Dollarization, economic growth, and employment

Dollarization brought price stability and higher economic growth to Ecuador. Nevertheless, unemployment remained stubbornly high. Two opposing forces explain this result: sustained growth led to higher labor demand but price stabilization triggered substitution effects by cheaper intermediate goods and capital.     

The effects of local govemment investment on economic growth and employment： evidence from transitional China

Based on the panel data of 28 provinces in the year of 1987-2001, this paper examines the effects of the local government investment on economic growth and employment. The empirical result shows that the local government investment plays a significant positive role in economic growth and employment. However, while the proportion of local government investment to GDP had a remarkable rise after 1998, the elasticity of local government investment on economic growth declined, which shows that there is a big room for raising the efficiency of local government investment. Moreover. the empirieal examination shows that although local government investment had positive effect on employment, the elasticity had a decrease after 1994 when the tax-sharing system reform was put into practice. This shows that the positive role of local government investment on employment is also limited This paper argues that the role of local governments as investors must be weakened, and local governments of different levels should lessen direct economic intervention and concentrate on public regulation.     

Home country employment and foreign direct investment: evidence from the Italian case

The present paper provides further insights on the relationshipbetween home country employment and foreign direct investment(FDI) undertaken by national firms. The unit of analysis iseach ensemble of firms operating in the same industrial sectorand localised in the same geographical region. That allows usto capture both direct and indirect effects of foreign productionon the parent's environment, which arise through the generationof linkages and externalities. Empirical evidence has been providedwith reference to the Italian case in the decade 1985–95.Results suggest that the impact of outward FDI on the labourintensity of domestic production is negative in the case ofvertical investment undertaken—especially by smaller firms—inless developed countries, and positive for horizontal and market-seekinginvestments in advanced countries.     

提高政府投资效益的对策研究

二十多年经济的快速发展使我国逐渐成为世界上最大的项目市场，目前我国由政府投资的项目占全部项目总投资额的70％-80％。但是，根据近年来国家审计署公布的对有关部委和部分重点工程的审计报告来看，部分政府投资的重点工程存在着资金挪用、工期拖延、质量低劣、甚至腐败问题十分严重的情况。这些问题引发了人们对如何提高政府投资效益的思考。本文通过对我国现行的政府投资项目管理的现状的分析，提出了提高政府投资效益的一些对策。     

Tax-spending policies and economic growth: Theoretical predictions and evidence from the OECD

We present an endogenous growth model to study the growth effects of the composition of government expenditure and the associated tax burden. When we use data from a set of 23 OECD countries during 1970–2000, our econometric results support the predictions of the theory. The share of productive government expenditure is associated with higher growth, and this result is more robust when we use effective average tax rates and statutory tax rates as measures of the tax burden. With respect to the tax burden, different tax rates have different growth effects.     

How does foreign direct investment affect economic growth in China?

How does inward foreign direct investment (FDI) affect a transitional economy? This study attempts to analyze the role of FDI in China’s income growth and market‐oriented transition. We first identify possible channels through which FDI may have positive or negative effects on the Chinese economy. Using a growth model and cross‐section and panel data for the period 1984‐98, we provide an empirical assessment, which suggests that FDI seems to help China’s transition and promote income growth, and that this positive growth effect seems to rise over time and to be stronger in the coastal than the inland regions. JEL classification: F21, F23, O53.     

Complementarities and costly investment in a growth model

We develop a one-sector growth model whose key aspect is the combination of the assumptions of internal costly investment in capital and complementarities between capital goods in the production function. Despite the nonlinearity generated by these assumptions, the model delivers a single equilibrium.      

The allocation of volatile aid and economic growth: Theory and evidence

We analyse, both theoretically and empirically, the growth effects associated with two components of volatile foreign financial assistance: ‘directly productive’ (or ‘tied’) aid and ‘pure’ aid. We find that scenarios in which aid can hurt the recipient's growth rate emerge only in cases where foreign aid is volatile. As a result, we conclude that it is only in conjunction with the presence of aid variability that aid allocation determines whether foreign aid hurts or promotes long-run growth.     

Education public financing and economic growth: an endogenous growth model versus evidence

Using an Endogenous Growth Model with physical and human capital and unemployment (Mauro and Carmeci in J Macroecon 25:123–137, 2003), we study the effects of subsidies to education in economic growth. According to the model, we conclude that government subsidies to education only enhance economic growth conditional on unemployment and that this relationship is negatively influenced by unemployment. We provide evidence from a broad panel data of countries that confirms the importance of unemployment in the relationship between subsidies to education and economic growth but dismiss its importance as a direct determinant of economic growth.      

The effects of fiscal consolidations on the composition of government spending

ABSTRACT

In response to increasing debt paths, governments often implement fiscal consolidation programs. This paper studies the impact of these programs on the composition of government spending. System-GMM estimations performed on a sample of 53 developed and emerging countries over 1980–2011 reveal that fiscal consolidations significantly reduce the government investment-to-consumption ratio, i.e. a composition effect. Robust to a wide set of tests, including when using the narrative approach to identify fiscal consolidations, this significantly stronger contraction of government investment with respect to government consumption is at work particularly when debt is high and in the low phase of the economic cycle. Therefore, in such contexts, fiscal consolidations aimed at short-run stabilization may hurt the economy in the long-run through their detrimental effect on public investment, calling for a reflection upon how they could be re-designed to allow avoiding such undesirable consequences.     

The effect of economic freedom on growth revisited: New evidence on causality from a panel of countries 1970–1999

Does economic freedom cause economic growth or does causality run in the reverse direction? And do all the constituent parts of economic freedom exert a causal impact on economic growth or do some freedoms matter more than others? In order to answer these questions, this paper conducts a series of Granger causality tests using panel data for the period 1970–1999. In addition, the paper discusses a number of model specification issues, e.g. lag-length selection and the importance of intervening variables. The results suggest that some (but not all) aspects economic freedom affect economic growth and investment. On the other hand, there is only weak evidence that growth affects economic freedom.     

The sustainability and transition of economic growth in China：from a perspective of factor structure

After more than 20 years＇ high speed growth, the sustainable growth of Chinese economy faces serious limitation of resources and factors now and in the future. In order to maintain the economic growth. China has to trans-form the way of economic growth, Based on the analysis on the related theories of economic growth and the structural transformation in factors of production, this paper proposes that the transformation of the economic growth way has to impel the optimization and the promotion of the utilization structure of factors of production. Finall.v, based on the analysis of the necessity to change the pattern of economic growth, this paper proposes＇ the strategic measures to promote the continuous economic growth and the transformation of patterns of economic growth.     

Transfer payments from the central government to the local governments and the local governments' efforts on taxation: taking China as an example

The influence of the transfer payments from the central government to the local governments on the local governments' efforts on taxation must be taken into consideration by every country for the design of the transfer payments. Based on the theoretical analysis on the influence of the transfer payments from the central government to the local governments on the local governments'payments, this paper indicates that the local governments'efforts on taxation depends on the demand elasticity of the district for public goods. It increases with the increase of the elasticityλ.Judge the degree of the local government's efforts on taxation by measureλ. After an empirical analysis on the transfer payments from the central government to the local governments from 2000 to 2004, thins paper gets the conclusion that the local governments'efforts on taxation abates with the increase of supporting payments or with the increase of the ratio of transfer payments to local willing public payments. Under specific circumstances, the higher the ratio of transfer payments to the local fiscal expenditure is, the smaller the local governments' efforts on taxation is under the central payments, whereas the higher the local income is, the higher the efforts is under the eentral payments. Based on this. this paper gives the meanmg of its corresponding policies.     

Manufacturing growth and local employment multipliers in China

We study the impact of employment growth in manufacturing on job creation in the non-tradable sector for prefecture-level cities in China. Using the 2000 and 2010 Censuses of Population, we apply the shift-share approach to isolate the exogenous change of employment growth in manufacturing. For every hundred new manufacturing jobs, we find that 34 additional jobs are created in the non-tradable sector. We also show that the effect is heterogeneous along a number of dimensions. More specifically, one new job in high-technology manufacturing creates more jobs in the non-tradable sector while low-technology manufacturing employment growth has no significant multiplier effect. Among the non-tradable industries, the multiplier is the largest for wholesale, retail, and catering. Finally, the effect is also geographically heterogeneous, with the multiplier being greater for inland regions.     

经济增长与中拉贸易合作

近年来，中国和拉关地区的贸易额迅速增长。本文介绍了中拉贸易现状及贸易基础，重点对经济增长和中拉贸易合作之间的关系进行了分析。     

The institutional,economic and social determinants of local government transparency

Interest in transparency is increasing worldwide. Literature on their determinants is evolving but is still in early stages. So far, it has typically focused on national governments while neglecting local governments. This paper examines the economic, social, and institutional determinants of local government transparency in Spain. We broaden the traditional fiscal focus by including corporate, social, contracting, and planning transparency indexes. Our results indicate that large municipalities and left-wing mayors report better transparency indexes; while the worst results are presented by provincial capitals, touristic cities and mayors with absolute majority. The analysis of specific transparency categories generally shows the consistent impact of these determinants.     

The economic policy uncertainty and firm investment in Australia

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on the Australian firm investment activity. We find a significant positive relationship between the EPU and the firm investment over 2002 to 2017 period. Our main results remain unchanged after several endogeneity tests. Further analysis reveals that this relationship becomes pronounced for firms if their headquarters located in small states, firms with more tangible assets, higher operating cash flows and cash holdings, higher profits and leverage, but firms with fewer dividend payouts. Our paper sheds lights on the unique attribute of the impact of the EPU on the Australian firm investment activity and offers important policy and managerial implications.     

A driving force for sustainable economic growth in China from the wave-like effects of technological diffusion

This paper analyses the influence of the spatial association of different provinces on technological diffusion and economic growth, using panel data from 30 Chinese provinces from 2005 to 2016. The results show that firstly, there is a strong spatial correlation in economic growth between the provinces from Moran’s I index and Geary’s C index. Secondly, the decomposition of the direct and indirect effects in the spatial Durbin model reveals that foreign direct investment is a crucial factor for sustained economic growth. Last but not least, technological diffusion, exhibited in wave-like characteristics in China.     

广州市教育投资对经济增长贡献率的实证分析

有关数据表明，科技进步对经济增长的贡献率已经从20世纪初的5—20％提高到20世纪90年代的70％-80％。广州市作为经济开放的前沿城市，经济增长速度长年处于全国前列，那麽广州市教育投资的经济效益如何？为广州市经济增长带来了多大贡献呢？本文运用C—D函数模型（柯布-道格拉斯函数模型）进行了实证分析。     

Fiscal decentralization and corporate investment: empirical evidence from China

This paper examines the effect of fiscal decentralization on levels and efficiency of corporate investment. The results indicate that as the extent of local government fiscal decentralization increases, the level of new investment by firms under their jurisdiction rises. Furthermore, fiscal decentralization has an impact on corporate investment by aggravating over-investment rather than alleviating under-investment, leading to a situation whereby fiscal decentralization is negatively associated with investment efficiency at the level of the firm. Finally, the impact of fiscal decentralization on over-investment, under-investment and investment efficiency is not different between state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises, suggesting that economic leverages are the dominant government intervention measures. The findings imply that fiscal decentralization is another determinant of firm-level investment and corporate investment efficiency, which broadens the existing literature on the economic consequence of fiscal decentralization, resulting in important implications for policy-making.