Children’s environmental health,education, and economic development

Abstract This article aims at investigating the interplay between environmental quality, health, and economic development in a unified OLG framework. Human capital accumulation depends on the environment through its impact on children’s health and workers’ productivity. In turn, environmental quality dynamics rely upon human capital that determines maintenance efforts. This two‐way relationship generates a co‐evolution of human capital and environmental quality in the long run. Along the transition path, the dynamic interactions between economic and environmental spheres allow for replicating two different trajectories: some economies experiment an Environmental Kuznets Curve while some others are caught into the environmental poverty trap.     

Natural resources and the tradeoff between authoritarianism and development

Why do African and Middle Eastern countries seem cursed by an abundance of natural resources yet USA, Australia and Norway seem blessed? A growing literature has argued that the benevolence or malignance of natural resources depends upon the quality of institutions. This paper offers a new explanation based on associational freedom and its interaction with the political system. The model predicts that natural resources have an adverse impact on economic performance and transition to democracy in authoritarian regimes but not in democracies. It also predicts that repression of associational freedom will be increasing in natural resources in authoritarian regimes. I test the model's predictions using fixed-effects regressions on an international panel from 1975 to 2000 and find support.     

Natural resources, democracy and corruption

We study how natural resources can feed corruption and how this effect depends on the quality of the democratic institutions. Our game-theoretic model predicts that resource rents lead to an increase in corruption if the quality of the democratic institutions is relatively poor, but not otherwise. We use panel data covering the period 1980-2004 and 124 countries to test this theoretical prediction. Our estimates confirm that the relationship between resource rents and corruption depends on the quality of the democratic institutions. Our main results hold when we control for the effects of income, time varying common shocks, regional fixed effects and various additional covariates. They are also robust across different samples, and to the use of various alternative measures of natural resources, democracy and corruption.     

Labor resources and the current economic development of the USSR

The key task in creating balanced employment in the Soviet Union at the present time involves reducing the number of jobs to a level that corresponds to the actual potential for filling them. Such a step will serve as the basis for a more systematic organization of all aspects of the socialist expanded reproduction of labor power and of general social and economic progress. In the future, however, the mass release of workers from material production as a result of the scientific-technological revolution may create a manpower surplus. The labor shortage should be eliminated by the year 2000, and the working age population will have expanded, requiring expanded employment opportunities. The socialist system of employment must guarantee the systematic employment of the able-bodied population at any qualitative level of social production. The experience of other European socialist countries suggests several guidelines for employment policy. Bringing payroll costs closer to the actual cost of reproduction of labor power can be an important factor in the saving and release of workers in conjunction with the technical and organizational improvement of production. A special system must be formed in advance for the retraining, material support, and redistribution of released workers. Finally, cadres must by psychologically prepared for a much higher level of labor mobility.     

Heterogeneous capital, economic growth, and economic development

This paper asks how much does physical capital contribute to economic growth. It postulates that capital is heterogeneous because of embodied progress, and it structures the inquiry to account for differences in economic development. Embedded in data that cover 120 nations over 41 years are 35 derived capital stock series, whose characteristics include average ages stratified by development state. Growth accountancy proceeds by regression analysis cast in a production function context and repeated for each capital type. Those results help to establish the growth contributions of labor quantity and quality and capital quantity and quality. They also bear on neoclassical convergence.     

Natural resource dependence, non-tradables, and economic growth

I argue that the commonly used nominal measure of natural resource dependence – the share of exports of primary products in GNP – understates in growth regressions the negative link between natural resource dependence and per capita GDP growth. I show that using a purchasing power parity adjusted measure yields an economically much larger negative relationship between per capita GDP growth and natural resource dependence than what has been suggested by the nominal measure. Consistent with the rent-seeking literature, I show that the resource curse is a symptom of societies characterized by high levels of corruption and sluggish checks and balances on political decision-making.     

Natural resources, capital accumulation and the resource curse

Early concern by economists for the effect of natural capital on economic growth gave way to complacency and neglect during the nineteenth century. Evidence has emerged, however, that since the 1960s the economic performance of low-income countries has been inversely related to their natural resource wealth. This relationship is not a deterministic one so policy counts. SEEA can help improve the policy and performance of resource-abundant low-income countries by reinforcing the rationale for the sound management of natural resources and also by providing an index of policy sustainability in the form of the net saving rate. This policy index, along with other measures such as a capital fund for sterilizing the rent, initiatives to increase the transparency of rent flows and the rigorous evaluation of alternative uses of additional public sector revenue can improve the efficiency by which natural resource rent is transformed into alternative forms of capital to sustain rising social welfare. Chad and Mauritania provide case studies to illustrate how SEEA and net saving can be used to diagnose policy failure and improve economic performance.     

Externalities of investment, education and economic growth

We present a growth model in which investment in physical capital shows positive externalities which build up knowledge capital. A prerequisite for these spillovers to take place is that a country devotes time to education. Externalities associated with investment need education to raise the stock of knowledge capital. Analysing the competitive economy we demonstrate that the model may explain why some low-income countries show convergence whereas others do not. Furthermore, we demonstrate that in the social optimum the level of investment is always higher than in the competitive economy whereas the time spent for education may be lower or higher. We also show how the competitive economy may replicate the social optimum for an appropriate choice of a lump-sum tax and an investment subsidy. Empirical evidence is provided in order to demonstrate the plausibility of our model.     

试论经济发展与耕地资源保护

工业化、城镇化是我国现代化的大趋势，在这个过程中势必要占用一部分耕地，如何协调双方均衡发展，是摆在我们面前的一大课题。国家明确了土地资源保护和管理“必须严而又严”的总要求，提出了在经济发展中“在保护中求发展，在发展中求保护”的总原则。为此，本文根据近7年来土地锐减的现状，分析了经济快速发展中的耕地基本现状，探讨了耕地保护的必要性和重要性，根据“最大限度地发挥资源的经济效益，社会效益和环境效益”的总方针，紧紧联系我国的实际情况，提出了经济发展中耕地保护的途径。     

用好八大资源 服务福建经济

在市场经济条件下政府的职责是去伪存真,将更多好的企业送到市场中去政府扶持企业发展其素质的过程就是调动社会硌种资源以助之的过程,这个道理如同种花,只有好的土壤,花才能茁壮成长,而政府能为企业提供土壤的各类资源,针对福建发展的现状,政府可以对下列八种资源进行深层次开发。     

Property rights,entrepreneurship, and economic development

The Review of Austrian Economics - The disparity in economic progress across nations still confound economists. However, economists know that institutions play a significant role in economic...     

浅论高职教育与区域经济发展

区域经济作为经济基础,对高职教育具有决定性作用,而经济和高新技术的迅速发展是高职教育产生和发展的直接动因。作为职业教育的主要组成部分,高职教育不仅为区域经济发展培养高素质人才,还为区域经济发展提供重要的知识基础和先进的科技成果。高等职业技术教育应确定以市场为导向的职业教育办学指导思想,在专业设置、办学形式和人才培养方面与区域经济发展相适应。     

Environment, human development and economic growth

Over the last few years, environmental issues have entered into policy design, particularly development and growth policies. Natural resources are considered necessary production inputs and environmental quality is considered a welfare determinant. The integration of environmental issues into economic growth and development theories and empirics is currently widely analyzed in the literature. The effects of natural resources endowment on economic growth are mainly analyzed through the so-called Resource Curse Hypothesis (RCH) whereas the effects of economic growth on environmental quality are part of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). Furthermore, recent contributions on RCH and EKC have shown the important role of institutions and human development dimensions in building a sustainable development path. In this paper, we attempt to analyze the causal relationships between economic growth, human development and sustainability combining the RCH and EKC models and adopting a human development perspective. Results confirm the importance of high institutional quality and investments for human capital accumulation in order to build a sustainable development path.     

Women's education and economic well-being

Evidence across regions in the world reveals patterns in school enrollment ratios and literacy that are divided along gender lines. In the developing world, apart from most countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, enrollment ratios of girls lag behind those for boys at all levels of education. Worldwide literacy rates for adult men far exceed those for women. While educational progress has been enjoyed by both sexes, these advances have failed to eradicate the gender gap. Education enhances labor market productivity and income growth for all, yet educating women has beneficial effects on social well-being not always measured by the market. Rising levels of education improve women's productivity in the home which in turn can increase family health, child survival, and the investment in children's human capital. The social benefits from women's education range from fostering economic growth to extending the average life expectancy in the population, to improving the functioning of political processes. This paper reviews recent empirical research that analyzes the benefits of women's education, describes the importance of women's education for country-level measures of economic development, and examines the implications of a gender gap in education for aggregate social well-being.     

Symbolic values, occupational choice, and economic development

Channeling human resources into occupations with high social productivity has historically been a key to economic prosperity. Occupational choices are not only driven by the material rewards associated with the various occupations, but also driven by the esteem that they confer. We propose a model of endogenous growth in which occupations carry a symbolic value that makes them more or less attractive; the evolution of symbolic values is endogenously determined by purposive transmission of value systems within families. The model sheds light on the interaction between cultural and economic development and identifies circumstances under which value systems matter for long-run growth. It shows the possibility of culturally determined poverty traps and offers a framework for thinking about the transition from traditional to modern values.     

Egalitarian norms,economic development,and ethnic polarization

Economic development generally implies that traditional egalitarian norms and beliefs are replaced by modern individualistic values. Particularly when opportunities for advancement are unequally presented to people, this transformation may be accompanied by polarization and violent conflict. We illustrate this point by describing the processes of land privatization in Sub-Saharan Africa and then present two models that capture some salient aspects of this transformation in rural communities, including the possibility of polarization. We find that the support of egalitarian norms is notably strong when new opportunities are available for only a few people or when the community is socially unstable. Moreover, in unstable communities, polarization is strongest when the group with the most lucrative opportunities comprises half the population.     

Financial development,economic growth and convergence clubs

To study the role of financial development in economic growth, we apply an array of convergence tests designed to capture nonlinear transitional dynamics to real outputs per capita. Strong evidence of multiple convergence clubs is observed, implying that the clubs are formed based on the initial level of real output per capita and average growth rate. Our empirical results show that the stage of economic growth of each country plays an important role for the composition of the convergence clubs. Furthermore, financial development emerges to be a significant determinant, albeit plays differently in the economic growth of each convergence club.     

Informal sector, income inequality and economic development

This paper addresses - with the help of numerical simulations - some of the issues relating to income distribution in the context of development of an economy with an informal sector and migration of both low- and high-skilled workers from the rural to the urban area. A major aim has been to see under what conditions we do or do not get an inverted U-shaped curve of income distribution. The paper finds that the tendency always is for the Gini coefficient to rise and then decline. However, once it starts declining, it need not continuously decline; it may rise, then decline, then rise again and indeed rise above the previous peak before starting to decline again and may well end at the end of the simulation at a higher value than at the start. Any case for the redistribution of income is seen to be much stronger at the later stages of development that at earlier stages, even though at later stages, Gini coefficient may be lower than at earlier stages. The policy implications of the findings are considered.     

Migration, human capital accumulation and economic development

We study how the possibility of migration changes the composition of human capital in sending countries, and how this affects development. In our model, growth is driven by productivity growth, which occurs via imitation or innovation. Both activities use the same types of skilled labour as input, albeit with different intensities. Heterogenous agents accumulate skills in response to economic incentives. Migration distorts these incentives, and the accumulation of human capital. This slows down, or even hinders, economic development. The effect is stronger, the farther away the country is from the technological frontier.     

Human capital accumulation, fertility and economic development

We examine the development paths of an economy by incorporating the trade-off between the quality and quantity of children and the substitutability between the educational effect within the family and the education paid for by the parent. There is a threshold wage rate, above which individuals begin to invest in the human capital of their children, while reducing the number of children. At this point, the economy shifts from an exogenous growth phase to an endogenous growth phase. It is also shown that the aggregate saving rate is positively correlated with the youth dependency ratio in the development process.