Clio en de computer Clio and the computer

Summary In this farewell address, delivered on the occasion of his retirement from the chair of economic history in the University of Amsterdam, the author deals with the movement among economic historians in the United States, called New Economic History. This movement is characterised by the endeavours to introduce new methods in economic historiography by making use of economic theory and statistics. Although the author agrees that there is room for a critical attitude as to the way in which economic history has so far mainly been studied, he is of opinion that the importance of the said movement should not be exaggerated. He draws attention to the fact that there is only room for applying theoretical models and econometrics as far as modern periods of economic growth are concerned. He also points out that the economic historian should not confine his investigations to measuring economic growth. Economic historians have also to deal with a number ofimponderabilia: social, cultural, religious, legal, psychological and other developments. In the third place the New Economic History is by no means as new as his adherents seem to think. The economists of the so-called Historical School have already extended more than a century ago their studies to historical developments. The study of the trade cycle, which can roughly been said to have been started in the twenties of the present century, is a remarkable example of a combination between economic history and economic theory. The change in the methods employed by economic historians has been already on the way for a considerable time. There is therefore no reason to call the application of the methods recommended by the adherents of the so-called New Economic History as a new phenomenon. The author agrees, however, with the view that there should be a closer collaboration between economic historians, economists and statisticians.tekst (bier en daar gewijzigd of aangevuld) van bet afscheidcollege, door mij op 29 September 1967 gegeven in de aula der Universiteit van Amsterdam.     

The economic history of Thailand: Old debates,recent advances,and future prospects

Despite slow development of Thai economic history scholarship, research output in the last three decades has shed new light and improved arguments on classic debates using novel primary sources and quantitative methods. This article traces the evolution of three Thai economic history debates from the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries: (1) factors behind Thailand's slow economic growth; (2) the reluctance of rural workers to move into urban employment; and (3) the Thai government's failure to invest in large-scale irrigation projects. The article concludes with a discussion of current challenges facing Thai economic history research and suggestions to move the discipline forward.     

经济增长与集聚：基于资本积累和知识溢出的研究

文章发展了新经济地理学中包含垂直联系的一般均衡模型,通过放松＂总资本不变＂的假设,将垂直联系、资本积累和知识溢出结合起来,构建了一个内生增长模型,以此分析资本积累和知识溢出对经济增长与集聚的影响。结果显示,发展成为核心区可以通过提高自身的资本积累水平和掌握先进技术、核心技术来实现。对于欠发达地区,既可以通过地方保护或加大中央政府的财政支持力度,提高其资本积累水平,也可以通过增强地区间的合作与交流,提高知识溢出水平,缩小与发达地区的经济差距。     

为什么日本的扩大内需政策没有成功

对日本长期以来的扩大内需政策进行了回顾。国民收入倍增计划获得了一定的成功。但是随后的大规模公共投资、日元升值和金融缓和政策并没有使日本的经济结构发生本质的改变,相反却导致了政府债务急剧上升和泡沫经济的出现。近年来提出的新经济增长战略和区域内需理论,为扩大内需提供了新的方向,但是其有效性还有待于实践的检验。     

Population and economic development

The traditional view has been that population growth has adverse effects on real per capita incomes. China's restrictive population policy appears to have been based on the traditional view. There is substantial evidence that contradicts the conclusion that population growth is adverse to economic growth. Most empirical analyses of the relationship between population and economic growth do not find that there is an adverse effect. The history of the world has been that periods of low population growth have been periods of low economic growth and that high rates of economic growth have occurred when population growth is also high. Most of human history has had low population and low economic growth. Only recently has there been both rapid population and economic growth.     

Protecting infant industries: Canadian manufacturing and the national policy, 1870–1913

Infant industry protection has been the cornerstone of a debate on tariff policy that extends at least from the eighteenth century to the current day. In contrast to traditional neo-classical models of international trade that imply net negative effects, industrial organization and learning-by-doing trade models describe how protective tariffs can encourage output expansion, productivity improvement, and price reductions. Taking Canada's 1879 National Policy as a natural experiment, we explore the effect of a policy that substantially increased tariff protection to some, but not all, Canadian manufacturing industries. Using treatment intensity and difference-in-differences approaches, we find strong support for the predictions of the new trade models. After 1879, industries that received greater protection experienced faster growth in output and productivity, as well as larger price reductions. The industries targeted by the National Policy also exhibited greater returns to scale and faster learning rates. These results have important implications for the infant-industry debate in addition to addressing a central theme in Canadian economic history,     

循环经济:中国的必由之路

循环经济是一种顺应历史的、全新的经济增长模式。传统经济增长模式被循环经济所取代,是大势所趋,是历史的必然。中国的资源和环境状况决定了循环经济对我国具有特别重大的现实意义。本文在详细分析我国目前循环经济发展状况以及存在的主要障碍基础上,相应提出我国循环经济发展的对策措施。     

Finlands economy during the period of the gold standard

Abstract

The fruitful co-operation between economic history and economics has grown in scope and strength. In his investigations the economic historian has increasingly applied the methods and viewpoints of economic research; and in the field of economics there has been a growing understanding of the significance of the help to be obtained from economic history in expanding the range of economic statistics and other data. Just as, for example, national income calculations and other economic statistics have to-day been brought up to approximately equal standards in the different countries, so there is now an interest in extending these calculations as far back into history as possible. It has already proved possible in Sweden to take fairly reliable national income calculations back to the 1860s, but in Finland the corresponding data have so far been available only from 1926. Consequently, Finnish economic studies have tended, with a few exceptions, to be restricted in time to analyses of the 1930s and the post-war era. This has provided a rather narrow basis for investigations of, for example, business cycles; it has meant in fact that only one complete cycle has been examined, together with various other trends in the economy which were in many ways made exceptional by the war. The statistical background of what is termed economic growth, to which increasing attention has also been paid of late in Finland, has seemed especially limited. There is thus considerable need in Finland to enlarge the range of economic statistics, and the publication of Professor Heimer Björkqvist's work must therefore be greeted with satisfaction. It illustrates many aspects of the development of Finland's economic life during the functioning of the gold standard mechanism from 1878 to 1918, and it contains much new statistical material for the period, e.g. a wholesale price index.     

The development of economic history in Norway

Abstract

It might be a matter of dispute whether economic history is today a subject in its own right in Norway, that is whether there is a significant body of historians who identify with one another and with the problems, techniques and assumptions of economic history. Economic history is not really formally established. In contrast to Denmark and Sweden, there are no departments of economic history in the universities. An important exception is the economic history department at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration in Bergen. At Oslo University there has also been for some time a chair in “economic and social history” in the history department. At the new Norwegian School of Management in Oslo there is also about to be established a “Business History Unit”. Those working with economic history outside these institutions will normally be attached in some way to the history departments of other universities or to the university colleges (distrikts-høgskoler).     

加快辽宁经济发展方式转变的创新路径思考

辽宁作为老工业基地,长期积累形成了各种不平衡、不协调、不科学的经济发展问题。进入新世纪新阶段,外部经济发展环境日趋复杂多变,客观上要求辽宁切实寻求创新路径来加快转变经济发展方式,构建科学和可持续的经济增长模式,从根本上破解经济发展中的各种瓶颈与难题,推动经济社会又好又快发展。     

China＇s Economy in 2005： At a New Turning Point and Need to Fix Its Development Problems

I. High Growth, Higher Stakes China’s economy in 2005 experienced another year of surging growth, with its total GDP(based on recent revision) expanding at 9.9 percent to reach 18.23 tn yuan (US$2.26 tn).1 Growth in 2005 was slightly lower than the 10.1 percent in 2004; but it was nonetheless very high. Sustained high growth is accompanied by potential high risks, and it inevitably raises the issue of future sustainability of high growth. Although the Chinese economic policy-makers in 200…     

关于转变经济发展方式的理论分析与实践探讨

科学发展观要求一国经济要实现可持续发展,其数量表现为可持续增长。经济发展方式是指经济体发展的总体特征表现为粗放和集约两种形式。无论从理论上说还是从历史逻辑角度看,经济发展方式总是不同程度地从粗放向集约转变。这是各种生产要素通过各种途径不断吸纳,从而提高了科技含量的结果。由于我国人口众多、人均资源少、技术水平相对落后等资源禀赋特点,造成按科学发展观进行经济发展方式由粗放向集约转变与就业的“两难”选择的矛盾,为解决此矛盾,必须实施一套以教育和公共事业为主的有利于人力、物力资源开发利用,改善社会经济环境的转变经济发展方式的策略。     

Engel versus Baumol: Accounting for structural change using two centuries of U.S. data

In the last two centuries, the reallocation of labor out of agriculture has been a dominant feature of structural change and economic growth in the United States. This paper uses an accounting framework founded in economic theory to decompose this reallocation into three components: a demand-side effect due to the low income elasticity of demand for agricultural goods (Engel effect), and two supply-side effects, one due to differential sectoral productivity growth rates (Baumol effect), and the other to differential capital deepening. The results show that the Engel effect accounts for almost all labor reallocation until the 1950s, after which the Baumol effect becomes a key determinant. Our framework provides a unified account of long-run structural change, and demonstrates that historical interpretations and theoretical models that emphasize only one dimension of this process cannot properly account for the dramatic history of labor reallocation in the United States.     

Energy and machines. Energy capital ratios in Europe and Latin America. 1875–1970

The relationship between energy and capital is one of the most important aspects of modern economic growth. Machines need energy to produce all the goods we enjoy; energy would be far less useful for humankind in absence of machines. However, the great majority of the economic models do not take into account the elasticities of substitution (or complementaries) between these two main variables. Actually, energy is absent in many growth models and discussions on diverging economic development paths. We approach this relevant issue from a new perspective: energy and capital relations during 100 years. We use the latest estimations of capital stock (machinery and equipment) and energy consumption for Latin America and compare them with those of Western Europe. The energy–capital ratio (how much energy is used per unit of capital) could be a predictor of economic growth, thus providing stylised facts about the timing and causes of the different modernisation patterns of these regions and showing us some answers on the long-run relationship between energy consumption and capital accumulation.     

行业专长与审计质量非对称性：来自我国三大产业群的证据

行业专长是影响会计师事务所审计质量的重要因素。本文研究了我国三大产业群的行业专长与审计质量之间的关系。研究显示,具有行业专长的会计师事务所确实能够更有效地约束正向盈余管理,从而提高了审计质量,但对负向盈余管理的约束效应并不明显,行业专长对审计质量的影响存在非对称性。其原因在于,不同方向的盈余管理给会计师事务所带来的风险和诉讼压力是不同的,负向盈余管理较少受到监管机构的关注且容易屈从于客户的压力。因此,提高会计师事务所的行业专长和审计独立性,改革和完善公司治理结构,加大外部监管和违规处罚力度,是提高审计质量的根本出路。     

金融危机下中越经贸合作之探讨

随着席卷全球的金融危机向实体经济的蔓延,我国的传统出口市场美欧等国及地区的需求大幅下降,从而使拉动中国经济快速增长的三套马车之一出口遭受了严重下滑。在这样的形势下,寻找新的经济增长点,努力提升与其他新兴市场的贸易份额,不失为实现今年GDP增长保8的有效措施之一,而加强与我们最重要的邻居之一——东盟成员国越南的经贸合作无疑为我们的一项重点。本文探讨了中越经贸合作的历程、现状,中越开展经贸合作的优势、存在问题、解决方法以及合作的重点领域,具有一定的现实意义。     

Democracy, History, and Economic Performance: A Case-Study Approach

Crossnational statistical studies show a positive relationship between the length of time a country has been democratic and its economic performance. Old democracies grow faster, ceteris paribus, and also demonstrate advantages in some economic policies thought to be conducive to growth. However, the causal connections between regime history and economic policy and performance remain opaque. Arguments are highly speculative, for the causal pathways are usually difficult to measure and are not readily testable in a large-N cross-country format. In order to illuminate possible interconnections between regime history and economic performance we identify three countries in the developing world whose recent history may be regarded as illustrative: Brazil, India, and Mauritius. Our analysis of these cases focuses on the achievement of policy consensus and policy reform, both of which are commonly regarded as critical to economic performance. Intensive study of our chosen cases suggests multiple mechanisms by which democratic experience might translate into greater success on these policy dimensions.     

Taxes,the Speed of Convergence,and Implications for Welfare Effects of Fiscal Policy

Previous studies suggest that income taxes do not affect the convergence speed in neoclassical and new growth models. Those studies use very simple tax structures. This paper shows that a relation between taxes and convergence speed emerges if tax benefits are included in standard macroeconomic models. A welfare example suggests that the economic impact could be large even if the absolute size of the effect of taxes on convergence speed is small.     

The cost-benefit approach to development economics

The author starts with a review of past thinking on the process of growth, and the steady movement from the use of highly aggregated macro-growth models to highly disaggregated micro-models with a multiplicity of possible sources of growth. The identification of the most appropriate source of growth can best be carried out by cost-benefit analysis. He then examines the economics of policymaking in the less-developed countries, in the light of his earlier look at models of growth, and explores the application of the cost-benefit approach to the theory of effective protection and for economic planning, including in the later issues of income distribution and basic needs. While he finds that the gains from using cost-benefit analysis have been very great for microeconomic policy in the developing countries, the economic profession has not been as successful in deriving lessons for macro-policy in the light of the cost-benefit approach; and much more can be done in the macroeconomic area with this approach.