Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Growth in China, 1994–2002

The question of whether fiscal decentralization has affected economic growth since the 1994 fiscal reform in China is interesting to both policy makers and economists. Using a simple model of endogenous growth that incorporates spending by different levels of government, and a panel data set for 30 provinces for the period of 1994–2002, this paper finds that fiscal decentralization contributes significantly to economic growth. This finding is consistent with the theoretical prediction that fiscal decentralization can increase economic efficiency. In addition, this paper attempts to investigate how the relationship between fiscal decentralization and provincial growth differs in the different regions considered. For this purpose, the 30 Chinese provinces and regions are categorized into three conventional economic belts that comprise the eastern, central, and western areas. This study finds that the effects of fiscal decentralization on economic growth vary among these three regions.     

Food policy and class transformation in revolutionary Nicaragua, 1979–1986

State grain policy in Nicaragua has represented both a short-run intervention in food production and a longer-run strategy of class transformation. The emphasis given peasant production of corn and beans has depended on both considerations, and has varied over the seven years of the revolutionary process. A class analysis of this policy reveals changing responses by the FSLN to external and internal political and economic conditions. Recent measures point to an acceptance of petty commodity grain production, which may or may not be compatible with socialist agricultural development.     

Determinants of the levels and distribution of PL 480 food aid: 1955–1979

This paper reports the results of statistical tests of hypotheses related to a number of debates surrounding the determinants of the levels and distribution of US food aid. The statistical results supported the following hypotheses: (1) PL 480 food aid is influenced by the need of the recipient country; (2) PL 480 food aid is tied to political and military concerns of the US; (3) PL 480 food aid is influenced by the political party occupying the White House; (4) PL 480 food aid and US commercial sales of agricultural commodities are substitutes; and (5) PL 480 food aid is inversely related to a recipient's foreign exchange holdings.     

Growth and Common Prosperity in China

This paper introduces a decomposition method that quantifies the contributions to common prosperity of labor market performance and social policies and extends the idea of shared prosperity to a new measure of inequity in opportunities.The resulting common prosperity indices and opportunity equality indices are then applied to five waves of the Chinese Household Income Project data from 1988 to 2018.This paper shows that the labor market performance and social policies have been improving over the last 30 years and have helped China move towards common prosperity for everyone.The indices developed in this paper allow us to quantify the extent of shared prosperity that a country has achieved and to carry out empirical studies on which policy is working and which is not.It can also help us identify the fundamental causes of inequality and aid us in achieving equality in opportunity among all members of society.     

Rural–urban income disparity: impact of growth,allocative efficiency,and local growth welfare

Historical data of economic development suggest a Kuznets–Williamson type of relationship between economic growth and income disparity. Using China's provincial data, we first try to determine to what extent such a relationship is valid in the urban–rural disparity context. Next, we identify some factors other than economic growth that might have affected urban–rural disparity. In particular, we calculate and compare the inter-sector gross allocation effect (GAE) at the provincial level to discern the impact of labor mobility and allocative efficiency on urban–rural disparity. We also try to evaluate the contribution of local governance to urban–rural disparity by looking into regional differences in effectiveness of economic growth to raise local standard of living. Policy implications of the findings are discussed in the light of China's institutional reforms and development strategies.     

Tides and Prejudice: Racial Attitudes During Downturns in the United States 1979–2014

What happens to racial prejudice during economic downturns? This paper analyzes white attitudes towards African Americans in the United States at different points in a business cycle from 1979 to 2014. Using a number of indicators of hostility towards African Americans available from the General Social Survey we develop an indicator of racial prejudice. We combine this with data on unemployment from the Current Population Survey and find robust evidence that racial hostility as measured by our indicator of prejudice is counter cyclical and rises during periods of higher unemployment for whites. Specifically a one standard deviation in the unemployment rate being experienced by whites is associated with a .03 to.05 standard deviation increase in the discrimination index. This is of a magnitude comparable with one year less of education. We undertake a quantile regression to show that this effect is widespread across the distribution of prejudice and that apart from those with initially low levels of prejudice, increasing own group unemployment results in statistically significant increases of similar magnitude in prejudice across that distribution.     

The rise of the middle class: the income gap between salaried employees and workers in Sweden,ca. 1830–1940

ABSTRACT

We present the first comprehensive, long run salary information on Swedish middle-class employees before the twentieth century. Our data include, for instance, school teachers, professors, clerks, policemen and janitors in Stockholm and Sweden, ca. 1830–1940. We use the new data to compare the annual earnings of these middle-class employees with the annual earnings of farm workers, unskilled construction workers and manufacturing workers. The results show that the income gap between the middle class and the working class widen drastically from the mid-nineteenth century to a historically high level during the 1880s and 1890s. The differentials then decreased during the first four decades of the twentieth century. The bulging earnings advantage of middle-class employees vis-à-vis unskilled workers chimes with Kocka’s depiction of the latter half of the nineteenth century as the era of the bourgeoisie.     

Distribution and Permanent Cyclical Fluctuation of Growth in China

Combing the consumer utility function with technology choice and the firm＇s profit maximization function, this paper establishes a model, then basing on the firm＇s behavior in the capital marketing, the equilibrium can be reached. So the phenomenon of permanent cyclical fluctuation of growth can be presented in this model. The reason, basing on the model, is the inharmonious proportion that is distributed to the labor and investor. The empirical research in China proves the hypothesis. At last, economic policies for escaping from permanent cyclical fluctuation have been put forward.     

Changing Engines of Growth in China： From Exports, FDI and Marketization to Innovation and Exports

This paper investigates the changing sources of growth in post-reform China. Using crossprovince regressions, this paper finds that, in earlier periods, exports, foreign direct investment and marketization were significantly related to per capita income growth, whereas＇ since the late 1990s, foreign direct investment and marketization have lost their significance and have been replaced by new sources of growth, such as innovation and knowledge, with only exports continuing to be important. This finding is robust after controlling for other variables representing other economic policies and provincial characteristics. We also tackle the possible endogeneity of innovation variables using the instrumental variables estimation method.     

Welfare and economic growth in Kenya, 1914–76

In this paper we present estimates of per capita income, income distribution, and poverty in Kenya for the period between 1914 and 1976. The estimates indicate that per capita incomes mostly increased up to 1974; inequality increased most of the time until 1950, then fell and increased again until 1971 and then finally fell; poverty declined until 1964 but has since then increased slightly. A decomposition analysis shows that modern sector enrichment contributed more to growth than modern sector enlargement, and that traditional sector enrichment was of greater importance to the poor than modern sector enlargement.     

Internal migration and industrialization in Finland, 1878–1939

Abstract

For the economic historian the statistics of population are quite as important as those of trade. To understand the economic development of a country it is necessary to have some knowledge I: 0 of the distribution of population at different periods, 2:0 of what changes have been effected by migration, and also 3 : 0 of the forces influencing migration. The analysis of these forces helps, moreover, to illuminate the nature of man's economic behaviour.     

Innovation and industrial renewal in Sweden, 1970–2007

This study explores the question of whether the Swedish innovation output of the 1970s and 1980s (and the following decades) indicates structural lock-in or renewal. It is motivated by inconsistent explanations in the current literature about the relation between the economic slowdown and subsequent industrial renewal, as well as a lack of research focusing, in this context, on the primary driver of economic growth and structural change: innovation. By observing the number and type of innovations as they hit the market, the data in this paper tell a real time story about micro level innovation activity during the time that the economic crisis unfolds. The analysis considers Swedish innovation output between 1970 and 2007, characterising the number of significant innovations, their novelty, and their origin (including size of firm and industry sector). Three central findings emerge, defined by both the time period and the character of innovations. First, the magnitude of innovation activity peaks in the late 1970s to early 1980s. Second, starting in the late 1970s, small firms begin to outperform large firms in terms of both innovation quantity and quality (i.e. world market novelties). Third, the 1980s saw a distinct shift in the industrial origin of innovations, with software and telecom becoming the leaders in innovation output. The findings suggest that the observed industrial renewal is more nuanced than what has emerged from previous research.     

Polluting Non-renewable Resources and Sustainable Growth in a Schumpeterian Model

This paper explores the link between environment and economic growth in an Schumpeterian model of endogenous growth with vertical innovations, in which we introduce non-renewable resources, which cause flow pollution problems. It examines the conditions under which sustainable growth is optimal. We also perform some comparative static exercises to analyze the effects of parameter variations arising from the economic environment on the steady-state growth rate.     

Swedish Harvests, 1665–1820: Early Modern Growth in the Periphery of European Economy

Abstract

Today, one of the greatest challenges facing macroeconomic history is to quantify economic growth in the early modern period. This article presents and discusses a series of total and per capita harvest production in Sweden within present borders for the period 1665–1820. The series is based on three main indices: grain prices, subjective harvest assessments and tithes. Various sources of harvests are more reliable as indicators of relative changes than of absolute levels. For example, tithes probably only taxed between 15 and 60 per cent of the actual harvests, but seem to capture annual harvest fluctuations reasonably well. To estimate the absolute level of per capita harvests, the index of the per capita harvest production is linked to data for the early nineteenth century, which are more reliable. The article argues that harvests stagnated during the studied period, which is in line with several other studies for various European countries. The annual fluctuations were substantial.     

Inflation and Economic Growth in China： An Empirical Analysis

Using official provincial data for gross provincial product, consumer price index and other explanatory variables from 1986 to 2006, the present paper investigates the nonlinear effects of inflation on economic growth in China. The main finding of the study is that the inflation threshold effect is highly significant and robust in China. Above the 2.50 percent threshold, every 1‐percentage point increase in the inflation rate impedes economic growth by 0.61 percent; below this threshold, every 1‐percentage point increase in the inflation rate stimulates growth by 0.53 percent. This indicates that high inflation harms economic growth, whereas moderate inflation benefits growth. We suggest that China should maintain a moderate inflation rate for long‐run growth.     

Macroeconomic Policy, Exchange Rate Regimes and Economic Growth

China has been keeping high economic growth rate since it carried out managed floating exchange rate regimes in 1994, while now begins to face retrenchment pressure brought by the depression of internal and external economy. The establishment of RMB exchange rate regime should take account of the validity of macroeconomic policy, macroeconomic growth and the regional internationalization of RMB.     

Inflation,expectations and qualitative government policy in Ecuador, 1970–1982

A model of constrained money demand for a dominated domestic currency is specified. It is found that the model traces the evolution of the course of inflation when applied to the experience of Ecuador and provides an interpretation for the differing statistical relationship between money and prices during the estimation period.     

Does Economic Growth Really Benefit the Poor? Income Distribution Dynamics and Pro-poor Growth in Indonesia

We explore the nexus between poverty, inequality, and economic growth in Indonesia between 2002 and 2012, using several pro-poor growth concepts and indices to determine whether growth in this period benefited the poor. Our regression-based decompositions of poverty into growth and redistribution components suggest that around 40% of inequality in total household expenditure in Indonesia was due to variations in expenditure by education characteristics that persisted after controlling for other factors. We find that economic growth in this period benefited households at the top of the expenditure distribution, and that a ‘trickle down’ effect saw the poor receive proportionately fewer benefits than the non-poor. If reducing poverty is one of the Indonesian government's principal objectives, then policies designed to spur growth must take into account the possible impacts of growth on inequality.     

Sustaining Economic Growth in China under Energy and Climate Security Constraints

I. Introduction China has impressed the world with a nearly constant two digit rate of economic growthover the past quarter of a century. For the first 20 years in the twenty-first century, the national target is to quadruple the size of the economy. However, the growth target is under increasing security concerns from the perspective of energy supply and climate change. As both energy supply and global warming are of global and strategic significance with clear implications for national econ…