Social norms, fertility and economic development

This paper presents an overlapping generations model with endogenous fertility and human capital accumulation. Within such a framework, it shows how the presence of family-size norms can lead to multiple equilibria. It can thus potentially explain different development patterns without recourse to increasing returns and differences in initial conditions. Furthermore, it derives sufficient conditions under which different equilibria can be Pareto ranked. Finally, it shows that the main results hold also in the case where there exists parental altruism.     

Capital utilization, economic growth and convergence

Optimal decisions by economic agents regarding the utilization of capital lead to empirically plausible speeds of convergence in one-sector models of economic growth. The relationship between depreciation and capital utilization plays a crucial role in slowing down convergence to the steady state. Cross-country differences in the extent to which the capital utilization decision is internalized along the transition path may lead to differences in convergence rates, even for countries with similar initial and terminal conditions. Finally, by assuming a constant depreciation rate and full capital utilization, standard growth models may be overstating the magnitude of the steady-state equilibrium.     

Endogenous lifetime,accidental bequests and economic growth

This paper introduces the concept of unintentional bequests in a closed economy à la Chakraborty (J Econ Theory 116:119–137, 2004) with overlapping generations. We show that scarce public investments in health can lead to poverty traps depending on the relative size of the output elasticity of capital. More importantly, the existence of unintentional bequests, rather than a market for annuities, means that health tax rates play a prominent role in determining the stability of the long-term equilibrium in rich economies. In fact, Neimark–Sacker bifurcations and endogenous fluctuations occur depending on the size of the public health system.     

Population,pensions, and endogenous economic growth

We study the effect of a declining labor force on the incentives to engage in labor-saving technical change and ask how this effect is influenced by institutional characteristics of the pension scheme. When labor is scarcer it becomes more expensive and innovation investments that increase labor productivity are more profitable. We incorporate this channel in a new dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous economic growth and heterogeneous overlapping generations. We calibrate the model for the US economy and obtain the following results. First, the effect of a decline in population growth on labor productivity growth is positive and quantitatively significant. In our benchmark, it is predicted to increase from an average annual growth rate of 1.74% over 1990–2000 to 2.41% in 2100. Second, institutional characteristics of the pension system matter both for the growth performance and for individual welfare. Third, the assessment of pension reform proposals may depend on whether economic growth is endogenous or exogenous.     

The impact of economic uncertainty on the decision of fertility: Evidence from Taiwan

Economic uncertainty has only recently begun to appear in research on the determinants of fertility. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate how economic uncertainty affects the fertility rate in Taiwan. Official county-level panel data from 1998 to 2016 for 20 counties are utilized in DIFF-GMM and SYS-GMM models in dynamic panel regression estimation. The major finding of this study is that higher volatility of household disposable income will reduce the fertility rate. The empirical results support the proposition that economic uncertainty might be an important determinant of fertility decisions, explaining the decline in fertility in Taiwan.     

Sectoral bubbles,misallocation, and endogenous growth

Stock price bubbles are often on productive assets and occur in a sector of the economy. In addition, their occurrence is often accompanied by credit booms. Incorporating these features, we provide a two-sector endogenous growth model with credit-driven stock price bubbles. Bubbles have a credit easing effect in that they relax collateral constraints and improve investment efficiency. Sectoral bubbles also have a capital reallocation effect in the sense that bubbles in a sector attract more capital to be reallocated to that sector. Their impact on economic growth depends on the interplay between these two effects. Bubbles may misallocate resources across sectors and reduce welfare.     

Time costs,aspirations and the effect of economic growth on German fertility

Recent research has shown strong support for the model of reproductive behavior derived from the new home economics, and it is shown in this discussion that the evidence from the Federal Republic of Germany is consistent with the new home economics model. There is little support for Easterlin's relative economic hypothesis, but there is limited endorsement for model which adds the influence of experience based material aspirations to the new home economics model. Easterlin's relative income model is reviewed before directing attention to the new home economics model and an explanation of fertility movements in West Germany. The new home economics model focuses on the family division of labor between home activities and work outside the home. The marked decline in German fertility during the 1970s is mostly attributable to factors such as expanding women's earning capacities which increased the importance of 2 earner families, who have a different family division of labor and possibly preferences biased towards "quality" of children rather than numbers. Also, real wage growth lagged behind the growth in experience based aspirations, and this drop in relative income is more dramatic if it is presumed that material aspirations are based upon the family's income experienced by a young adult during his/her adolescence, rather than just the father's earnings. The mother's contribution to family income will contribute to her family's actual standard of living and the desired standard of living of her children. The labor force participation rates of married, middle-aged German women increased markedly during the 1st half of the 1950s, thus tending to enhance the increase in the standard of living desired by the young adults reaching marrying and childbearing ages in the mid-1960s. The analysis indicates that if there is not a substantial reduction in the proportion of young married women in the labor force, fertility will move countercyclically. In that there must be some floor to fertility, one should be cautious of using these parameter estimates considerably outside the 1950-1977 period. Nonetheless, the estimates indicate that economic growth will not bring a substantial rise in German fertility, and, outside the unlikely situation of sustained economic decline, fertility will remain low.     

环境污染、内生增长与经济可持续发展

本文通过将环境质量作为内生要素同时引入生产函数与效用函数,构建三个带有环境污染约束的经济增长模型,系统地分析了环境污染外部性、物质资本积累、人力资本开发以及内生技术进步影响长期经济增长的内在机制。模型的基本结论表明,在环境污染的约束下,人力资本投资和研发创新是经济长期持续增长的主要动力源泉和决定性因素。为了实现经济可持续的最优发展战略,政府可以通过扶持人力资本积累与技术创新活动,促进清洁生产技术进步和制定严厉的环境标准,以及增强全民环保意识与可持续发展意识来达到这一目标。     

Decentralization and economic growth revisited: an empirical note

Although it is theoretically expected that decentralization leads to efficient provision of local public services and stimulates economic development, there is a mixed picture of the decentralization effect on economic growth across earlier empirical studies. Using the instrument variables (IV) technique with the latest cross-country data for the period from 1997 to 2001, this paper found that fiscal decentralization has a significant positive impact on per capita GDP growth. Therefore, when the focus is placed on the latest information on the economic situation in the latter 1990s, decentralization, particularly on the fiscal expenditure side, is instrumental in economic growth.     

Remittances and economic growth: A study of Guyana

Using an augmented Solow framework and an ARDL bounds test for cointegration, we explore the short- and long-run effects of remittances, aid and financial deepening on growth in Guyana using annual data for the period 1982–2010. The results show that remittances have a positive and significant effect both in the short and the long run. Aid has a negative effect in the long run and financial deepening is not statistically significant. The Granger-causality test reveals that capital stock, aid and financial deepening cause remittances inflow in Guyana.     

Environmental taxes,reforms and economic growth: an empirical analysis of panel data

This paper explores the relationship between environmentally related taxes and the economic growth rate. The analysis also investigates whether this relationship differs between countries that have implemented environmental tax reforms (ETRs) and those that have not. Using panel data from 31 OECD countries over the period 1994–2013, the paper finds that when we allow environmentally related tax revenues to interact with an initial level of real GDP per capita, the overall revenues of these taxes are negatively associated with the economic growth rate in the short and long term. Furthermore, we show that the higher the initial level of GDP per capita, the more environmentally related tax revenues can promote the economic growth rate. The analysis also reveals that the relationship between environmentally related tax revenues and economic growth varies between countries that have a mechanism to redistribute environmentally related tax revenues and those that do not.     

Regional competence and economic recovery: divergent growth paths in Boston's high technology economy

Since the 1960s, the growth of high technology industries in Boston's Route 128 region has attracted the attention of academics, planners and politicians. What was especially remarkable about the region was the capability of its economic base to recover from major structural crises. Owing to this ability, the region is often looked at as being an American example of an industrial district. In contrast to Silicon Valley, however, Boston does not readily fit into the definition of an industrial district because of the dominance of large, vertically-integrated producers and the proprietary nature of high technology production. In the late 1980s, Boston was hit by an additional structural crisis when the minicomputer industry lost its competitive basis and defence expenditures were drastically reduced. As a result, almost 50000 high technology manufacturing jobs were cut between 1987 and 1997. This paper aims to identify the forces behind the region's economic recovery in the mid-1990s and relate these findings to the discussion of the importance of collective learning processes in industrial production and the development of localized competencies. In the literature, it is argued that firm-specific competencies and learning processes can lead to a regional competitive advantage if they are based on localized capabilities (e.g. specialized resources, skills, conventions and institutions). The author will demonstrate in an explorative way that the economic recovery of the Boston region is related to a number of specific forces that differ greatly between the subsectors of the high technology economy. I will also provide tentative evidence of how the willingness to co-operate and engage in interactive learning processes has encouraged economic recovery.     

Animal spirits as an engine of boom-busts and throttle of productivity growth

The news-shock literature interprets empirical news-shock identifications as signals about future productivity. Under this view, changes in productivity cause changes in expectations. I investigate an alternative interpretation whereby changes in expectations cause changes in productivity. I present a model where firms adopt the technology of a deterministic frontier, and where self-fulfilling expectational-shocks unleash a frenzy of adoption through which firms increase productivity. Consistent with the news evidence, stock prices and aggregate activity boom, yet TFP increases with a lag. Simulations using i.i.d. expectational-shocks yield moments consistent with the data, and qualitatively capture both high-frequency boom-busts and lower-frequency fluctuations. Finally, estimating a Beaudry–Portier style VECM on the simulated model output to identify a “news shock” recovers impulse response functions largely consistent with the Beaudry and Portier (2006) results.     

闲暇效应与内生增长——基于中国和瑞典数据的分析研究

本文综合利用社会学与心理学的研究成果对闲暇的经济含义进行了扩展,认为闲暇对生产具有积极的互补效应,并通过将该类效应引入到带人力资本的卢卡斯内生增长模型,利用中国和瑞典的相关数据进行分析。本文的计量分析显示,瑞典的闲暇增加对经济增长具有正作用,但中国与此相反,因而瑞典的技术进步、人口状态等因素对增长的作用优于中国。最后,本文建议推动休闲经济发展、适时推进弹性工作制,实现"工作—闲暇平衡"。     

Federalism,taxation, and economic growth

We present a model of endogenous growth where government provides a productive public good financed by income and capital taxes. In equilibrium, a decentralized government chooses tax policy to maximize economic growth, while a centralized government does not do so. Furthermore, these conclusions hold regardless of whether governments are beholden to a median voter or are rent-maximizing Leviathans. However, a decentralized government will under-provide public goods which benefit citizens directly, while a central government beholden to the median voter will optimally invest in such public goods.     

Entrepreneurship,innovation and economic growth

The linkages among entrepreneurship, creativity, innovation and economic growth are only vaguely understood presently. This paper is an attempt to improve that understanding. The first step in establishing the linkages requires the formulation of knowledge about the psychological make-up of entrepreneurs. These questions are pertinent: What motivates humans to become entrepreneurs? Are entrepreneurs “rational economic men”? How important are monetary rewards to entrepreneurial creativity ? The second step requires information about how the human brain functions. The brain is bi-hemispheric and both sides of the brain play an important role in human decision-making. Nevertheless, we have a cultural bias in favor of the functions performed by the brain's left side. The third step requires an understanding of the process of creation and innovation. Several stages in this process have been identified. The stages of preparation, incubation, and illumination involve the brain's right hemisphere while the verification stage involves the left hemisphere. The final step integrates the first three. We assume that entrepreneurship is an essential determinant of economic growth, that the entrepreneurial function involves creation and innovation, and that entrepreneurship can be taught. This article is intended to provoke thinking and research incorporating new insights from several disciplines. These insights appear to bear more on entrepreneurship than is generally acknowledged.     

Lack of confidence,the zero lower bound,and the virtue of fiscal rules

In the presence of the zero lower bound, standard business cycle models with a Taylor-type monetary policy rule are prone to equilibrium multiplicity. A drop in private sector confidence can drive the economy into a liquidity trap without any change in fundamentals. I show, in the context of a standard New Keynesian model, that it is possible to design Ricardian fiscal spending rules that insulate the economy from such expectations-driven liquidity traps. In the case of price adjustment costs, desirable fiscal rules ensure that a drop in confidence does not lead to a decline in real marginal costs. In the case of nominal wage adjustment costs, desirable fiscal spending rules ensure that a drop in confidence does not lead to a decline in the ratio of the marginal rate of substitution between private consumption and hours worked relative to the real wage rate.     

Land conservation,growth and welfare

This paper identifies the factors, such as leaving land fallow and conservation inputs, for conserving and enhancing soil fertility of land. The growth and welfare effects of these land policies are then examined. Leaving land fallow and conservation inputs raise the equilibrium soil fertility. In the short run, the polices can render unfavorable impacts to the economy, such as decreases in the land supply by the fallow plan, or reductions in public services and falls in private capital formation. Nonetheless, both policies have ambiguous impacts on growth and welfare of the economy in the long run. Furthermore, due to the favorable impact on initial consumption, the welfare-maximizing tax rate or transfer ratio is larger than the one for growth maximization. However, for the land fallow ratio, both rates are the same.     

Institutions,social capability,and economic growth

I discuss correlations between the historical growth of social capabilities and patterns of economic growth across world regions since the industrial revolution and especially in recent decades. Based on this analysis, I argue that the apparent relationship between institutions and economic growth results in part because better institutional performance goes hand in hand with more advanced social capabilities.