Intelligence, Human Capital, and Economic Growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) Approach

Human capital plays an important role in the theory of economic growth, but it has been difficult to measure this abstract concept. We survey the psychological literature on cross-cultural IQ tests and conclude that intelligence tests provide one useful measure of human capital. Using a new database of national average IQ, we show that in growth regressions that include only robust control variables, IQ is statistically significant in 99.8% of these 1330 regressions, easily passing a Bayesian model-averaging robustness test. A 1 point increase in a nation’s average IQ is associated with a persistent 0.11% annual increase in GDP per capita.     

谈人类发展指数的理论评价与应用

人类发展指数(HDI)从人本主义出发,取代传统的片面追求经济增长,单纯比较人均GDP的方法,更加全面科学地为各国的发展实践提供了衡量的标准;同时,可以通过对这个指标体系中各项分指标进行分析比较,发现与别国的差距,以进一步改良政策,使本国的经济和社会都能够更健康地发展,尤其无论从理论上还是指标设计上都可以为我国建设和谐社会和实现经济可持续性发展的目标服务.就人类发展指标体系的创建进行阐述,然后对其包含的发展思想进行理论评价,最后以中国的发展实践中存在的问题进一步证明研究和重视人类发展指数的意义.     

Measuring human development: a stochastic dominance approach

We consider a weighting scheme that yields a best-case scenario for measured human development such as the official equally-weighted Human Development Index (HDI) using an approach that relies on consistent tests for stochastic dominance efficiency. We compare the official equally-weighted HDI to all possible indices constructed from a set of individual components to obtain the most optimistic scenario for development. In the best-case scenario index education is weighted considerably more than the other two components, per capita income and life expectancy, relative to the weight that it gets in the official equally-weighted index. It also turns out that the improvement in the official HDI is mainly driven by improvements over time in the education index, the component moving fastest relative to its targets, when compared with per capita income and life expectancy. We find that the best-case scenario hybrid index leads to a marked improvement of measured development over time when compared with the official equally-weighted HDI.     

论人工智能生成发明的可专利性及权利归属

当前，人工智能发明对专利客体范围、专利“三性”审查标准及专利权属制度造成巨大冲击。就专利客体而言，在“算法＋技术”规则的指引下，可将人工智能生成的技术方案明确为方法类专利客体；在专利“三性”审查方面，借鉴人工智能技术中立优势对相关发明进行“新式审查”，可以化解对传统审查方式的冲击；在专利权属制度设计上，基于产业政策和利益平衡考量，构建以人工智能投资者为核心、辅之以意思自治原则的专利权属制度成为必然。     

Well-being and/or quality of life in EU countries through a multidimensional index of sustainability

The aim of my paper is to demonstrate that Sen's theory of well-being can be applied to make the concept of sustainable human development operational through the building of a multidimensional index of sustainability which takes into account, at the same time, economic, social and environmental variables. This index may be considered an alternative to the current measures of welfare/sustainability since not only conventional measures such as GDP, but also multi-attribute indices, such as Human Development Index (HDI), Genuine Savings, Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) etc., are found to be inadequate to make the concept of sustainable development operational. Therefore, the limitations of these measures of welfare/sustainability justify the search for a new index of sustainability. This index will show, at the operational level, how Sen's theory of well-being can be useful to sustainable development. It was applied to EU countries using the standardised deviation methodology being the closest and most suitable methodology to be adopted for building multidimensional indices. The factor analysis methodology will also be used in my paper. Lastly, the comparison between Sen's trend of sustainability and GDP trend index number-which are both of them applied to Italy-will show how much the criticisms and the limitations directed towards the indicator of GDP are founded.     

Measuring sustainable development — Nation by nation

Sustainable development represents a commitment to advancing human well-being, with the added constraint that this development needs to take place within the ecological limits of the biosphere. Progress in both these dimensions of sustainable development can be assessed: we use the UN Human Development Index (HDI) as an indicator of development and the Ecological Footprint as an indicator of human demand on the biosphere. We argue that an HDI of no less than 0.8 and a per capita Ecological Footprint less than the globally available biocapacity per person represent minimum requirements for sustainable development that is globally replicable. Despite growing global adoption of sustainable development as an explicit policy goal, we find that in the year 2003 only one of the 93 countries surveyed met both of these minimum requirements. We also find an overall trend in high-income countries over the past twenty five years that improvements to HDI come with disproportionately larger increases in Ecological Footprint, showing a movement away from sustainability. Some lower-income countries, however, have achieved higher levels of development without a corresponding increase in per capita demand on ecosystem resources.     

Human development and decentralization: The importance of public health expenditure

In this article, we empirically analyze the impact of central and subnational government spending on human development in a sample of 57 developed and developing countries over the period 2000–18. Specifically, we focus on the effects of health and education public expenditure on the Human Development Index (HDI) and its dimensions (life expectancy, education, and income). Applying data panel analysis, our empirical evidence shows the importance of central and subnational government health expenditure positively impacting on HDI and each of its components, while in the case of the education expenditure, this positive effect is only confirmed on the educational dimension of HDI. Our study shows how governments can stimulate human development, improving the well-being of citizens, by allocating more resources to healthcare through the different administrative levels.     

Individualism–collectivism,governance and economic development

While an individualist society prizes personal control, autonomy and individual accomplishments, a collectivist one puts a premium on loyalty and cohesion and imposes mutual obligations in the context of in-groups. It has been argued that, in contrast to collectivism, individualism will promote economic development directly by sharpening individual incentives to invest, innovate and accumulate wealth. In this article, I argue that the individualist–collectivist dimension can also affect development through its impact on the quality of government. The in-group favoritism inherent to collectivist societies is likely to engender corruption, nepotism and clientelism in the public sphere. In individualist societies, the relative weakness of in-group pressures and an emphasis on personal achievement and worth will contribute towards a more meritocratic and efficient public sector to the benefit of long-run growth. Empirical evidence is provided suggesting that insofar as individualism affects economic development it does so because it promotes good governance.     

Resources,reserves and their economic potential or how scarce is scarce?

Economic planning of any kind is influenced strongly by the rational expectations that planners have of what is possible and preferable. Although economic theory ascribes the attribute of scarcity to all goods and services, it is impossible to derive explicit measures of scarcity from economic information. This paper discusses the significance of energetic indicators for energy and economic planning with reference to the New Zealand experience of national hydroelectricity development, 1915–1985. “Net energy yield” and “energy yield ratio” are advanced as quantitative indicators of absolute and relative scarcity for energy commodities. The paper questions the appropriateness of current planning expectations in the light of recent energy analyses of the national electricity-producing system and suggests that the country has reached a critical turning point in energy developments. Implications for general energy resource development in New Zealand are discussed in a historical context that can be generalized globally.     

Speculation-led economic development: a post-Keynesian interpretation of financial liberalization programmes in the Third World

The paper presents a post-Keynesian interpretation of the consequences of financial liberalization (FL) programmes in less developed countries (LDCs). The interpretation advanced here incorporates the new-Keynesian concepts of adverse selection and credit rationing into a post-Keynesian framework. It is argued that FL can lead to a particular kind of development, ‘speculation-led economic development’, which is characterized by a preponderance of risky investment practices and shaky financial structures. In addition, FL is likely to induce an increase in directly unproductive profit-seeking activities, a greater likelihood of financial crises, a misallocation of credit and, ultimately, diminished rates of real sector economic growth. Given the likelihood of these outcomes (as well as their realization in LDCs that have implemented FL), FL programmes are argued to be a poor foundation for stable and sustained real-sector economic growth, especially in the context of resource-scarce LDCs.     

我国政府支出对人类发展指数影响的经验分析

文章用我国国家财政支出和预算外支出度量政府支出,计算出政府支出的增长率作为我国财政政策变动的代理变量,用我国的人类发展指数度量人类发展状况.对数据整理后,形成政府支出增长率和人类发展指数变动的时间序列.使用计量经济学的方法考察了政府支出变动对人类发展指数变动的影响,在借鉴其他学者对政府支出和经济增长关系研究成果的基础上,得出的基本结论是:在1990-2003年间,我国财政政策的变动和人类发展指数的变动没有显著的相关关系,二者之间也不能相互解释,我国财政政策依然是以拉动经济增长为政策偏向的,考虑财政政策变动的时滞,发现其对我国人类发展指数的影响为负.     

The pentagon of vulnerability and resilience: A methodological proposal in development economics by using graph theory

Several assessments of vulnerability and resilience have been attempted at a country level through composite indices but they are barely in accord with a holistic view of sustainable development. We suggest graph theory to structure a network of variables that depict vulnerability and resilience from a sustainable development perspective. Vulnerability is defined as the propensity to incur adverse shocks whereas resilience is the capacity to cope with their negative effects. We identify two control dimensions of vulnerability–resilience (economic and political) and three contingency factors (the social, environmental and the peripheral dimensions). The specificity of the control dimensions is rooted in their impact on all other sides of the pentagon. We propose an algorithm to select the key variables useful in building a composite index that conforms to the structure of these five dimensions while preventing loss of information. An application is provided on Singapore, which has been specified as a typical case of resilience.     

Evolutionary macroeconomics: a research agenda

In this article, the goal is to offer a new research agenda for evolutionary macroeconomics. The article commences with a broad review of the main ideas in the history of thought concerning the determinants of economic growth and an introduction to the evolutionary perspective. This is followed by a selective review of recent evolutionary approaches to macroeconomics. These approaches are found to be somewhat disconnected. It is argued that the ‘micro-meso-macro’ approach to economic evolution is capable of resolving this problem by offering an analytical framework in which macroeconomics can be built upon ‘meso-foundations’, not micro-foundations, as asserted in the mainstream. It is also stressed that the economic system and its components are complex adaptive systems and that this complexity must not be assumed away through the imposition of simplistic assumptions made for analytical convenience. It is explained that complex economic systems are, at base, energetic in character but differ from biological complex systems in the way that they collect, store and apply knowledge. It is argued that a focus upon stocks and flows of energy and knowledge in complex economic systems can yield an appropriate analytical framework for macroeconomics. It is explained how such a framework can be connected with key insights of both Schumpeter and Keynes that have been eliminated in modern macroeconomics. A macroeconomic framework that cannot be operationalized empirically is of limited usefulness so, in the last part of the article, an appropriate methodology for evolutionary macroeconomics is discussed.     

Computer Price Indices and International Growth and Productivity Comparisons

Methodologies to derive price indices for information and communication technology (ICT) products vary between national statistical offices. This may lead to significant differences in measured price changes for these products and there has been concern about the international comparability of volume growth rates of GDP between several OECD countries. This article discusses the possible consequences for measures of economic growth of replacing one set of price indices by another one in the framework of national accounts. It is argued that the issue of ICT deflators cannot be dealt with in isolation and several other factors have to be taken into account, in particular whether ICT products are final or intermediate products, whether they are imported or domestically produced and whether national accounts are set up with fixed or chain weighted index numbers. Overall, results point to modest effects at the aggregate GDP level but may be more significant when it comes to component measures such as volume growth of investment, or of output in a particular industry.     

Economic reforms and human development: evidence from transition economies

Do market-oriented economic reforms result in higher levels of human well-being? This article studies the impact of macro-level institutional and infrastructure reforms on the economic, educational and health dimensions of human well-being among 25 transition economies. We use panel data econometrics based on the LSDVC technique to analyse the effects of market-oriented reforms on the human development index (HDI), as a measure of human well-being, from 1992 to 2007. The results show the complexity of reform impacts in transition countries. They show that institutional and economic reforms led to positive economic effect and significant impacts on other dimensions of human development. We find some positive economic impacts from infrastructure sectors reforms. However, not every reform measure appears to generate positive impacts. Large-scale privatizations show negative effects in health and economic outcomes. The overall results show the importance of the interaction among different reform measures and the combined effect of these on human development.     

地区差距、公共支出与中国人类发展

目前,人类发展的概念正逐步取代了等同于经济增长的发展观。现有的公共支出水平,尤其是与人类发展密切相关的公共支出是否有效地促进中国人类发展水平,以及地区间公共支出水平的差异是否会对各地的人类发展产生不同的影响,成为我们需要解答的问题。本文研究表明,虽然就全国范围看,各类公共支出促进了中国人类发展指数及各分项指数的提高,但是,按经济发展水平分组的研究却显示,只有人均基建支出无一例外显著地促进了各地区的经济发展,其余指标表现出较大的地区差异。     

Happiness and the Human Development Index: Australia Is Not a Paradox

In ‘Happiness and the Human Development Index: The Paradox of Australia’, Blanchflower and Oswald (2005) observe an apparent puzzle: they claim that Australia ranks highly in the Human Development Index (HDI), but relatively poorly in happiness. However, when we compare their happiness data with the HDI, Australia appears happier, not sadder, than its HDI score would predict. This conclusion also holds when we turn to a larger cross‐national dataset than the one used by Blanchflower and Oswald, when we analyse life satisfaction in place of happiness, and when we measure development using Gross Domestic Product per capita in place of the HDI. Indeed, in the World Values Survey, only one other country (Iceland) has a significantly higher level of both life satisfaction and happiness than Australia. Our findings accord with numerous cross‐national surveys conducted since the 1940s, which have consistently found that Australians report high levels of well‐being.     

Endogenous categorization of the human development

The human development index (HDI) is one of the most well-known measures of welfare. We apply clustering techniques to endogenously determine how similar countries are with respect to the HDI, and into how many categories they can be classified. We find that, in contrast to the usual assumption in the United Nations’ Human Development Reports, the number of categories is not fixed and has varied over time, from three in 1990 to four in 2014. We also find that the countries within each category differ from the United Nation’s proposal.     

数智化如何赋能经济高质量发展——兼论营商环境的调节作用

数智化如何赋能经济高质量发展，是近年来实务界和学术界共同关注的焦点。从理论上分析数智化对经济高质量发展的影响机制，并探讨营商环境对两者关系的调节作用，然后以2009-2018年我国内地31个省、市、自治区数据为样本，实证检验上述影响机制和调节作用。研究发现，数智化转型与应用对经济高质量发展具有积极促进作用，营商环境在数智化与经济高质量发展之间具有显著调节作用，营商环境越优良，数智化对经济高质量发展的促进作用越显著。同时，营商环境的调节作用在我国存在显著的区域差异性，其在东部和中部地区的调节作用显著高于西部地区。     

Financial development,political rights,civil liberties and economic growth: Evidence from South Asia

A number of existing studies have examined the theoretical link between financial development and economic growth. Kose et al. (2010), among others, have argued that financial development can affect the extent of the benefits from foreign direct investment. Other studies, such as Huang (2010) have suggested that the quality of political institutions can also affect the level of financial development. This implies that the extent of the benefits from financial development also depend on the quality of governance. However, few empirical studies have considered these issues. By making use of panel data over the period 1970 to 2009, this paper focuses on the impact of the interaction of (i) financial development and foreign direct investment and (ii) financial development and the quality of governance on economic growth in South Asia. Our empirical analysis, suggests that financial development has contributed to an increase in the benefits of FDI in South Asia. In addition, improvement in political rights and civil liberties has also enhanced the benefits of financial development in South Asia.