Household indebtedness in Korea: Its causes and sustainability

This paper investigates why household debt in Korea has increased so rapidly over the past decade and whether it is sustainable, adopting a multi-faceted approach which includes a time series analysis, a quantitative analysis based on household panel data, and an analysis using a debt dynamics equation derived from the household budget constraint. A regression analysis reveals that household debt growth has been significantly related to house price increases, banks’ lax attitudes toward household lending, and financial institutions’ favorable funding conditions. Also 70–80% of the total debt increase has been accounted for by high income or newly indebted households. The debt dynamics equation analysis shows that the rapid rise in the ratio of household debt to disposable income is attributable not only to the increase in household asset purchases but also to the dampened growth in disposable income and the reduced savings rate. The sustainability analyses indicate that Korean households’ debt sustainability is unlikely to deteriorate sharply within a short period of time unless two extreme scenarios, under which house prices decline by 5% a year over the next five years, or a significantly large macroeconomic shock similar to the 1997 crisis hits the economy, would be realized.     

Why Doesn't Regional Integration Improve Income Convergence in Africa?*

Abstract: This paper investigates why regional integration does not improve income convergence in Africa, despite the common goal of more open and freer trade. Based on empirical analysis using African countries data, the paper presents the evidence that there has been little progress in income convergence in Africa. The paper shows that despite the importance of regional integration there has been limited progress and prospects of the African integration process are not as promising as would be expected for such an important pillar in Africa's development agenda.     

GROWTH,EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA

The high rate of unemployment in South Africa stands out in an otherwise vastly improved set of macroeconomic fundamentals compared with the situation in the early 1990s. One might be tempted to argue that by this single indicator alone, the government's macroeconomic policies have been a failure. This paper explains why jumping to such a conclusion would be a mistake. Annual time series data on total formal sector employment is constructed dating back to 1946. The relationship between economic growth and formal sector employment is then measured and changes in the employment coefficient over time are described. The employment coefficient was found to be relatively stable, with a long‐term average value of 0.5. It returned to this value after a short‐lived collapse in the mid‐1990s. It is concluded that the main reason for the persistently high and rising rates of unemployment in South Africa since the mid 1990s was the very large increase in the labour force and not a historically deficient growth or employment performance of the economy.     

Resource mobilisation,institution and inclusive growth in Africa: Evidence from spatial analysis

This study accommodates spatial effects in the nexus between tax resource mobilisation (TRM) institutions and inclusive growth using panel data from 48 African countries. By adopting the spatial Durbin-fixed effect model, the study shows that spatial dependence and interaction matter when modelling TRM, institutions and inclusive growth relationships. It is also explicit that various disaggregated and aggregated tax components have not played significant roles in increasing inclusive growth in Africa, except property tax. The result suggests the need to harness the role of property tax for revenue generation in stimulating inclusive growth in view of its growth benefits over its distortions. Further evidence shows that all individual proxies of African institutions dampen inclusive growth. These results also pinpoint the weak governance structures that constitute huge constraints on the participatory tendencies of economic growth and reflect the institutional exclusiveness inherent in Africa. Regarding the interactive effects of institutions and TRM on inclusive growth, findings further reveal that existing institutions in Africa weaken the tax administration structures in propelling TRM to actualize inclusive growth. The study informs policy implications.     

Thirty years of legal and economic reform in China: growth,institutions, and laws

China's impressive economic growth over three decades has seemingly occurred in the absence of a strong legal system. This paper views China's reform process over the past three decades as one that has entailed a gradual introduction of market forces into areas of the economy, which requires both dismantling the structure of the centrally planned economy and developing market-oriented institutions. This paper argues that China's transition is premised on a set of informal, and increasingly formal, institutions that provided incentives during the process of gradual liberalization. Therefore, institutional developments were not absent. The exploration of the interplay between growth and institutions leads to the conclusion that continued economic growth in China will depend on implementing legal reforms better suited to the nature of the decentralized economy, hastened by the introduction of international economic laws and rules with greater global integration.     

Institutional differences as sources of growth differences

Until recently, most studies investigating the determinants of growth failed to incorporate the importance of institutions into the empirical analysis. This paper highlights the importance of institutions on growth and development and evaluates the empirical results on the effect of institutions on growth and investment. It provides ample evidence that the institutional environment in which an economic activity takes place is an important determinant of economic growth. This paper uses alternative measures of institutional quality to capture the role of institutions in explaining growth differences across countries. When these institutional variables are incorporated into the core regression equations as additional explanatory variables in two different sample periods, both samples yield similar results. The empirical results reveal that countries with high levels of economic growth are characterized by high levels of economic freedom and judicial efficiency, low levels of corruption, effective bureaucracy, and protected private property.     

Manufacturing productivity in China and India: The role of institutional changes

In this paper we undertake a comparative study of productivity in the manufacturing sector for China and India using data from survey of manufacturing industries for the two countries. We find that productivity of manufacturing industries in China relative to that in India improved substantially over the 1998–2003 period. Specifically, the average total factor productivity (TFP) growth for the manufacturing sector over this period was about 11% higher in China than in India. We document two substantial changes in government policies in China that were not witnessed in India. First, the late 1990s saw an enormous wave of ownership restructuring due to the formal endorsement of private property rights by the Chinese central government. Second, in 1997 a large scale labour retrenchment program was launched to address the long standing problem of labour redundancy in the public sector. Using data from the Chinese survey of manufacturing industries, we quantify the impact of these large scale institutional changes on TFP of Chinese manufacturing industries. We find that these policy changes can explain about 30% of the growth in TFP of manufacturing industries. Hence we conclude that these institutional changes in China can account for a significant part of the gains in productivity of manufacturing industries in China relative to that in India over the 1998–2003 period.     

The Growth Effects of the Bulging Economically Active Population in Sub‐Saharan Africa: Do Institutions Matter?

This paper examines the importance of good institutions in harnessing the growth effects of the bulging economically active population in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA). The paper utilizes a panel dataset comprising 39 countries over the period 2002–13. Based on the system generalized method of moments estimator, this paper finds that an increase in the relative size of the working‐age population has no direct significant impact on growth, except through the presence of strong and high‐quality institutions. The paper also finds that control of corruption, rule of law and political stability are the specific aspects of institutions that matter the most in reaping the dividend. These results do not only highlight the primacy of strong institutions but also shed light on the key institutional pillars that need to be strengthened to rake in the positive effects of an increasing working age population on economic growth in SSA.     

Quality of Institutions and Violence Incidence: a Cross-Country Analysis

This paper utilizes two alternative econometric strategies to test the hypothesis that countries with poor institutional arrangements create an environment with increased impunity, thus providing incentives for potential law-breakers to engage in criminal activities that lead to rapid contagion of violence. Several measures of institutions including legal, political, market, government, and sociocultural institutions are considered in the paper. The empirical analysis provides evidence that the impact of institutional quality on violence is important regardless of income levels. This finding implies that differences in quality of institutions explain why countries with similar levels of income per capita may have different rates of violence and crime. In addition, the results show that quality of institutions matter for a successful long-term strategy to reduce violence.     

The politics of rapid growth

Institutions are thought to be the critical antecedents of rapid economic growth. However, the effectiveness of similar institutions varies dramatically from country to country or even from region to region or from time to time. The differences in the effectiveness of institutions are attributed to the political process (the exercise of leadership in constructing coalitions that give policy legitimacy). Political processes resulting in elite coalitions with narrow interests are not likely to result in rapid growth, whereas elite coalitions where interests are encompassing in nature are likely to create states that are developmental and innovative. Whether elite coalition interests are encompassing or not depends on the extent to which political processes result in the incorporation of the developmental needs of the agricultural sector into the interests of the ruling coalition. This is most likely to occur when an agricultural technology backlog has accumulated over time. These ideas are illustrated with an analysis of the Vietnamese experience.     

Firm location choice in cities: Evidence from China,India, and Brazil

This paper contributes to the industrial location literature by examining why industry locates or refrains from locating in large, medium and small cities of India, China and Brazil using firm-level data from the World Bank. Results from ordered logistic regressions indicate that capital cities are not attractive for firms to locate, when they are large. In India and China, labor intensive firms do not locate in large cities. Proximity to inputs has a positive impact on firm location in China. While availability of inputs has a positive impact on firm location in India, the availability of raw materials has a negative impact on firm location in Brazil. Firms established in post-reform period in India tend to locate in large cities; in China, these firms avoid medium and large cities. The implications for urban governance in these countries are discussed.     

Explaining the Productivity Growth Gap Between China and India: The Role of Structural Transformation

Chinese and Indian aggregate productivity growth has been significantly different over the last 30 years. This paper studies the role of structural transformation in accounting for the aggregate productivity growth gap between two economies. We calibrate a neoclassical model of structural transformation for China and India. The model implies that higher productivity growth in China's manufacturing and agriculture accounts for most of the aggregate productivity growth gap between the two countries. According to the development strategy of China's government, China would start a new phase of structural transformation whereby employment is moving from manufacturing to services. Since the productivity growth gap in services is pretty small between China and India, if China wants to remain superior in relative productivity, it should improve the productivity growth rate of services. In contrast, the relative performance in India hinges on closing its productivity gap in agriculture and manufacturing relative to China.     

Participatory Exclusions,Community Forestry,and Gender: An Analysis for South Asia and a Conceptual Framework

The idea of people's participation has long been part of development thinking. But today the management of local natural resources by village communities is widely accepted as an institutional imperative. It is therefore essential to examine how these institutions perform, especially from the perspective of the more disadvantaged. Based on extensive fieldwork among community forestry groups in India and Nepal, and existing case studies, this paper demonstrates how seemingly participatory institutions can exclude significant sections, such as women. It provides a typology of participation, spells out the gender equity and efficiency implications of such exclusions, and analyzes what underlies them. It also outlines a conceptual framework to help analyze the process of gender exclusion and how it might be alleviated.     

Effective environmental protection in the context of government decentralization

China has shifted control over resources and decision making to local governments and enterprises as the result of the economic reforms over the past three decades. This devolution of decision-making to local levels and enterprises has placed environmental stewardship in the hands of local officials and polluting enterprises who are more concerned with economic growth and profits than the environment. Therefore, effective environmental protection needs their full cooperation. Against this background, this paper discusses a variety of tactics that China’s central government has been using to incentivize local governments, and a number of market-based instruments, supporting economic policies, environmental performance ratings and disclosure and cooperation with financial institutions to promote long-lasting, improved corporate energy-saving and environmental performance. It concludes that there is a clear need to carefully examine those objective and subjective factors that lead to the lack of local official’s cooperation on the environment, and provides some suggestions for appropriated incentives to get their cooperation.     

A Tale of Two Countries and Two Stages: South Africa,China and the Lewis Model

The paper compares the economic progress of two countries, South Africa and China, in relation to the Lewis model. These economies are chosen because they have interesting similarities and also interesting differences. At the start of economic reform in China and with the advent of democracy in South Africa, both countries had surplus labour: they were at the first, labour-surplus, stage of the Lewis model. It is shown that, since then, South Africa has continued to experience surplus labour: the unemployment rate has risen. By contrast, China’s labour market is shown to have tightened, and there is evidence that China has entered the second, labour-scarce, stage of the Lewis model. The difference lies in their growth rates. There are sections explaining why the South African economy has grown slowly and why the Chinese economy has grown rapidly, in relation to the growth of their labour forces. The Lewis model provides an enlightening framework for explaining how widely the fruits of economic development can be shared.     

政府政策对农民收入的影响分析

新阶段农业和农村问题的核心归结为农民收入的增长问题.政策是农民增收的灵魂,政策为农民增收提供制度上的保证.文章就是分析了政策为什么能影响农民增收,探讨政策如何影响农民增收问题,然后得出一些建设性结论.     

High‐speed Rail and Urban Economic Growth in China after the Global Financial Crisis

High‐speed rail (HSR) has been an important driver of China's economic expansion over the last decade. Using data of 285 prefecture‐level cities over 2010–2014, this paper proposes an endogenous economic growth model to explain how and why HSR may have propelled China's economic growth by reducing the time‐space between cities. The research results show that HSR has a potent effect on urban economic growth and regional convergence. Ceteris paribus, HSR appears to have accelerated economic growth by more than 0.6 percent and the pace of regional economic convergence by approximately 2 percent per annum over the data period. Our research findings have important policy implications for the sustainability of China's economic development, backed by HSR.     

Australian Labour Market Institutions Through Time: A Perspective from the New Institutional Economics

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Australian economy over most of the past century has been its labour market institutions and organizations. Recently these institutions have changed to become more decentralized. Douglas North has argued that examining and explaining institutional change through time is an important and comparatively unresearched topic facing economic historians. In this paper, changes to Australia's labour market institutions are examined from the perspective of the New Institutional Economics. Following North, it is argued that further research should be directed to identifying the role ideological beliefs have played in shaping Australia's labour market institutions over time.     

石油冲击对“金砖国家”经济增长和通胀的影响

本文从外生性、长期乘子和短期动态乘子研究石油冲击对"金砖国家"经济增长和通货膨胀的影响。文章引入了Bootstrap方法对短期动态乘子进行了统计推断,结果表明:石油价格对"金砖国家"经济具有外生性;长期而言,油价会显著拉动巴西和俄罗斯的经济增长,还会显著推高俄罗斯的通货膨胀;短期而言,油价会显著刺激巴西、俄罗斯和南非的经济增长,还会显著推高俄罗斯、印度和中国的通货膨胀。本文认为,石油冲击不是导致世界经济衰退的主要原因,但它可能是形成全世界范围内通货膨胀不可忽略的重要因素。