On the Flexibility of Optimal Policies for Green Design

Several recent papers show that different combinations of taxes and subsidies can achieve the social optimum for green design and household waste management when there are various market failures. This note shows that such policy flexibility exists only if all relevant actions by individual agents can be properly targeted by economic instruments. If the household can make a private effort to reduce waste, then an optimal policy is shown to be a unique combination of given economic instruments.     

Some Implications Of Endogenous Technological Change For Technology Policies In Developing Countries

Part I contrasts the general types of policy advice that follow from three different approaches to understanding economic growth and technological change. Neoclassical theory gives policy advice that is assumed to be relevant for all countries at all times: remove sources of ‘market failures’. Romer's branch of new macro growth theory stresses the nature of knowledge, non-rivalrous and partly appropriable. Structuralist-evolutionary theory is micro based and stresses the uncertainty that is associated with technological advance. Both of the latter approaches conclude that the neoclassical optimal allocation of resources is unachievable and hence the policy advice of removing impediments to achieving that optimum is not well grounded. As a result, policy advice for enhancing technological change must rely on a mixture of theory, empirical analysis and policy judgement. Part II deals with the large amount of context-specific policy advice that follows from structuralist-evolutionary theories.     

Institutional Economics as Theory of Policy Change: Impact of Past Policy Failures on Present Policy

Social scientists have developed several theories for understanding or evaluating policy change over time. Since all costs or benefits are not internalized owing to positive transaction costs, policymaking is always implemented under cost underestimation conditions and, therefore, is imperfect. I call this trait policy failure in this article. Furthermore, I show that a new framework combining the social costs approach and the legal/economic approach in institutional economics is suitable and can be applied to evaluating how past policy failures affect present policy, providing as an example the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.     

国外创新政策评估与设计研究述评

创新是经济长期增长和经济快速发展的关键动力,创新政策在其中发挥了重要的作用。本文首先界定了创新政策和创新政策评估与设计的内涵,创新政策是创新系统的表现形式,创新政策评估与设计是一个系统内与创新相关的主体行为规则体系的评估及再造的理论和方法体系。其次阐述了两种不同的创新政策的的形式及理论基础,在新古典主义经济学理论中,公共政策干预的一个必要条件是市场失灵;在创、新和演化经济学理论中,创新政策制定的注意力从注重市场失灵转向解决系统失灵。在上述两种分析框架下,深入探讨和分析了创新政策实践。最后对国外创新政策评估与设计研究现状进行了概括和评价,列举了国外创新政策评估与设计研究的特征,指出了研究中的不足。     

新结构经济学-重构发展经济学的框架

经济发展本质上是一个技术、产业不断创新,结构不断变化的过程。发展经济学在二战后刚成为现代经济学中的一个分支时,结构主义的观点占主流,认为经济结构外生决定,强调市场失灵及政府在改变经济结构、促进经济发展中的作用。由于结构主义所主张的以政府主导产业结构升级的政策在发展中国家普遍失败,到了20世纪70年代以后,发展经济学转而以华盛顿共识为主流,强调政府失灵,片面侧重市场的作用,并且忽视了对结构及其变迁问题的研究。本文提出新结构经济学的理论框架,认为经济结构内生决定于要素禀赋结构,并倡导以新古典经济学的方法来研究经济结构及其变迁,以及政府、市场在此过程所起的作用,以弥补当前发展经济学的不足。     

Nature, Power and Growth

This essay reviews the relationship between natural–resource abundance and economic growth around the world, and presents some new results. The principal reasons why resource–based production can inhibit economic growth over long periods are traced to the Dutch disease, neglect of education, rent seeking, and economic policy failures. Across a large number of countries in the period from 1965 to 1998, the share of the primary sector in the labour force is shown to be inversely related to exports, domestic and foreign investment, and education, and directly related to external debt, import protection, corruption, and income inequality. The cross–sectional data show, moreover, that the share of the primary sector in the labour force is inversely related to per capita growth across countries. None of this lies in the nature of things, however. What seems to matter for economic growth is not the abundance of natural resources per se, but rather the quality of their management, and of economic management and institutions in general.     

NATIONAL HEALTH CARE AND QUALITY OF SERVICE: LESSONS FROM MEDICAID

Much recent public debate centers around failures in the U.S. health care system. Studies indicate that as many as 33 million Americans are without health insurance, while health care expenditures continue to out-strip GNP growth. Numerous proposals for national health insurance have surfaced in response to these apparent shortcomings. The various proposed health insurance structures are not always based upon careful economic evaluation of incentive schemes and of the full range of potential effects. This paper examines results of recent Medicaid system studies so as to shed light upon the outcomes one can expect from national health insurance plans possessing similar incentive structures. The results here have potentially useful policy implications.     

西部地区外国直接投资与经济增长关系的实证分析

本文运用协整和因果关系检验理论,对西部地区从1979年到2005年的外国直接投资与经济增长数据进行实证检验.结果发现二者之间存在长期稳定的关系,并且当滞后两期时,经济增长是外国直接投资的格兰杰原因,而外国直接投资并不是经济增长的格兰杰原因.在协整分析的基础上建立了误差修正模型,分别从长期和短期对两者之间的关系进行了定量分析,并给出了结论和政策建议.     

Government financing in an endogenous growth model with financial market restrictions

Summary. In this paper, we develop an endogenous growth model with market regulations on explicitly modeled financial intermediaries to examine the effects of alternative government financing schemes on growth, inflation, and welfare. In the presence of binding regulation, there is always a unique equilibrium. We perform four alternative policy experiments; a change in the seigniorage tax rate, a change in the seigniorage tax base, a change in the income tax and a change in the fiscal-monetary policy mix. We find that in the presence of binding legal reserve requirements, a marginal increase in government spending need not result in a reduction in the rate of economic growth if it is financed with an increase in the seigniorage tax rate. Raising the seigniorage tax base by means of an increase in the reserve requirement retards growth and it has an ambiguous effect on inflation. An increase in income tax financed government spending also suppresses growth and raises inflation although not to the extent that the required seigniorage tax rate alternative would. Switching from seigniorage to income taxation as a source of government finance is growth reducing but deflationary. From a welfare perspective, the least distortionary way of financing an increase in the government spending requirements is by means of a marginal increase in the seigniorage tax rate. Under the specification of logarithmic preferences, the optimal tax structure is indeterminate. Received: March 20, 2000; revised version: June 26, 2001     

The impact of health sector on R&D,economic growth and wages

We extend the existing R&D growth literature by focusing on the short-, medium-, long-run effects of the health sector on R&D intensity, economic growth and wages, and by considering 21 OECD countries between 1991 and 2008. We show that: (i) there is a unique and stable steady state; (ii) an increase in health-labour share in skilled population has no effect on growth, but affects negatively (positively) the R&D intensity (the skill premium); (iii) Anglo–Saxons countries have the lowest health-labour share in skilled-labour population, and Nordic countries have the lowest skill premium and the highest consumption/production of healthcare per capita.     

Estimating the long-run relationship between income inequality and economic development

There are several theories describing the effect of income inequality on economic growth. These theories usually predict that there exists some optimal, steady-state growth path between inequality and development. This study uses a new measure of income distribution and panel data cointegration methods to test for the existence of such a steady-state equilibrium relation. It is shown that there is a long-run equilibrium relationship between the variables, and that this relationship is negative in developed economies.     

Post-materialism and economic growth: Cultural backlash, 1981–2019

In recent decades it seems that various factors have led to a cultural background change, which although mainly characterized as incremental, in some cases can be sudden. A question therefore arises as to whether the way in which the cultural background has evolved during last decades affects the growth rate of economies. We use an unbalanced panel dataset comprised from 34 OECD countries from 1981 to 2019, and a Least Squares Dummy Variable Correction (LSDVC) method as well as a series of robustness tests including different methods of analysis, adding control variables and breaking the overall period into subperiods. We conclude that the cultural background during the overall period under consideration is characterized as post-materialistic and harms economic growth. Moreover, we highlight both theoretically and empirically the cultural backlash hypothesis since the cultural background of the countries under analysis presents a shift from traditional/materialistic (from 1981 up to 1998) to post-materialist values (from 1999 up to 2019). Doing so, we conclude on a positive effect of cultural background on economic growth when traditional / materialistic values prevail, and a negative effect when post-materialistic values prevail. These results highlight culture as a crucial factor for economic growth and indicate that economic policy makers should take it seriously into account before designing economic policy and in order to explain the effectiveness of economic policies implemented.     

文化资本、体制转轨与经济增长——兼及文化产业发展路径

本文回顾了关于经济增长的理论假说,发现围绕文化资本来解释体制转轨和经济增长以及讨论它们三者之间关系的文献较少。在此基础上提出制度是经济增长的重要但非决定性因素,适应文化资本的制度转轨才是经济绩效提高的关键,因此,文化资本中的市场观念在改革开放后被重新激发,构成中国经济增长的内在动力。最后基于结论从文化资本理论出发,兼述地域文化产业发展路径。     

The Dahrendorf hypothesis and its implications for (the theory of) economic policy-making

The sociologist R. Dahrendorf has recently suggested that thereis no and there ought to be no convergence of economic policiestowards some common ideal model. On the contrary, he statesthat ‘diversity is [...] at the very heart of a worldthat has abandoned the need for closed, encompassing systems’.It is shown in this paper that the Dahrendorf hypothesis isdifficult to reconcile with orthodox economic approaches toeconomic policy-making. A perspective on policy-making thatintroduces either fundamental uncertainty or endogenous policypreferences or both is, however, shown to be consistent withthe Dahrendorf hypothesis.     

On “badly behaved” dynamics

Adaptive (path dependent) processes of growth modeled by urn schemes are important for several fields of applications: biology, physics, chemistry, economics. In this paper we present a general introduction to urn schemes, together with some new results. We review the studies that have been done in the technological dynamics by means of such schemes. Also several other domains of economic dynamics are analysed by the same machinery and its new modifications allowing to tackle non-homogeneity of the phase space. We demonstrate the phenomena of multiple equilibria, different vonvergence rates for different limit patterns, locally positive and locally negative feedbacks, limit behavior associated with non-homogeneity of economic environment where producers (firms) are operating. It is also shown that the above urn processes represent a natural and convenient stochastic replicator dynamics which can be used in evolutionary games.     

The long‐term effects of forcible assimilation policy: The case of Indian boarding schools

For decades in North America and Australia, Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in boarding schools. These schools had the stated goal of cultural assimilation and are perceived as educational failures. I offer the first causal evidence on the long‐run effects of these schools. I identify these effects using the interaction of changes in Canadian national policy and regional variation in the power of the Catholic Church. I find that the average boarding school had substantial effects on both cultural and economic assimilation. However, I find suggestive evidence this is not true for highly abusive schools.     

农村劳动力流动的过去、现在和未来

回顾新中国成立以来农村劳动力流动的历史,世界上还没有哪个国家像中国一样,在推进现代化过程中,伴随如此大规模人口的迁移,并且在今后很长一段时间还将继续保持,并指出农村劳动力流动对中国的经济崛起发挥了重要作用。而当前农村劳动力转移也在发生变化,这是基于中国的政策变迁、地方政府行为和劳动者自身行为的变化所导致的。未来中国的城市化和工业化能否深度推进,农村劳动力流动起着重要作用。适时调整政策以适应农村劳动力流动的变迁将是对中国政府新的考验,如果成功,将走出中国独特的农村劳动力迁移道路。     

威廉姆森假说:空间集聚与区域经济增长——基于中国省域数据门槛回归的实证研究

威廉姆森假说认为,空间集聚在经济发展初期能显著促进效率提升,但达到某一门槛值后,空间集聚对经济增长的影响变小,甚至不利于经济增长,拥挤外部性更倾向于分散的地理空间结构。本文基于巴罗(Barro)增长模型建立了门槛回归模型,利用中国30个省域1978—2008年的数据对威廉姆森假说进行了实证检验,考察了空间集聚与中国区域经济增长之间的关系。研究结果表明,空间集聚对经济增长具有非线性效应,即没有达到门槛值以前,集聚对经济增长具有正效应,但超出门槛值后,集聚会降低经济增长率,即威廉姆森假说在中国显著存在。研究同时还表明,中国经济发展呈现出趋同和发散并存的态势。最后,本文据此提出了相应的政策建议。     

Framing Modern Monetary Theory

This article argues that Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has struggled to gain traction in wider economic and political debates due to: (1) An incomplete understanding of key macroeconomic terms among economic commentators, especially journalists, and the wider community (lack of education); and (2) The deployment of key macroeconomic terms (incorrectly) in the context of pervasive cultural metaphors to support policy interventions that effectively benefit a privileged few at the expense of the majority. We provide a conceptual basis for understanding how the language we use constrains our thinking and we examine some of the key metaphors used to reinforce the flawed message of orthodox economics. We examine key ideas of modern monetary theory—an apolitical model of macroeconomic operations—and propose effective ways of expressing those key ideas in a progressive social and economic framework.     

文化要素与经济增长

狭义地说,文化是世代相传下来的、规则化的"惯例",以及一套价值观念和相应伦理规范的"信仰"。关于文化对经济增长的作用机制,大致可以从三个方面给出初步解释:文化要素影响企业家职业选择和企业管理者选择机制,影响企业层次生产率,进而影响总生产率和经济增长;文化作为知识资产,以其特有的方式进入总生产函数,决定了经济增长率和增长路径;经济和文化的共生演进,将成为服务经济时代的典型化事实,并影响经济增长方式和经济竞争方式。