Leisure time, savings and trade patterns A two-country growth model

This paper proposes a simple two-country endogenous growth model with endogenous consumption, leisure time and wealth accumulation. The model examines possible causes for the world economic growth and the existence and persistence of trade patterns between countries with different preferceces and human capital under internationally free capital mobility. We show how differences in preferences in consumption, leisure time and wealth between the two countries may affect long-run world economic growth.     

Development as leapfrogging,not convergence,not catch-up: towards schumpeterian theories of finance and development

Our aim is to demark a pathway towards Schumpeterian theories of finance and development. To do this, we offer four basic propositions for discussion. First, we suggest that ‘convergence’ and ‘catch-up’ are, from a Schumpeterian perspective, theoretically inadequate concepts as they frame development narratives similarly to the Rostovian idea of a linear path towards some sort of ‘equilibrium imposed on history’. Leapfrogging by means of innovation and finance is put forward as a better approach to analyzing development trajectories. Second, we contend that rather than the often-assumed convergence among nations, history shows that ‘divergence’ is a more common result of development trajectories; this is especially visible in the last half a century. Third, we outline the key features of this Schumpeterian framework, centered on the concept of leapfrogging through innovation and finance. We conclude by highlighting the essential roles of finance and financial governance within this alternative framework for understanding successful development trajectories, and posit that this construct may be labeled a Schumpeterian entrepreneurial state.     

The effect of foreign capital inflow on domestic savings in developing countries

Journal of Economics -     

The role of human and social capital in growth: extending our understanding

Human capital, institutions and social capital are now all recognisedas significant factors of growth. They have largely been studiedseparately, and although they present sufficient common characteristicsto be conceptualised as one main category distinct from physicalcapital, it may still be more important to focus on the linksbetween their specific sub-categories. Direct links with incomemay be spurious, as there appears to be a ‘web of associations’between the sub-categories, which would benefit from furtherempirical investigation. This paper reviews the literature onhuman capital, institutions and social capital, extracting threesub-categories of human capital (human skills capital, stock-of-knowledgeand entrepreneurship) and two of social capital (low- and high-rationalisation).Specific areas are then suggested for further empirical study.     

A re-examination of the technological catching-up hypothesis across OECD industries

This study re-examines the catching-up hypothesis at the industry level across the main OECD countries, using panel data econometric models involving technological gap indicators calculated with a nonparametric distance function suggested by Färe et al. [Färe, R.S., Grosskopf, M.N., Norris, M., Xhang, Z., 1994. Productivity growth, technical progress, and efficiency change in industrialized countries. American Economic Review 84, 66–83]. The results show that there is statistical evidence of a catching-up process at the industry level. Moreover, both tradables and nontradables sectors exhibit catching-up effects and technology adoption from abroad. This result complements the findings by Bernard and Jones [Bernard, A.B., Jones, C.I., 1996a. Comparing apples to oranges: productivity convergence and measurement across industries and countries. American Economic Review 86(5), 1216–1238., Bernard, A.B., Jones, C.I., 1996b. Productivity across industries and countries: Time series theory and evidence. Review Of Economics and Statistics 78, 135–146], Gouyette and Perelman [Gouyette, C., Perelman, S., 1997. Productivity convergence in OECD services industries. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics 8, 279–295] and Hansson and Henrekson [Hansson, P., Henrekson, M., 1997. Catching up, social capability, government size and economic growth, in V. Bergström, eds, Government and Growth, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 61–126] that there is no (or even a slow) catching-up effect in the manufacturing sector. Moreover, social capability indicators evaluated for each country show that “Non-European” and “Central European” tradables sectors have a rather similar degree of inefficiency while “North European” countries are less efficient for both tradables and non-tradables. Lastly, both the cross country and the cross sectors dispersions of inefficiency levels are smaller for tradables sectors than for non-tradables.     

Productivity and per capita GDP growth: The role of the forgotten factors

Average hourly productivity has often been used to draw conclusions on long run per capita GDP growth, based on the assumption of full utilization of labor resources. In this paper, we argue that a failure to recognize the potential significant wedges among the two variables - even in the long run - can be misleading. By applying both time series and panel cointegration techniques on data on 19 OECD countries, we fail to reject the hypothesis of the absence of a long run common stochastic trend among the two variables in the period 1980-2005. Furthermore, we apply a simple decomposition of GDP growth into five variables, including some related to the supply-side and demographics, so to verify the single contributions to income growth and variance over our period of interest. We conclude that variables that have been so far absent in the growth literature indeed have a non-negligible role in explaining the dynamics of long run per capita GDP growth. In particular, these “forgotten factors” (that we identify with the employment and the activity rates and a demographic ratio) matter more in better performing economies, where we also highlight that productivity has been less important in determining GDP growth than in relatively bad performers.     

The role of domestic demand in the economic growth of Malaysia: a cointegration analysis

For the past four decades (1961-2000), the Malaysian economy grew at an impressive average rate of 6.8% per annum. The rapid growth has been attributed, in part, to the tremendous success in the export-oriented industrialization policy. Several empirical studies on export-led growth for Malaysia have, however, led to inconclusive and mixed results. This may be due to the exclusion of domestic demand in the bivariate or multivariate models used in the studies. This study re-examines the role of domestic demand in economic growth in Malaysia. Using a three-variable cointegration analysis, the study shows that there exist short run bilateral causalities among the three variables, which implies that both the export-led growth and domestic demand-generated growth hypotheses are at least valid in the short run. On the other hand, the results are not supportive of the export-led growth hypothesis in the long run. Instead, the highly significant positive impact of domestic expenditure on economic growth implies that use of domestic demand as the catalyst for growth is appropriate.     

The role of factor substitution in the theory of economic growth and income distribution: Two examples

While much empirical evidence suggests that the Cobb–Douglas production function may be a reasonable benchmark for aggregate analysis, we argue that the practice, particularly prevalent in contemporary growth theory, of adopting the Cobb–Douglas technology, may lead to misleading implications. Using two examples, we show that key implications of the models are highly sensitive to small deviations of the elasticity of substitution from unity. The first employs the standard neoclassical model and emphasizes the sensitivity of the speed of convergence to small changes in the elasticity of substitution. This in turn has profound consequences for wealth and income distribution. The second deals with foreign aid and highlights how the relative merits of “tied” versus “untied” aid are also very sensitive to the elasticity of substitution.     

Human capital,employment protection and growth in Europe

Using data for a large sample of manufacturing and service sectors in 14 EU countries, this paper shows that the value added and TFP growth rate differential between high and low human capital intensive industries is greater in countries with low than countries with high levels of employment protection legislation. We also find that such negative effect of EPL is slightly stronger for countries near the technology frontier, in the manufacturing sector and after the 1990s. We interpret these results suggesting that technology adoption depends on the skill level of the workforce and on the capacity of firms to adjust employment as technology changes: therefore, firing costs have a stronger impact in sectors where technical change is more skill-biased and technology adoption more important.     

The structure of authority, federalism, commitment and economic growth

Summary. In a neoclassical growth model with many regions and a mobile factor, two federal arrangements are considered. In the first federal arrangement the central government chooses a uniform tax policy, whereas in the second each regional government chooses its own tax policy. The main result is that the first federal arrangement leads to high tax rates and economic stagnation, whereas the second leads to low tax rates and economic growth. This result stems from a time consistency problem. The lack of tax competition forces a time consistency problem on the central government under the first federal arrangement. In contrast, regional tax competition acts as a commitment device under the second federal arrangement. The fundamental feature in the environment that gives rise to different abilities of the state to commit is the different structure of authority within the state.Received: 10 February 2003, Revised: 2 December 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: H77, O41, E60, C73, E13.Ronald A. Edwards: This is a revision of Chapter 3 of my University of Minnesota Ph.D. I thank my advisor Edward C. Prescott for his encouragement and numerous helpful discussions. I also thank Tim Kehoe for many useful discussions as well as Beth Allen, Berthold Herrendorf, Arilton Teixeira and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. This research was assisted by an International Predissertation Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies with funds provided by the Ford Foundation.     

The role of sources of income and investment opportunities in rural savings

This paper investigates the effect that sources of income and investment opportunities have on the savings behavior of farm households in rural India. The panel nature of the data (agricultural years 1968–1969, 1969–1970 and 1970–1971) allows for the identification of the permanent and transitory components of a household's income. It is shown that income variability (rather than investment opportunities) can account for observed differences in the propensity to save out of different sources (agricultural/non-agricultural). A direct test of the effect of investment opportunities on savings is offered in the second part of the paper. It is observed that capital market conditions have an important effect on this relationship; poor households save more, and rich households save less, in response to an increase in investment opportunities.     

Sustainable finance: The role of savings and credit cooperatives in Ecuador

The current world situation leads us to consider that sustainable development needs to be a global priority to ensure the future of the planet and improve the quality of life. There is a need for sustainable finance to support this. Savings and credit cooperatives could help to achieve this impact as they serve the microfinance and microlending market. They facilitate the financial inclusion of the most vulnerable people, most of whom live in rural areas and are members of organizations, such as agricultural cooperatives and associations. Previous studies have focused exclusively on overall profitability, so this paper contributes to extending the literature by analyzing the whole population of savings and credit cooperatives in Ecuador (510 institutions), focusing on their profitability in two ways: the overall profitability necessary for the viability of the business and, in addition, the microcredit portfolio profitability, as a specific measure of its contribution to sustainability and social value creation. Another novelty is that the analysis has been carried out using several machine learning techniques for the wider generalization of the results. These show that size is the most relevant variable for predicting the ROE and that the microcredit portfolio profitability is conditioned by the credit variables.     

The role of Provincial Government Spending Composition in growth and convergence in China

China’s development policy since 1978 has differed across regions. With rapid aggregate growth has come widening regional inequality. The fiscal decentralisation reforms in 1994 shifted political pressure onto provincial officials to boost local growth through local public investments. These investments affect regional convergence by counteracting regulatory frictions in factor accumulation, and can also determine steady-state growth. However, the effect of public spending allocations across physical and human capital on growth and convergence processes is empirically unexplored for Chinese provinces. We take provincial time-series data on public spending by category, finding local public spending and its components augment convergence rates differently across regions. Spending on education and health contributes significantly more to growth and convergence than capital spending, confirming that the public capital-spending bias is not a local growth-optimising strategy. We suggest a policy of aligning local government promotion incentives to human capital targets to correct local resource misallocation.     

A review of biopsychosocial strategies to prevent and overcome early-recognized poor adherence in growth hormone therapy of children

Abstract

Background:

Adherence to growth hormone (GH) therapy among children is variable and remains a problem, possibly affecting growth outcomes and future health, and having economic consequences.

Objective:

To provide a review of the issues related to poor adherence to GH therapy in children and describe integrative strategies that may improve adherence.

Results:

Poor adherence may be caused by various factors, affecting both the children and their families. The key reasons for adherence difficulties are psychological/emotional problems, social/everyday problems and technical handling issues of the drug delivery device. Correspondingly a broad range of strategies to address adherence to GH therapy often revolve around counseling and education, not just for the patient but also for the family giving care.

Limitations:

This review is intended as a general survey of strategies which could help, in clinical practice, to overcome poor adherence to growth hormone therapy in children; it summarizes the representative literature but it does not aim to be a rigorous database literature search in every aspect.

Conclusions:

If poor adherence is recognized early on during treatment, appropriate steps may be taken to identify barriers that are amenable to change for encouraging the child to adhere to the treatment regimen. A preventative approach may also be considered; for example, doctors could address adherence issues early and train families of children treated with GH to recognize the resources as well as the barriers to adherence. The broad range of different causes for poor adherence demands a great variety of interventions, making it important to individualize optimal treatment behavior. Additionally, economic studies are required to quantify the cost of poor adherence to GH therapy and to show the financial benefits of good adherence.     

On the role of domestic and international financial cyclical factors in driving economic growth

ABSTRACT

We investigate the effects of (domestic and international) financial cyclical factors on the US business cycle over the period 1890–2013 using an augmented stochastic version of the neoclassical growth model. In our setting, financial factors enter as determinants of the total factor productivity cyclical pattern. By means of static and dynamic estimations we find that (i) the inclusion of financial cyclical factors improves the model’s performance; (ii) the sensitivity of economic growth to financial factors is time-varying; (iii) domestic financial factors have a key role in explaining short-run output fluctuations only in the first half of the 20th century; (iv) US business cycle fluctuations have been mainly driven by global financial factors (i.e., financial integration) over the last three decades.

JEL CODES: O40, E32, C32     

Zvi Griliches's contributions to the economics of technology and growth*

Zvi Griliches's contributions to the economics of technology and growth are identified. Included is a discussion of his contributions on: the determinants of differences in speed of adoption of innovations; the use of patents to measure technology; the private and social returns to R&D; and spillover effects from R&D. Griliches's own evaluation of his research contribution is compared to the evaluation of others in the field, using as evidence citation counts of his works collected from the online Web of Science. Griliches's most important contribution is his 1957 Econometrica hybrid corn paper that is a foundation of the economics of technological innovation. Remarkably, the trend in annual citations to the paper has continued to increase for over 40 years. Finally, we summarize Griliches's most recent views on the practice of economics and on the most important unanswered questions in the economics of technology and growth.     

The role of intermediaries on technological risk management and business development performance in Korea

This paper examines the strategic use of intermediaries by companies to better meet their technology needs from the resource-based theory and network theory perspectives. The results of this study are based on a sample of Korean IT companies and indicate the particular importance of cooperation with government support organizations and public R&D institutions in building relational assets. Intermediaries played a crucial role in enabling and facilitating joint development projects and promoting technology transfer among the companies in general.The results of this study suggest that intermediaries, as they are linked to other organizations within networks and are centrally situated within those networks where information and resource flow, can coordinate and control the exchange of information and resources within networks and enjoy timely and privileged access to such information, giving them the means to expand their strategic social capital.     

Competing at the frontier: The changing role of technology policy in Singapore's economic strategy

For an economy competing at the global frontier, an innovation-based growth strategy requires a well-developed technological infrastructure, a set of capabilities-focused technology policies, as well as an institutional environment that stimulates innovation and entrepreneurship. This paper examines the role played by science and technology policy in an economy's transition to an innovation-based growth strategy. We discuss the challenges governments face as they restructure economic institutions to deepen R&D capabilities and encourage technology creation. We review Singapore's experience in this regard and assess its ongoing efforts to remake itself to compete at the global frontier.     

The role of savings rate in exchange rate and trade imbalance nexus: Cross-countries evidence

Will a higher savings rate improve a country's trade imbalance? Using data for 76 countries for the period 1975–2010, we examine the relationship between trade balance, savings rate, and real exchange rate. To address the potential non-linear effects of the savings rate, we use the panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) model with instrumental variables. Our results indicate that countries with a savings rate above the threshold of 14.8% can improve their trade balance by increasing the savings rate or depreciating their currency. Even though the sample is divided into two groups on the basis of income level, the empirical results vary little, suggesting that our findings are robust to the data separation.