Adopting external currencies for trade growth in the Pacific

This article reviews the currency and trade experiences of the six Pacific states that issue their own currencies: Fiji, Papua New Guinea (PNG), Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu. At independence, these states were advised to adopt their own currencies by the colonial powers, the International Monetary Fund, and other international organisations. The former imperial countries dominated Pacific trade, but empirical data indicate that a large and increasing proportion of trade, now with emerging Asia, denominates its trade in US dollars. This article shows that the six Pacific states manage their currencies in relation to the US dollar. Optimal currency area theory suggests that independent Pacific states would gain substantially by adopting the US dollar in the place of their own currencies. Gravity‐model estimations for all Pacific islands were used to test this hypothesis. The results suggest that replacing their own currencies with an external currency, such as the US dollar, would substantially stimulate the independent Pacific states' trade.     

Urban population growth and urbanization in the Caribbean

The structure, sources, consequences, and policy implications of urbanization and of the rapid growth of the urban population in the Caribbean are examined. In particular, a comparative analysis of the situation in Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago is presented. Data are from a variety of secondary sources, including those published by the United Nations and the World Bank. The need to reorient policies to favor rural rather than urban areas in order to reduce rural-urban migration is noted.     

Appropriate technology in a Solovian nonlinear growth model

We propose a Solovian growth model with a convex–concaveproduction function and international technological spillovers.We test the empirical implications of the model, analysing theeffects of the productivity slowdown that followed the oil shocksof the 1970s. We argue that this slowdown, altering the worldincome distribution, affected the pattern of international technologicalspillovers, taking the poorest countries further away from thetechnological leaders, and therefore unable to exploit theirtechnologies. The result is the emergence of a poverty trapfor low-income countries.     

The growth of a population research group in economic history

Abstract

In Sweden there is a long tradition of studying the relationship between population and economic and social history. We have only to mention names such as Eli Heck-scher during the 40s and Gustaf Utterström during the 50s. Now population studies within the discipline of economic history are centered on the University of Lund. In the other departments of economic history population studies have had an occasional character. In Lund, however, they have been more “institutionalized” and for ten years have formed a special section of the Department, the “Research Group in Population Economics” with its own seminars, courses, etc. The causes are obvious: the different institutions are too small separately to carry out such a cost- and resource-intensive topic. A dispersion of the resources would also be an obstacle to develop its necessary research-continuity. In the following short survey of the development of the topic in Sweden it is therefore natural that I should concentrate on the population group in Lund. To characterize our research profile in a few words I emphasize     

Optimal population growth and the social welfare function

The social welfare function criterion offers an approach to the theory of optimal economic growth that is intermediate between the 2 most frequently used utilitarian models--those that maximize per capita utility and those that maximize total utility. According to the welfare criterion, societal welfare depends not only on the level of per capita consumption, but also on the population density in the area in which an individual resides. The model postualtes that, for a given level of per capita consumption, total utility increases with increasing density, reaches a maximum, and then declines with further population increases due to the deleterious effect of overcrowding on the quality of life (e.g., the quality of education, recreational facilities, and environmental factors such as clean air and pure water). The overall objective of the model is to identify the optimal per capita consumption and population size that maximize the discounted social welfare. Optimal population growth occurs when the increase in the discounted social welfare resulting from the introduction of a new member equals the reduction in welfare created by that addition (modified Meade Rule), while per capita accumulation equals the sum of the population growth rate and the social rate of time preference (modified Golden Rule). This model could be extended to consider technological change more explicitly and its effect on optimal outcomes.     

On the dependence of population growth on income: New results in a ricardian - Malthus model

Summary We have been able to complete an investigation of Niehans' well-known neoclassical growth model with endogenous population by analytical methods so that the full range of steady-state solutions and their properties are revealed. For certain ranges of the equilibrium capital-labor ratio, an increase in the saving rate decreases equilibrium growth rates and per capita income, and an increase in the marginal propensity to proliferate increases equilibrium growth rates and per capita income. Thus a complete analysis provides new results, some contrary to expectations, which provide a basis for comparing Niehans' model with other specifications of the population sector.Professors, respectively, of Economics and Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.     

安泰科技：领跑新材料产业

在中关村科技园区永丰产业基地,安泰科技可谓一枝独秀、实力超群,因为这家高新技术企业2010年营收达到35亿元。安泰科技是以金属新材料及制品为主业的上市公司,这些新材料包括钨,钼,镍,稀土等,安泰科技2000年刚上市的时候销售额是2.17亿,2010年是35亿,10年里翻了近15倍!而了解安泰科技的人都清楚,这家高科技企业并非一味追求跨越式发展,他们更尊重科学和经济发展规律。     

论技术、技术扩散与经济增长

本文从经济学意义的角度,从效率及效率的提高出发给“技术”明确的概念界定,进而引入“技术存量”和“技术流量”的概念。从而将“技术”、“技术进步”、“技术创新”和“技术扩散”串连成递进的有内在联系的有机整体。以一个全新的角度对影响经济增长的因素进行分析。     

Optimal economic growth and non-stable population

Summary This paper analyses optimal economic growth when the (exogenous) rate of population growth changes. The optimal growth path is characterized by a strikingly straightforward generalization of the traditional steady-state Golden Rule of Accumulation. The comparative statics results allow for a generalization of Samuelson's (1975) analysis of the lower-bound for the optimal rate of population growth. It is shown that under plausible assumptions the optimal savings rate follows an inverted U-shaped or U-shaped pattern during periods of demographic transition, according to whether the growth rate of births is falling or rising.     

绿色施工新技术在南京某工程中的应用及效益计算

文章详细叙述了绿色施工新技术在实际项目上的应用,包括预制块的使用、LED节能灯的使用、基坑降水利用3个方面,并从这3个方面进行了效益计算,提出了绿色施工的重要性。     

Basic needs policies and population growth

Multiple regression analysis is applied to a newly-published body of cross-country data: (a) to re-examine the effects on fertility of infant mortality, education, and the degree of equality of the income distribution; (b) to test for the existence of a lag between the decline in fertility; (c) to investigate whether interaction effects occur. It is found that basic needs oriented policies may indeed bring about an eventual decline in fertility rates as well as mortality rates — but that the full long-run effect of such policies on population growth is likely to depend crucially on the length and time-shape of the lag between the fertility and mortality reductions.     

Regime shift and fast recovery on the periphery: New Zealand in the 1930s

New Zealand's recovery from the Great Depression was unusually fast and promoted by a new monetary regime that disassociated the Dominion's banking system from that of Australia, and broke the conventional parity between the New Zealand pound and sterling. The new regime destroyed deflationary sentiments, redistributed income to farmers, and sharply reduced real interest rates. Collectively, these forces promoted recovery. The consequences for New Zealand's real GDP are gauged by assessing how money, velocity, and prices would have behaved without a regime change. The new monetary regime raised real GDP per caput by one–third by 1938.     

汕头经济增长与区域技术创新

汕头是一个经济特区城市，得益于改革开放之先，过去的20年发展，沉积了一定规模的社会和经济发展基础，但由于历史，地理、人文，理念以及意识等差距，造成在发展速度上，发展质量等各个方面与珠江三角洲水平至少存在近5-8年的差距，要与珠三角一起率先在广东基本实现现代化，困难与问题主要是。