Death and development

Analyzing a variety of cross-national and sub-national data, we argue that high adult mortality reduces economic growth by shortening time horizons. Paying careful attention to the age pattern of mortality and to endogeneity issues, we find that a greater risk of death during the prime productive years is associated with higher levels of risky behavior, higher fertility, and lower investment in physical capital, even when controlling for infant mortality. In our regressions, adult mortality explains almost all of Africa’s growth tragedy. This analysis underscores grim forecasts of the long-run economic costs of the ongoing AIDS epidemic. Most of the work for this paper was completed prior to the tragic passing away of our dear friend and colleague John McMillan in March of 2007.     

Human capital accumulation and output growth in a stochastic environment

We study the relationship between growth and volatility in a simple analytical model, where human capital accumulation depends on both deliberate and non-deliberate learning, and where stochastic fluctuations arise from both preference and technology shocks. We derive a number of new results which challenge some of the results in the existing literature. First, we show that the optimal allocations of time to working and learning are both pro-cyclical. Second, we identify a preference parameter (other than the coefficient of relative risk aversion) that is potentially crucial for governing the effect of volatility on growth. Third, we demonstrate how this effect can be either positive or negative under each type of learning, the relative importance of which is irrelevant to the outcome. Fourth, we reveal how the effect may also be different for the two types of shock. Our results may be seen as providing further explanation for the lack of robust evidence on the issue.      

我国工资差异变化及影响因素分析——基于家计调查的实证研究

尽管中国在经济转型过程中取得了令世人瞩目的经济增长速度,但随之而来的是不断扩大的工资收入差异和持续扩大的工资收入差距引发了广泛关注.一般认为,工资差距过大对社会公平和正义造成伤害,并直接影响中国经济和社会的可持续发展.基于家计调查数据并使用经济计量模型分析方法,本论文对中国在过去二十年日益增长的工资差距进行实证分析并探讨影响工资差距的主要因素.研究表明,政府对劳动力市场机构特别是工资政策改革是引发工资差距不断扩大的原因之一.本论文指出,劳动力市场机构的变化不是造成工资差异扩大的唯一因素;其它重要因素包括劳动力市场歧视以及制度性障碍,如中国现行的户口政策造成的劳动力市场分割等.本论文还从政策层面对减少工资差异提出建议.     

Population,food, and knowledge: a simple unified growth theory

This paper provides a unified growth theory, i.e. a model that explains the very long-run economic and demographic development path of industrialized economies, stretching from the pre-industrial era to the present-day and beyond. Making strict use of Malthus’ (An essay on the principle of population. London, printed for J. Johnson, 1798) so-called preventive check hypothesis—that fertility rates vary inversely with the price of food—the current study offers a new and straightforward explanation for the demographic transition and the break with the Malthusian era. Employing a two-sector framework with agriculture and industry, we demonstrate how fertility responds differently to productivity and income growth, depending on whether it emerges in agriculture or industry. Agricultural productivity and income growth makes food goods, and therefore children, relatively less expensive. Industrial productivity and income growth, on the other hand, makes food goods, and therefore children, relatively more expensive. The present framework lends support to existing unified growth theories and is well in tune with historical evidence about structural transformation.      

Culture and human capital in a two-sector endogenous growth model

Recent literature in the field of cultural economics highlights a possible inversion in the usual causality relation (from economic growth to culture) and points out that culture may represent an important driver of economic growth. By viewing culture in line with Throsby’s (2001) definition of cultural capital (i.e., an asset of tangible and intangible cultural expressions), in this article we analyze one possible channel through which culture may positively affect economic growth, namely the existence of a relationship of complementarity between cultural and human capital investments. Using a two-sector endogenous growth model, we find that in the long run a higher growth rate of real per-capita income can be attained the more cultural and human capital investments are complementary for each other in the process leading to agents’ skill acquisition. We also analyze the conditions under which an increase of the cultural capital share in total GDP can be conducive to a rise of real per-capita income.     

Long-run growth empirics and new challenges for unified theory

Annual estimates of productivity are reported for periods over 500 years for eight countries and for five other countries over shorter periods. One- and two-break time series models are used to investigate discontinuities in productivity growth. The results support two-break models of long-run productivity and they favour approaches to unified growth modelling with three epochs. However, the lessening of productivity gaps and the decisive shifts to higher productivity occurred in the twentieth century, chiefly in the years around the World War II. The timing of the breaks and the complexity of the historical record highlights a need for unified models to connect more closely with economic history.     

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.     

Learning investment and industrial diversity in urban growth

This paper studies an urban growth model where learning through personal contacts could be more effective in a denser locale, whereas the effectiveness of learning through impersonal means of communications depends principally on the technology of communications rather than on the locale in which learning takes place. As a result of advances in communications technology, cities would be larger, and workers would spent more time on learning through personal contacts but may cut time on impersonal learning if the two kinds of learning investment are complements. Otherwise, cities could become smaller, while workers would spend more time on impersonal learning at the expense of time on learning through personal contacts. In a multi-sector economy, urban industrial diversity tends to increase or fall together with city size.     

Population and economic growth with human and physical capital investments

We present a two-sector endogenous growth model with human and physical capital accumulation to analyze the long-run relationship between population growth and real per capita income growth. Formal education and investment in physical capital are assumed to be two separate components of human capital production. Along the balanced growth path equilibrium, population change may have a positive, negative, or else neutral effect on economic growth depending on whether physical and human capital are complementary/substitutes for each other in the formation of new human capital and on their degree of complementarity.

Genetics, family structure, and economic growth

Recent biomedical research shows that roughly three-quarters of cognitive abilities are attributable to genetics and family environment. This paper presents a growth model that characterizes the role of the intergenerational transmission of genes and the effect of family environment on growth trajectories. If the average human or physical capital stocks are sufficiently low, the model shows that the economy will be caught in a poverty trap. Conversely, countries with more resources will converge to a bala nced growth path where the average rate of genetic transmission of skills from parents to children determines the long-run rate of output growth. Increased genetic diversity (or income inequality) is shown to raise the fertility rate and reduce output growth in the transitional dynamics. Thus, nature and nurture are able to explain a variety of countries' growth experiences.     

Immigration, fertility, and human capital: A model of economic decline of the West

I show how the influences of unskilled immigration, differential fertility between immigrants and the local indigenous population, and incentives for investment in human capital combine to predict the decline of the West. In particular, indigenous low-skilled workers lose from unskilled immigration even if the indigenous low-skilled workers do not finance redistribution, do not compete with immigrants in the labor market, and do not compete with immigrants for publicly financed income transfers. For the economy at large, high-fertility unskilled immigrants and a low-fertility indigenous population result in economic decline through reduced human capital accumulation and reduced growth of per-capita output.     

Conflict, Effort and Capital Stock in UK Wage Determination

The paper is concerned with the determination of wages, unemployment and labour productivity in the UK. The theoretical model suggests that in addition to economic factors, historical and ideological elements play an important role in the determination of wages, unemployment and productivity. Particular emphasis is put on the capital shortage hypothesis. It is argued that capital scrapping in response to the two oil price shocks, combined with subsequent sluggish growth in capital, may be responsible for the rise of the NAIRU and the persistence of unemployment. The empirical analysis is concerned with testing the theoretical model, using quarterly data for the UK from 1966 until 1994. We use cointegration analysis for the determination of wages, unemployment and labour productivity. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

中国城市人力资本的估算

针对中国城市人力资本估算中的困难,在Casey B.Mulligan和Xavier Sala-I-Martin(1995)关于人力资本估算思想的启发下,本文明确提出单位人力资本的概念;在对技术进行适当假设的基础上,提出了一个关于人力资本估算的、可实现的框架。运用中国行政地级以上城市的统计资料,本文对中国各城市的人力资本进行了估算。结果表明,各城市的人力资本都呈现出增长的态势。对人力资本估算的相关性检验表明,本文所估算的人力资本具有一定的合理性。通过对中国各城市人均人力资本标准差的计算,本文还发现中国各城市之间的人力资本表现出了较大的差异性,并且这种差异随着时间的推移在扩大。初始的人力资本与人力资本的增长率具有正向的关系也为此结论提供了一个支持。     

Book production and the onset of modern economic growth

We provide a new data set on per capita book production as a proxy for advanced literacy skills, and assess this relative to other measures. While literacy proxies very basic skills, book production per capita is an indicator for more advanced capabilities. Growth theory suggests that human capital formation plays a significant role in creating the ‘wealth of nations.’ This study tests whether human capital formation has an impact on early-modern growth disparities. In contrast to some previous studies which denied the role of human capital as a crucial determinant of long-term growth, we confirm its importance.      

Reconciling sustainability, systems theory and discounting

Most definitions of sustainability imply that a system is to be maintained at a certain level, held within certain limits, into the indefinite future. Sustainability denies run-away growth, but it also avoids any decline or destruction. This sustainability path is hard to reconcile with the renewal cycle that can be observed in many natural systems developing according to their intrinsic mechanisms and in social systems responding to internal and external pressures. Systems are parts of hierarchies where systems of higher levels are made up of subsystems from lower levels. Renewal in components is an important factor of adaptation and evolution. If a system is sustained for too long, it borrows from the sustainability of a supersystem and rests upon lack of sustainability in subsystems. Therefore by sustaining certain systems beyond their renewal cycle, we decrease the sustainability of larger, higher-level systems. For example, Schumpeter's theory of creative destruction posits that in a capitalist economy, the collapse and renewal of firms and industries is necessary to sustain the vitality of the larger economic system. However, if the capitalist economic system relies on endless growth, then sustaining it for too long will inevitably borrow from the sustainability of the global ecosystem. This could prove catastrophic for humans and other species. To reconcile sustainability with hierarchy theory, we must decide which hierarchical level in a system we want to sustain indefinitely, and accept that lower level subsystems must have shorter life spans. In economic analysis, inter-temporal discount rates essentially tell us how long we should care about sustaining any given system. Economists distinguish between discount rates for individuals based on personal time preference, lower discount rates for firms based on the opportunity cost of capital, and even lower discount rates for society. For issues affecting even higher-level systems, such as global climate change, many economists question the suitability of discounting future values at all. We argue that to reconcile sustainability with inter-temporal discounting, discount rates should be determined by the hierarchical level of the system being analyzed.     

Fluctuations in convex models of endogenous growth, I: Growth effects

Is there a trade-off between fluctuations and growth? The empirical evidence is mixed, with some studies finding a positive relationship, while others find a negative one. Our objectives are to understand how fundamental uncertainty affects the long run growth rate and to identify important factors determining this relationship in a convex endogenous growth model. Qualitatively, we show that the relationship between volatility in fundamentals (or policies) and mean growth can be either positive or negative. The curvature of the utility function is a key parameter that determines the sign of the relationship. Quantitatively, an increase in uncertainty always increases the growth rate in our calibrated models. Though the changes we find are nontrivial, they are not large enough by themselves to account for the large differences in growth rates observed in the data. We also find that differences in the curvature of preferences have very substantial effects on the estimated variability of stationary objects like the consumption–output ratio and hours worked. For this reason, we expect that the models considered in this paper will provide the basis of sharp estimates of the curvature parameter.     

Schumpeter's circular flow,learning by doing and cyclical growth

A two-sector growth model with endogenous technical change is presented. Concerning technical change, we assume that it is reflected by increases in the stock of human capital which are acquired through learning by doing. As a result, it turns out that transitory or, using the Hopf bifurcation theorem, persistent oscillations of the economic variables may be the outcome. Thus we are able to show that learning mechanisms alone may be sufficient to destroy the circular flow as described by Schumpeter.     

The evolution of markets and the revolution of industry: a unified theory of growth

This paper puts forth a theory of the Industrial Revolution whereby an economy transitions from Malthusian stagnation to modern economic growth as firms implement cost-reducing production technologies. This take-off of industry occurs once the market reaches a critical size. The mechanism by which market size affects process innovation relies on two overlooked facts pre-dating England??s Industrial Revolution: the expansion in the variety of consumer goods and the increase in firm size. We demonstrate this mechanism in a dynamic general equilibrium model calibrated to England??s long-run development, and explore how various factors affected the timing of its industrialization.     

Labor force growth and the environment in Costa Rica

The introduction to this report of a study that examines the potential environmental impacts of labor force growth (LFG) in Costa Rica under LFG scenarios notes that LFG is an economically critical aspect of population growth that can affect the environment by expanding the economy's production possibilities frontier and/or by increasing consumption. The introduction also explains why Costa Rica is ideal for this study and identifies the study as unique because it constructs a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model using 10 environmental indicators and because it models uncertainty regarding the values of the economic parameters. The report continues by reviewing the literature linking population and environmental issues; detailing the CGE model; discussing the 10 environmental indicators (deforestation, erosion, pesticide use, overfishing, hazardous wastes, inorganic wastes, organic wastes, greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and water/sewer usage) used in the model; and explaining the method used to simulate the impacts of LFG. The major conclusions that emerged from the results of this study are that 1) the economy-wide impacts of LFG (and, thus, population growth) on the environment are important and vary significantly according to the amounts of physical and human capital present in the labor force and 2) the impacts of LFG vary substantially among environmental indicators.