Explaining the nonlinear effects of financial development on economic growth

Using different indicators of financial development, recent empirical studies have discovered various patterns of nonlinearity in the relationship between financial development and economic growth. By adding consumption loans, which are nonproductive, into a standard model of asymmetric information, this paper generates a model that is able to replicate all possible nonlinear finance–growth relationships found in recent empirical studies.      

Developmental aspects of China��s trade pattern: The role of imported intermediate goods

This paper studies the relationship between China’s trade and its economic development. More than two centuries ago Adam Smith argued that it is the use of imported intermediate goods that constitutes the vector through which openness improves productivity. Imported intermediate goods can relieve what would otherwise be key constraints allowing faster growth, together with better human development. While China’s trade reform is often related to its productivity growth, there has been remarkably little attention to the relationship between imports and productivity growth at the industry-sectoral level. Our paper examines the sector-specific impact of intermediate goods utilizing a time series for the share of imported intermediate goods in each sector derived from our model calculations. Our study indicates that imported intermediate goods are playing an important role in the growth of Chinese productivity.     

Income inequality and economic growth—the Kuznets curve revisited

In a neoclassical growth framework with a typical political-economy mechanism, this paper reexamines the relationship between the income inequality and economic growth by introducing government spending into the production function and the utility function. It demonstrates that Kuznets’ famous inverted-U shape relationship between inequality and economic growth will hold—the growth rate will be first increasing with the income inequality before the growth rate decreases with inequality. __________ Translated from The Journal of World Economy (世界经济), 2005,(5) (in Chinese)     

蓝色经济区碳排放对经济增长的阈值协整效应

构建了碳排放与经济增长及其相关影响因素的阈值协整模型,利用完全修正的最小二乘法对该模型进行估计。得出如下主要结论:碳排放随着经济增长周期的发展表现出非线性变化特征;蓝色经济区的碳排放对经济增长的阈值协整效应发生在人均GDP增长率为9.54%和13.46%之处;从产业结构和能源使用效率对碳排放的阈值效应可看出蓝色经济区正在走产业升级和转型之路,因此需要注重培育高新产业发展环境。     

The Impact of the Welfare State and Social Policy on the Working Population: The Recent British Experience

This paper focuses on financing the welfare state expenditures in the UK. It offers a comprehensive analysis of social expenditures and taxes paid by the working population families, and an estimation of the net benefits received by them. While the subsequent analysis of the welfare state and its development primarily concentrates on the British experience, it has a broader application to other OECD countries. The UK as the most egalitarian “liberal market economy,” offers an interesting case for the study of the interaction between the welfare state expansion and economic growth. In terms of her capitalist economic structure, (interaction between market and economy) she is relatively closer to the USA and other Angelo-Saxon (liberal market) economies. In terms of her level of social expenditures, she is much closer to the European “social market economies” than the USA and other more egalitarian “liberal market economies.”     

The Linkage Between Tourism Development and Economic Growth in Malaysia: A Nonlinear Approach

In this study, we examine the nonlinear relationship between international tourism arrival and economic growth of Malaysia by using asymmetric models over the periods 2000:1–2015:4. The results show that the tourism arrival is positively related to Malaysia’s economic growth in the long run, but there is no short-run relationship and other traditional growth factors such as trade, exchange rate and Consumer Price Index are important for economic growth in the case of Malaysia. This implies that tourism can be one of the important factors for Malaysia’s economic growth in the long run and development and can be used to stimulate the overall economic growth and hence, policy-makers should pay greater attention towards promoting inbound tourism.     

Foreign Direct Investment,Financial Development and Their Impact on the GDP Growth in Low-income Countries

ABSTRACT

This essay empirically studies the effects and causal links between foreign direct investment (FDI), financial development (FD) and economic growth. The sample consists of the main economies of low-income countries and the study covers the period 1990–2015. The results of the estimate show that, under certain specific economic conditions, FDI affects positively the level of long-term economic growth; it thus makes it possible to improve the economic situation of these countries. Using Johansen’s cointegration technique, the results find that FD; FDI and GDP growth are cointegrated, that shows the pursuit of the long-term equilibrium relationship between them. The error correction model confirms the existence of a double causal relationship between FDI and GDP growth, and between FD and FDI and between GDP growth and FD.     

Re-examining the financial development and economic growth nexus in Kenya

This paper re-examines the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in Kenya for the period 1966–2005 within a quadvariate vector autoregressive (VAR) framework by including exports and imports as additional variables to the finance–economic growth nexus. We use four conventionally accepted proxies for financial development, namely money supply (M2), liquid liabilities (M3), domestic bank credit to the private sector and total domestic credit provided by the banking sector (all percent of GDP). Applying a modified version of the Granger causality test due to Toda and Yamamoto [Toda, H.Y. and Yamamoto, T., Statistical inference in vector autoregressions with possibly integrated process. Journal of Econometrics 1995; 66; 225–250], our empirical results suggest that in three out of the four measures of financial development we found evidence of a two-way Granger causality: (1) between domestic credit provided by the banking sector and economic growth; (2) between total domestic credit provided by the banking sector and economic growth, and (3) between liquid liabilities and economic growth. This implies that neither the supply-leading nor the demand-following hypotheses are supported in Kenya and that economic growth and financial development are jointly determined, or they complement each other. A major implication of our finding is that financial development promotes economic growth in Kenya and that policies at enhancing the development of the financial sector can help to spur economic growth.     

增长失衡与政府责任:基于社会性支出角度的分析

There exists a kind of growth imbalance in China’s current development process, which is essentially characterized by the imbalance between the nation’s wealth and the people’s welfare. This paper points out that growth imbalance results mostly from insufficient government social spending on people’s welfare. Consequently, the government should shoulder the basic responsibility for the provision of education, health and social security, quicken the transformation of government expenditure structure and increase the share of social spending, in order to improve the people’s welfare and achieve the rebalancing of growth. The increase in social spending can also promote the accumulation of human capital, which will help the conversion of economic growth pattern and the realization of sustainable and healthy economic development. Translated from Jingji Yanjiu 经济研究 (Economic Research Journal), 2006, (10): 4–17     

Keynes and Wagner on government expenditures and economic development: the case of a developing economy

This paper investigates the Keynesian view and the Wagner’s Law on the role of public expenditure on economic growth for Malaysia (1970–2004). The empirical results using the Auto-Regression Distributed Lag (ARDL) model and the ‘bounds test’ (Pesaran et al. in J Appl Econ 16:289–326, 2001) showed evidence of a long run relationship between total expenditures (including expenditures on defense, education, development and agriculture) and Gross National Product. The results also show that with the structural break in 1998, the long run causality is bi-directional for GNP and expenditures on administration and health, supporting both Keynes view and Wagner’s Law. For all other expenditure categories the long run causality runs from GNP to the expenditures, which supports Wagner’s Law. An erratum to this article can be found at     

中国西部地区的能源开发与经济增长——基于"资源诅咒"假说的实证分析

Based on resource curse hypothesis, this paper carries out an econometric analysis on the relationship and its transmission mechanism between energy exploitation and economic growth with cross-province panel data over 1991–2006. Results reveal that there is the significantly negative correlation between energy exploitation and economic growth, which indicates since the 1990s, the resource curse effect from energy exploitation has appeared evidently; though, before the implementation of the Western development strategy, energy exploitation acted negatively on opening degree, S&T innovation and human capital input, the effect was yet uncreated. However, after the implementation of the strategy, the effect emerged evidently as a result of the enhanced negative effect of energy exploitation on S&T innovation and human capital input. Moreover, further tests indicate that energy exploitation impeded economic growth mainly through three indirect transmission channels: The crowding-out effect towards human capital input and S&T innovation, and the weakening of institution aroused by rent-seeking and corruption. And among them, human capital input is the strongest transmission factor. __________ Translated from Jingji yanjiu 经济研究 (Economic Research Journal), 2008, (4): 147–160     

Growth effects of leisure tourism and the level of economic development

This study examines (1) whether leisure tourism can contribute to economic growth and (2) if it does, whether its growth effects are constant across levels of economic development. Leisure tourism differs from business tourism in the causal relation with economic growth. In addition, the natural and heritage-related resources for leisure tourism are limited and not reproducible. This notion has a significant implication for the relationship between the growth effects of leisure tourism and the level of economic development. Thus, the current study focuses on leisure tourism and controls for the effects of business tourism. As an economy grows, the growth effects of leisure tourism are expected to diminish due to a lack of continued productivity improvement in the tourism industry. The empirical findings in this research reveal that leisure tourism contributes to economic growth at an early stage of economic development, but its contribution becomes weaker as the economy develops.     

营商环境对中国省域经济高质量发展的非线性影响——双元创新的调节效应

从市场化、便利化、法治化和国际化4个维度出发，构建我国省域层面营商环境评价指标体系，采用2012-2019年中国省际面板数据，实证检验营商环境对中国经济高质量发展的非线性影响，探讨双元创新的调节效应。研究表明：①营商环境对经济高质量发展具有非线性影响，二者之间呈现“先抑后扬”的U型关系，我国大多数东部省份和少数西部省份已经跨过拐点，其余省份均位于拐点左侧，中部和西部地区营商环境水平有待提升；②双元创新对营商环境与经济高质量发展U型关系起正向调节作用。当探索式创新水平较高时，U型曲线变得更陡峭且拐点会提前出现；当利用式创新水平较高时，U型曲线变得更陡峭且拐点会延迟出现。另外，替换双元创新测度指标对营商环境不同维度进行稳健性检验也得出类似结论。     

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.      

金融发展对经济增长影响的区域差异——基于变系数模型的实证研究

通过缩小研究对象的区域范围来控制地理因素对金融发展与经济增长间关系的影响,利用1994—2009年湖南省14个地区的数据研究金融发展对经济增长影响的地区差异。基于变系数模型检验、随机系数模型检验,选择似不相关回归方法进行实证分析。研究结果显示:湖南省14个地区的金融发展对当地经济增长的影响存在差异,多数地区的金融发展对其经济增长具有阻碍作用。     

中国经济增长与碳排放之间的长期均衡关系及其短期非线性调整

运用Hansen和Seo的两区制阈值协整理论,研究了1953—2010年中国经济增长与碳排放之间的关系及其关系的短期非线性调整。结果表明:经济增长与碳排放之间存在非线性协整关系;当两者的长期均衡关系出现短期偏离时,在正常区制中,主要依靠碳排放的调整使两者间关系恢复到长期均衡状态,在极端区制中,碳排放和经济增长都会向均衡状态做出调整,且碳排放的调整速度更快。     

Regional economic development and environmental repercussions: An environmental input-output approach

This study attempts to examine issues related to the existing adverse relationship between regional economic development and natural environment protection. For doing so, a regional environmental input-output model for the region of central Macedonia in northern Greece is constructed in order to quantify the direct and indirect undesirable negative effects of the production process in the natural environment. The results suggest that there is a considerable trade-off between economic development and environmental deterioration which should be taken into account when policy decisions are made. This paper benefitted from comments by the participants of the Forty-Seventh International Atlantic Economic Conference, Vienna, Austria, March 16–23, 1999.     

Does Financial Development 'Lead' Economic Growth?

We use the Toda & Yamamoto (1995) causality testing procedure to investigate the relationship, if any, between financial development and economic growth.We use quarterly data from 19 OECD countries and China, and use total credit and interest spread as indicators of financial development. We also consider the impact of financial development on investment and productivity. We find meagre evidence that financial development 'leads' economic growth, either directly or indirectly. This casts further doubt on claims that financial development is a necessary and perhaps sufficient precursor to economic growth.     

Inflation and the finance–growth nexus

This paper re-investigates whether there exist inflation thresholds in the finance–growth linkage. By applying the Caner and Hansen's (2004) instrumental-variable threshold regression approach to the dataset of Levine et al. (2000), we find strong evidence of a nonlinear inflation threshold in the relationship, below which financial development exerts a significantly positive effect on economic growth, while, above which, the growth effect of finance appears to be insignificant. Furthermore, we also find a positive and significant relationship between finance and productivity for inflation rates below the threshold level, but no such relationship is detected for inflation rates above the critical level. This result suggests that finance influences growth mainly through the productivity channel.     

经济增长质量的研究进展与学术展望

改革开放40多年来,中国经济铸就了高速增长奇迹,目前已经具备向高质量发展转变的客观条件。本文通过梳理中国经济增长质量的相关文献,总结当下经济增长质量问题的研究不足和未来研究方向。研究发现：关于经济增长质量的文献集中在经济增长质量的内涵界定和解析、经济增长质量的评价维度与定量测度、经济增长质量的影响因素与调控政策等方面,研究成果较为丰富,但也存在经济增长质量的评价指标选取不一致、经济增长质量的评价指标缺乏宏微观维度区分、经济增长速度和增长质量关系认识不清等问题,今后学术研究当以此为重点突破方向。本文关于经济增长质量的文献梳理和评价,对各界理解经济高质量发展,确定经济增长质量的研究方向具有重要意义。