Harrod's dynamics and the theory of growth: the story of a mistaken attribution

Post-Keynesian growth theory is normally seen as originatingfrom Harrod's 1939 'Essay in Dynamic Theory'. Harrod, however,was trying to lay the foundations of a new approach to economicdynamics, and often complained of misinterpretation. In thispaper, the grounds of Harrod's argument are examined and comparedwith the 'textbook' interpretation. The latter is shown to beextremely reductive, as it ignores both Harrod's interest inthe trade cycle and his methodological criticism of the 'time-lagtheories of the cycle', and it also underrates the interestingimplications of his non-linear approach and the epistemic implicationsof the instability principle.     

‘Anecdotal myths’: Tinbergen's influence on Harrod's growth theory

Abstract

In the history of economic theory, Harrod's transition from the explanation of business cycles in An Essay on the Trade Cycle (1936) to his well‐known growth theory in ‘An essay in dynamic theory’ (1939) has always been surrounded by some degree of speculation. One of the topics in that area of speculation concerns the (degree of) influence exerted by Tinbergen on the development of Harrod's growth theory during the 1936–9 period.

This paper argues that Tinbergen's influence on Harrod's work mainly took place on formal, mathematical, grounds, leaving methodological matters untouched. This matter is of some importance in understanding the success of what was initially considered by others as a ‘dynamic’ extension of the Keynesian research programme and later evolved, through the work of Tinbergen and Solow, into a neoclassical growth theory.     

Sources of economic growth in China from 2000–2013 and its further sustainable growth path: A three-hierarchy meta-frontier data envelopment analysis

This study, which considers both energy input and CO₂ emissions, develops both theoretical and empirical models to account for the sources of China's economic growth from 2000–2013. The proposed models decompose China's economic growth into five components: the technological change effect, the industrial structure effect, the regional balance development effect, the management effect, and the production factors effect. The empirical results show that during the sample period, the production factors effect increased from approximately 70% in 2001 to nearly 99% in 2010, indicating that economic growth in Mainland China relied heavily on factor accumulation, which was not sustainable. Fortunately, this situation has gradually improved since 2011 because of technological progress and industrial structure optimization. However, the current total-factor productivity in Mainland China remains relatively low because of an inefficient industrial structure, regional balance development, and management inefficiency. In other words, there is a great deal of room for further industrial structural optimization, regional balance development, and management improvement to realize further sustainable economic growth. Because the causes of total-factor production inefficiency and the distribution of economic growth potential show a distinct spatial difference, the focuses for the Chinese provinces to achieve sustainable economic growth should be quite different in the future. Based on the results of this study, recommendations have been made for the Chinese provinces to realize further sustainable economic growth.     

浅析现代经济增长理论的演变

经济增长不仅是经济学研究的永恒主题,更是全世界都普遍关注的问题。从亚当·斯密开始,经济学家就不断地对经济增长进行探索。正是由于经济增长与全世界人民的福利息息相关,所以我们对经济增长的研究就显得格外重要。然而随着经济全球化的发展,传统经济增长理论已经不能解释现代社会经济发展过程中出现的种种现象。理论和现实之间的矛盾促使我们探求现代经济增长理论,以更好地解释世界。因此,对现代经济增长理论的演变进行探索,具有积极的理论和现实意义。本文从经济增长的事实入手,首先界定了现代经济增长的概念,然后对现代经济增长理论的发展脉络进行梳理和阐述,分别对哈罗德一多马模型、新古典经济增长模型（外生增长理论）和新增长模型（内生增长理论）进行了详细分析。通过分析可见现代经济增长理论经历了由技术外生增长到内生增长、市场结构由完全竞争到垄断竞争的演变。     

Can the augmented Solow model explain China’s remarkable economic growth? A cross-country panel data analysis

China’s economy grew at an average annual rate of 9% over the last three decades. Despite the vast empirical literature on testing the neoclassical model of economic growth using data on various groups of countries, very few cross-country regressions include China and none of them particularly focuses on the explanation of China’s remarkable economic growth. We attempt to fill this gap by utilising panel data on 146 countries over the period 1980–2004 to examine the extent to which the rapid growth of China and the huge gap in the growth rate between China and other countries can be explained by the augmented Solow model. Using system GMM estimation techniques, we find that, in spite of the restrictive assumptions involved, the Solow model augmented by both human capital and structural change provides a fairly good account of international variation in economic growth. In particular, China’s relative success in economic growth is due to high physical capital investment, conditional convergence gain, dramatic changes in the structure of employment and output, and low population growth.     

中国经济增长的特征、可持续性与潜在增长率估算:一个综述

在本文通过对中国经济增长的表现特征、可持续性和潜在增长率估算三方面的理论综述,进一步论述了中国经济增长的发展脉络,并在此基础上提出研究中国经济增长理论尚需改进的空间.     

Financial development and growth: An empirical analysis

Over the last two decades several countries experienced currency crises. These were characterized both by a huge disruption of economic activity and an extreme speed of diffusion within countries. The financial turmoil happened in a period of very high degree of international financial integration. As a result financial liberalization was associated with greater incidence of crises and this brought an intense debate in both academic and policy circles about the consequences of free capital movements.     

The endogeneity of the natural rate of growth – an empirical study for Latin‐American countries

The aim of this paper is to analyse the sensitivity of the natural rate of growth to the actual rate of growth for a sample of 11 Latin‐American countries, assuming the natural rate to be determined endogenously by changes in the actual rate of growth. The natural rates of growth are estimated in a system of SUR estimations over the period 1986–2003. In order to determine whether they react endogenously to changes in the actual rate of growth, a dummy variable for boom periods is added to the system of regressions. The results confirm the hypothesis about the endogeneity of the natural rate of growth.     

中国货币化率与经济增长

近年来,中国高货币化率问题愈发严重,学者们专注于寻找其背后的原因,却忽略了对货币化率与经济增长关系的研究.为此,在对货币化率影响经济增长相关理论进行总结归纳基础上,提出货币化率与经济增长之间呈现倒U型关系的理论假设,并且选择全球72个主要国家1996—2018年面板数据,对货币化率与经济增长之间关系进行实证检验.结果表明:在全样本和发达国家子样本中,货币化率与经济增长之间呈现倒U型关系,目前我国货币化率水平小于全样本数据拐点值,大于发达国家子样本数据拐点值.发展中国家子样本数据则显示,货币化率与经济增长呈现正U型关系,适当提高货币化率可以促进经济增长.最后,根据上述结论,提出中国货币化率最优路径图.     

Banking sector depth and economic growth nexus: a comparative study between the natural resource-based and the rest of the world’s economies

This paper investigates the relationship between banking sector depth and long-term economic growth in the natural resource-based economies vis-à-vis economies that are not dependent on natural resources. For the empirical investigation, a Generalised Method of Moments estimator for dynamic panel data models is adopted for 194 countries spanning the period 1964–2013. Using different measures of banking sector depth and economic growth, the investigation yields three key findings. First, the banking–growth relationship is non-linear and positive within certain levels of banking sector depth in both country groups. Second, the time lag between the change in the level of banking sector depth and the effect on economic growth is shorter in the natural resource-based countries than in the other countries. Finally, the total effect of banking sector deepening on long-term economic growth is weaker in economies with abundant natural resources than in the rest of the world.     

Employee Profit-sharing and Labor Extraction in a Classical Model of Distribution and Growth

This article sets out a classical model of economic growth in which the distribution of income features the possibility of profit-sharing with workers, as firms choose periodically between two labor-extraction compensation strategies. Workers are homogeneous with regard to labor power, and firms choose to compensate them with either only a conventional wage or a share of profits on top of this conventional wage. Empirical evidence shows that labor productivity (i.e. labor extraction) in profit-sharing firms is higher than labor productivity in non-sharing firms. The frequency distribution of labor-extraction employee compensation strategies and labor productivity across firms is time-variant, being driven by satisficing imitation dynamics from which we derive two significant results. First, heterogeneity in labor-extraction compensation strategies across firms, and hence earnings inequality across workers can be a stable long-run equilibrium outcome. Second, although convergence to a long-run equilibrium may occur with either a falling or increasing proportion of profit-sharing firms, the share of net profits in income and the rates of net profit, capital accumulation and economic growth nevertheless all converge to the highest possible long-run equilibrium values.     

转型时期我国"产出-物价"菲利普斯曲线的动态变化趋势

笔者使用可变参数模型揭示了转型时期我国产出-物价菲利普斯曲线的动态变化趋势。研究结果表明:(1)通货膨胀率对经济增长率的反应系数均为正值,表明转型以来我国经济系统的冲击主要来自于总需求方面;(2)通货膨胀率对经济增长率的反应系数呈现凸型变动模式,并且已经过了波动的顶峰,出现显著下降并逐渐稳定的趋势,这种趋势有助于同时实现经济增长目标和稳定物价目标;(3)反映总体价格水平的价格指数不宜再作为判断宏观经济态势的指示器,但国民经济中一些重要领域的价格波动却仍然值得关注。