Time series test of nonlinear convergence and transitional dynamics

This paper revisits the income convergence hypothesis by using the nonlinear unit root test of Kapetanios et al. [Kapetanios, G., Shin, Y. and A. Snell, 2003. Testing for a unit root in the nonlinear STAR framework. Journal of Econometrics 112, 359–379.]. Out of the 12 OECD income gaps in which nonlinearity has been detected, two cases of long-run converging and four cases of catching up are found.     

An evolutionary model of long term cyclical variations of catching up and falling behind

We generalize a single-country model of endogenous growth to the case of a multi-country world economy in which technology transfer and behavioral imitation are the possible means of interaction between countries. The model is evolutionary in the sense that the economies are disaggregated by behaviourally heterogeneous firms, market selection occurs, and the innovation process is uncertain and stochastic. We demonstrate that this structure leads to a complex process of convergence and divergence over time that can be characterized as 1/f noise. Spectral analysis of measures of convergence for six core OECD countries in the period 1870–1989 reveals a similar pattern in the empirical data.     

The extent of the market and optimal specialization

Summary. In this paper I examine how the socially optimal allocation, and specialization in particular, depends on the extent of the market. I interpret the societys ability to keep transaction records as the extent of the market and measure it by a probability with which the society can update agents past transactions into the public record. The society uses this record to detect potential defections from the optimal allocation and to punish the defectors with autarky. I show that when is small, increasing increases optimal specialization. However, when is close to 1, increasing further has no effect on the optimal allocation. I also show that optimal specialization is gradual over time when there is cost to reduce specialization. Even for small , the process converges to the unconstrained optimum that would occur under .JEL Classification Numbers: D60, C78.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Society for Economic Dynamics meetings in Stockholm (2001). I thank a referee and the editor for useful comments and suggestions. For financial support, I gratefully acknowledge the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Bank of Canada Fellowship. The opinion expressed here is my own and does not reflect the view of the Bank of Canada.     

North-South knowledge spillovers and competition: convergence versus divergence

Technology spillovers from high-productivity countries in the North allow low-productivity countries in the South to improve productivity in high-tech sectors relatively easy. However, the South's share in world goods markets for high-tech products is relatively low, which reduces opportunities for learning by doing. Our simple Ricardian endogenous growth model shows how the balance between toughness of competition in trade and the strength of North-South spillovers determines whether productivity levels diverge, partially converge or fully converge in the long run. If convergence prevails, the North is confronted with declining employment in high-tech sectors. Temporary (trade) policy measures can turn a diverging economy into a converging one.     

Macroeconomic performance and convergence in OECD countries

This paper investigates the robustness of the correlation between growth and a set of variables which comprises accumulation rates in human and physical capital and medium term macroeconomic indicators in OECD countries. We include these variables as additional regressors in the standard growth equation that comes from the human capital-augmented Solow model. Our results show that variables related to medium term macroeconomic performance affect both growth and convergence. In some periods these variables even outperform the explanatory power of the conventional growth variables such as the accumulation rates. Our results also suggest that it is difficult to analyse the contribution to growth of any particular macroeconomic indicator in an isolated way. Rather, these effects should be studied in a framework that accounts for the macroeconomic performance of a country.     

Inequality convergence

Evidence is found that within-country income inequalities have been slowly converging since the 1980s; inequality is tending to fall (rise) in countries with initially high (low) inequality. Correcting for classical measurement error in the initial inequality measures has little affect on the speed of convergence.     

Cross sectional and panel estimation of convergence

Cross sectional estimation of convergence regressions is known to be hazardous if there is convergence towards heterogeneous steady state values. In this paper, Monte Carlo methods are used to investigate the implications of this parameter heterogeneity problem. The cross sectional and pooled OLS estimators are compared with a panel estimator which is unaffected by heterogeneity. If there is heterogeneity, the latter outperforms both the unconditional and conditional cross sectional and pooled OLS estimators.     

The interactions between national systems and sectoral patterns of innovation

Do national and sectoral innovation systems interact with each other? The paper explores this unexplored question by carrying out a cross-sector cross-country analysis of European systems of innovation in the 1990s. The empirical study takes Pavitt’s (Res Policy 13:343–373, 1984) taxonomy as a starting point, and it investigates the cross-country variability of Pavitt’s sectoral patterns of innovation. The analysis leads to three main results. First, the various technological trajectories show large differences across countries, due to the influence of national innovation systems. Second, there is evidence that the interaction between national systems and sectoral patterns of innovation constitutes an independent source of variability in the sample. Third, the analysis leads to the identification of eight sector- and country-specific technological trajectories in European manufacturing industries, and, based on that, proposes a refinement of Pavitt’s taxonomy. The refined taxonomy, in a nutshell, suggests that sectoral systems must be supported by and interact with their respective national systems in order to become industrial leaders.     

Conditional convergence and the dynamics of the capital-output ratio

Output per worker can be expressed as a function of technological efficiency and of the capital-output ratio. Because technology is exogenous in the Solow model, all of the endogenous convergence dynamics take place through the adjustment of the capital-output ratio. This paper uses the empirical behavior of the capital-output ratio to estimate the speed of conditional convergence of economies towards their steady-state paths. We find that the conditional convergence speed is about seven percent per year. This is somewhat faster than predicted by the Solow model and is significantly higher than reported in most previous studies based on output per worker regressions. We show that, once there are stochastic shocks to technology, standard panel econometric techniques produce downward-biased estimates of convergence speeds, while our approach does not. The views expressed in this paper are our own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland or the ESCB.     

Employment protection, international specialization, and innovation

We develop a model to analyze the implications of firing costs on incentives for R&D and international specialization. The key idea is that countries with a rigid labor market will tend to produce relatively secure goods, at a late stage of their product life cycle. Consequently, their researchers tend to specialize in ‘secondary innovation’ which improves existing products, rather than ‘primary innovation’ which introduces new products. This is roughly consistent with the observed pattern of R&D in Europe versus the U.S. Employment protection does not necessarily harm the country where it prevails, but typically reduces world welfare and the world number of goods.     

Almost sure convergence to zero in stochastic growth models

This paper considers the resource constraint commonly used in stochastic one-sector growth models. Shocks are not required to be i.i.d. It is shown that any feasible path converges to zero exponentially fast almost surely under a certain condition. In the case of multiplicative shocks, the condition means that the shocks are sufficiently volatile. Convergence is faster the larger their volatility, and the smaller the maximum average product of capital.I would like to thank Santanu Roy, John Stachurski, Lars J. Olson, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments and suggestions. The general result in section 2 owes much to the referee’s comments on an earlier version of this paper. Financial support from the 21 Century COE Program at GSE and RIEB, Kobe University is gratefully acknowledged.     

基于多元技术会聚的会聚影响力研究

近年来,知识体系间呈现交叉、融合发展态势,技术会聚对创新发展的影响日益加深,应对这一态势的关键在于把握技术会聚的核心技术领域。多领域交叉关系是当前技术会聚研究重点,以此为视角,以专利分类代码信息为研究对象,采用关联算法探测领域间的会聚关系,建立多元交叉影响关系测度模型,并引入特征向量中心度指标测度领域会聚影响力。运用以上构建方法,对生物技术领域相关专利进行实证分析,从而验证方法的可行性。     

国际垂直专业化对中国环境效率的影响

理论上,发达国家跨国公司主导下的国际垂直专业化通过工序配置和价值分配对发展中国家的环境技术进步及其技术效率产生负面影响,从而导致后者环境效率的恶化.本文基于我国省级和行业面板数据模型的检验表明,国际垂直专业化对中国环境技术进步和环境效率变化具有显著负作用.为提高环境效率,中国应改变在国际垂直专业化中被支配的地位,同时发达国家和国际组织应加强自身在环境技术扩散中的作用.     

Financial innovation: theoretical issues and empirical evidence in Italy and in the UK

In the first part of the paper, we try to clearly identify financial innovations and draw a general framework. Despite the relevance of financial innovations, a unique definition is difficult to find. We then provide empirical evidence of such innovations on a sample of Italian and UK listed banks over the period 2005–2007 using financial account data. First, the absence of any mention of a specific organizational unit in charge of research and development (R&D) is highlighted. However, the existence of a research and developmental function involving different organizational units cannot be excluded. Second, innovation seems to be mainly concentrated in the product area, both in Italy and in the UK. This could be accounted for by the difference in the “life cycles” of innovations and by the different operational conditions of banks in both systems. Third, larger banks seem more innovative, both in Italy and in the UK. No clear relation between innovation and cost reduction/revenue increase seems to exist, at least in Italy. In the light of the above considerations, policy implication comes to light on whether the choice of not establishing a specific organizational unit dedicated to R&D could turn out effective in the medium-long term.

中欧制造业产品内贸易对中国绿色技术溢出效应的影响

为分析贸易对绿色技术的传递作用,基于中间品贸易的技术溢出机制,选取2000—2019年中欧15个细分制造业数据,使用OECD环境技术专利数据库计算欧盟和中国绿色技术知识存量,从产品内贸易视角研究垂直专业化分工对中国绿色技术溢出的影响。结果表明：第一,产品内贸易具有显著正向溢出效应,且通过垂直专业化分工调节,绿色技术的行业溢出效应进一步放大;第二,相较于进口,产品内出口通过产业规模集聚表现出更为显著的出口学习效应,非物化型前沿环保技术更容易通过产品内出口向中国转移;第三,专业化分工对制造业内绿色技术创新能力的推动作用存在行业异质性。因此,中国应加强与环保技术领先国的产品内贸易,通过模仿学习不断吸收物化于产品中的环保工艺,从而推动本国绿色技术迭代和更新。     

Technological innovation and diffusion of wind power in Japan

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the diffusion of wind power in Japan by focusing on the value chain and the interaction between technology and markets and to contribute towards recommendations on technology policy and management. This paper proposes a framework for analyzing the early stage diffusion of wind power systems by combining the use of several approaches considering wind power system as a complex technological system. Firstly, the business system approach is used as an analytical framework by focusing on efficiency, effectiveness and development criteria. As a second approach, the technological trajectory was analyzed based on the concept of technological disequilibrium and the evolutionary patterns of innovation of wind power generation systems were analyzed and the relationship between innovations at the sub-system, modular, and system level was identified. We apply the framework to investigate why wind power diffusion has not picked up momentum in Japan.The results include the following: (1) Technological imbalances within the product system were solved by technological innovation (2) The wind power business in Japan is insufficiently effective due to organizational disequilibrium (3) The technology system has begun to evolve in the direction of micro grid systems. (4) It is important to consider the demand-pull measures for wind power generation so that Japanese institution can have a “time slot” for ”learning by doing” to catch up and accelerate diffusion of wind power generation, including institutional reform of RPS law. Also further technological development related to stabilizing unstable wind energy is required.     

Technology business incubators and regional economic convergence in China

Previous researches often claim the benefits of technology business incubators (TBIs). There is, however, little systematic evidence of TBIs’ role in promoting local economic growth in China where regions are in different development stages. Furthermore, no study has examined TBIs’ contribution to economic convergence. This paper aims to answer this question, based on panel data of Chinese national technology business incubators and the host cities from 2008 to 2012. The results indicate that there exists economic convergence both nationwide and in the western regions of China and no evidence has been found in the eastern and midland regions. Initial analysis without considering the incubator’s characteristics showed that TBIs do not accelerate economic convergence nationwide. We further take the incubator’s characteristics into consideration. We find that non-state-owned TBIs and specialised TBIs can speed the converging process while state-owned TBIs and diversified TBIs have no influence on the process of regional economic convergence.     

企业技术创新能力研究的现状与思考

本文通过对中国期刊网近十年相关文献的调研,揭示制约企业技术创新能力的主要因素,并给出了相应的对策建议。     

Testing for convergence of the Okun’s Law coefficient in Europe

Without convergence of macroeconomic parameters representative of the nature of adjustment mechanisms, even a common shock to members of a monetary union can lead to different macroeconomic consequences across the union and, eventually, to the need for more or less co-ordinated specific policies. In this paper, we test for the presence of convergence of the Okun’s Law coefficient (OLC) among several alternative groupings of European economies. The empirical strategy adopted is based on the evaluation of the time path of rolling regression estimates of the OLC for European countries. We then use a testing procedure suggested by Evans [Evans P (1996) J Econ Dynam Control 20:1027–1049] to investigate the convergence, or non-convergence, of the OLC in several groups of European countries by examining how the cross-country variance of the OLC evolves over time in these groups. A hypothesis of medium-term convergence of the OLC is rejected for most of the European country groups examined.