefirms, invest less, employ less skilled labor, and are lesseager to adopt new technology, then a large state enterprisesector tends to be associated with slow economic growth, allelse remaining the same. The empirical evidence for 1978–92indicates that, through a mixture of these channels, an increasein the share of state enterprises in employment by one standarddeviation could reduce per capita growth by one to two percentagepoints a year from one country to another.     

我国税收结构与经济增长关系的实证检验

根据我国1985～2008年样本数据,利用多元线性回归模型对我国税收结构与经济增长的关系进行实证检验,结果表明:流转税、所得税(尤其是个人所得税)份额的增加有利于人均GDP的增长,财产税的经济效应尚未体现,宏观税负和赤字融资的增加已经抑制了人均GDP的增长。目前我国需要进一步完善税制,加强征收管理,提高所得税份额,减少债务融资规模。     

Public Pensions and Public Rental Housing

It is possible for the Chinese public pension and public rental housing to finance each other in the long term. Employing an overlapping generations (OLG) model, I examine the effects of the individual contribution rate, firm contribution rate, rent rate of public rental housing, and population growth rate on the capital-labor ratio, per capita consumption, per capita acreage of public rental housing, and per capita public rental housing property. According to economic goals, their effects, and their intensities, it does more good than harm to raise the individual contribution rate, reduce the firm contribution rate and rent rate of public rental housing, and restrict population growth rate.     

A Database of World Stocks of Infrastructure, 1950-95

This article describes an annual database of physical infrastructurestocks for a cross-section of 152 countries for 1950–95.The database includes estimates of six measures of infrastructure:the number of telephones, the number of telephone main lines,kilowatts of electricity-generating capacity, kilometers oftotal roads, kilometers of paved roads, and kilometers of railwaylines. Both raw and manipulated data sets, in which series havebeen linked to overcome changes in definition and coverage,are reported. Some measures of infrastructure quality, suchas the percentage of roads in poor condition, the percentageof local telephone calls that do not go through, the percentageof diesel locomotives available for use, and the percentageof electricity lost from the distribution system, are included.The data on all series except total roads are of reasonablygood quality and should prove useful to researchers. The article also presents regression results relating stocksof infrastructure to population, per capita gross domestic product,land area, and level of urbanization. It shows that stocks oftelephones, electricity-generating capacity, and paved roadstend to increase proportionately with population and more thanproportionately with per capita gross domestic product. Boththe length of total roads and the length of total rail linesrise with country size and are relatively insensitive to populationand income.     

Calm After the Storms: Income Distribution and Welfare in Chile, 1987-94

After rising during most—but not all—of the 1960–85period, inequality in Chile seems to have stabilized since around1987. Following the stormy period of economic and politicalreforms of the 1970s and 1980s, no statistically significantLorenz dominance results could be detected since 1987. Scalarmeasures of inequality confirm this picture of stability, butsuggest a slight change in the shape of the density function,with some compression at the bottom being "compensated for"by a stretching at the top. As inequality remained broadly stable,sustained economic growth led to substantial welfare improvementsand poverty reduction, according to a range of measures andwith respect to three different poverty lines. Poverty mixedstochastic dominance tests confirm this result. All of thesefindings are robust to different choices of equivalence scales.     

Is Economic Growth Good for Investors?1

When measured over long periods of time, the correlation of countries' inflation‐adjusted per capita GDP growth and stock returns is negative. This result holds for both developed countries (for which the correlation coefficient is –0.39 using data from 1900–2011) and emerging markets (the correlation is –0.41 over the period 1988–2011). And this means that investors would have been better off investing in countries with lower per capita GDP growth than in countries experiencing the highest growth rates. This seems surprising since economic growth is generally assumed to be good for corporate profits. In attempting to explain this finding, the author begins by noting that economic growth can be achieved through increased inputs of capital and labor, which don't necessarily benefit the stockholders of existing companies. Growth also comes from technological advances, which do not necessarily lead to higher profits since competition among firms often results in the benefits accruing to consumers and workers. What's more, it's important to recognize that growth has both an expected and an unexpected component. And one explanation for the negative correlation between growth and stock returns is the tendency for investors to overpay for expected growth. But there is another—and in the author's view, a more important—part of the explanation. Along with the negative correlation between long‐run average stock returns and per capita growth rates, the author also reports a strong positive association between (per share) dividend growth rates and overall stock returns. Such an association is not surprising since unusual growth in dividends is a fairly reliable predictor of increases in future earnings. But another effect at work here is the role of dividends—and, in the U.S., stock repurchases too—in limiting what might be called the corporate “overinvestment problem,” the natural tendency of corporate managers to pursue growth, if necessary at the expense of profitability. One of the main messages of this article is that corporate growth adds value only when companies reinvest their earnings in projects that are expected to earn at least their cost of capital—while at the same time committing to return excess cash and capital to their shareholders through dividends and stock buybacks.     

县域金融发展与多维贫困减缓——基于湖南省51个贫困县的实证研究

运用结构方程模型,考量县域金融、经济增长与收入分配对多维贫困减缓的影响路径.结果显示:县域金融发展对多维贫困减缓的直接作用与间接作用同时存在,且直接作用强于间接作用;经济增长效应强于收入分配效应;对消费贫困的影响大于医疗贫困与教育贫困.因此,应提高贫困县域基础设施与公共服务水平,加快县域金融体制改革步伐,创新县域金融服务产品与模式,加速推进贫困地区县域经济增长方式的转变,以此促进县域金融发展,减缓多维贫困.     

制度、增长与收敛——一个基于索洛模型的分析框架

标准的经济增长理论把制度看作是既定不变的并且不存在交易费用的,所以无法认识到制度对经济增长的重要性.将制度作为一个变量引入索洛模型,可以构造一个包含制度的、技术内生的增长模型.通过模型的推导可以得出这样的结论:制度质量越好,人均产出增长率越高;人均产出存在关于制度的条件收敛.并进一步得出这样的推论:欠发达国家想获得"后发优势"赶超发达国家,前提条件是具备良好的制度或能够持续改善其制度.     

How Does Infrastructure Construction Affect Economic Development along the “Belt and Road”: By Promoting Growth or Improving Distribution?

ABSTRACT

The “Belt and Road Initiative” has involved deepening infrastructure construction along the “Belt and Road”. Using data from countries who have joined the “Belt and Road”, this study examines how infrastructure construction has affected economic development along the route. Findings show that infrastructure construction can promote economic growth and per capita output growth while improving income distribution of residents along the “Belt and Road”. Results also indicate that the effect of infrastructure construction on economic development is heterogeneous; such construction can substantially increase economic growth in developing countries but has no significant effect on economic growth in developed and emerging developing countries. Infrastructure construction can greatly improve residents’ income distribution in developed and developing countries but has no significant effect on residents in emerging developing countries. Collectively, these findings identify foreign direct investment and urbanization as important channels through which infrastructure construction can influence economic development.     

Migration, Trade, and Foreign Direct Investment in Mexico

Part of the rationale for the North American Free Trade Agreementwas that it would increase trade and foreign direct investment(FDI) flows, creating jobs and reducing migration to the UnitedStates. Since poor data on illegal migration to the United Statesmake direct measurement difficult, data on migration withinMexico, where census data permit careful analysis, are usedinstead to evaluate the mechanism behind predictions on migrationto the United States. Specifications are provided for migrationwithin Mexico, incorporating measures of cost of living, amenities,and networks. Contrary to much of the literature, labor marketvariables enter very significantly and as predicted once possiblecredit constraint effects are controlled for. Greater exposureto FDI and trade deters outmigration, with the effects workingpartly through the labor market. Finally, some tentative inferencesare presented about the impact of increased FDI on Mexico–U.S.migration. On average, a doubling of FDI inflows leads to a1.5–2 percent drop in migration.     

劳动力转移对农户消费和投资水平的影响

劳动力转移会显著提高农户人均生活消费和人均居住支出水平,但对农户人均生产性固定资产购置支出没有产生显著影响。通过劳动力就地转移方式和异地转移方式的比较发现,就地转移会使农户人均生活消费和人均居住支出水平得以提高,但异地转移却对农户人均生活消费和人均居住支出没有产生显著影响,同时,两种转移方式对农户人均生产性固定资产购置支出均没有产生显著影响。     

区域金融发展与经济增长关系的经验分析——以深圳为例

利用深圳市金融发展与经济增长1979～2009年年度数据,实证研究表明金融相关比率与深圳人均实际经济增长存在明显葛兰杰因果关系;人均实际经济增长对金融相关比率促进作用并不明显;金融储蓄结构和金融中介效率分别与经济增长之间的葛兰杰因果关系并不显著。因此,要深化深圳金融业发展,应该提高金融业资金配置效率以及促进金融发展由＂供给主导＂向＂需求遵从＂转变。