Unemployment Invariance

Abstract. This paper provides a critique of the ‘unemployment invariance hypothesis’, according to which the behavior of the labor market, by itself, ensures that the long‐run unemployment rate is independent of the size of the capital stock, productivity and the labor force. In the context of an endogenous growth model, we show that the labor market alone need not contain all the equilibrating mechanisms to ensure unemployment invariance; in particular, other markets may perform part of the equilibrating process as well. By implication, policies that raise the growth path of capital or increase the effective working‐age population may influence the long‐run unemployment rate.     

中国劳动生产率的增长及其因素分解

长期来看,中国劳动生产率呈现持续上升趋势,改革开放之后的增速更是显著。劳动生产率增长主要依靠各产业内部生产率的提高来实现。相对地,劳动配置结构变化的贡献度并不显著,这种状况在改革开放之后得到了强化。劳动配置结构变化贡献度较小,与劳动力跨部门流转的交易成本较高有关,而行业内部生产率提高与分工演进、资本深化、资本有机构成提高等密切相关。     

A Schumpeterian model of investment and innovation with labor market regulation

Theoretical and empirical models provide ambiguous responses on the relationship between labor market regulation, innovation and investment. On the one hand, labor market regulation increases firms' adjustment costs and, ceteris paribus, decreases investment. But, on the other, it also stimulates firms to invest, innovate, increase productivity and profit in the long run. In this paper we present an endogenous growth model that describes the role of these opposite forces, and why a stricter labor market regulation may positively affect innovation and investment in the long run. Most of the theoretical and empirical results hold for Italy, Germany, France, and Spain.     

Productivity and per capita GDP growth: The role of the forgotten factors

Average hourly productivity has often been used to draw conclusions on long run per capita GDP growth, based on the assumption of full utilization of labor resources. In this paper, we argue that a failure to recognize the potential significant wedges among the two variables - even in the long run - can be misleading. By applying both time series and panel cointegration techniques on data on 19 OECD countries, we fail to reject the hypothesis of the absence of a long run common stochastic trend among the two variables in the period 1980-2005. Furthermore, we apply a simple decomposition of GDP growth into five variables, including some related to the supply-side and demographics, so to verify the single contributions to income growth and variance over our period of interest. We conclude that variables that have been so far absent in the growth literature indeed have a non-negligible role in explaining the dynamics of long run per capita GDP growth. In particular, these “forgotten factors” (that we identify with the employment and the activity rates and a demographic ratio) matter more in better performing economies, where we also highlight that productivity has been less important in determining GDP growth than in relatively bad performers.     

产业结构变迁、劳动力市场扭曲 和中国劳动生产率增长放缓*

自2007年以来,中国的劳动生产率呈现出增长放缓的趋势。本文建立了包含劳动力市场扭曲和部门效率差异的三部门一般均衡模型,对劳动生产率增长放缓的原因进行了分析。本文的模型可以较好地拟合劳动力部门间再配置和劳动生产率增长放缓的特征事实。数值模拟结果表明,第三产业劳动生产率低速增长是导致中国总劳动生产率增长放缓的主要原因,而劳动力市场扭曲的减弱和第一产业劳动生产率的加速增长则对总劳动生产率增长放缓起到了遏制作用。这些结果证明,劳动生产率的增长放缓在很大程度上是产业结构变迁带来的。政府可以实施放松服务业进入规制和消除劳动力市场扭曲等政策,提高总劳动生产率的增长率。     

中国城乡收入差距形成的宏观机制分析——中国存在Kuznets倒“U”曲线吗

理论与实证分析表明,决定城乡收入差别的宏观因素主要包括经济发展程度、城乡劳动力负担差异程度与城乡劳动生产率差异。其中,城镇劳动力负担、城乡劳动生产率差距与城乡收入差距负相关,农村劳动力负担与城乡收入距正相关,经济发展程度与城乡收入差距存在倒“U”型关系。为此,要缩小城乡收入差距就需要在继续促进经济快速稳定发展中,坚持市场化改革的方向与现有人口政策,以规模化、科技化和产业化推动传统农业升级,提升农村劳动生产率。     

Productivity Shocks and Real Effective Exchange Rates

This paper provides new insights into the relationship between exchange rates and productivity developments for European Economies. We focus on the question whether productivity changes have a long‐run impact on real effective exchange rates for a large number of European economies. Focusing on a sample period running from 1995 until 2013, we adopt a cointegrated vector autoregressive approach and distinguish between long‐run equilibrium, short‐run dynamics and long‐run impact of shocks. Our findings show that for several industrialized economies, real effective exchange rates and labor productivity are not related over the long‐run. A possible explanation for this result is that wage developments do not reflect increases in labor productivity to a large degree, which prevents a transmission to the real effective exchange rate through the price channel. The results for Central and Eastern European Countries are more encouraging since a positive impact of labor productivity on real effective exchange rate is frequently observed.     

An econometric analysis of the effects of population change on economic growth: a study of Taiwan

This study used an econometric model, estimated from time series data, to evaluate the effects of demographic factors on the T aiwanese economy. The simulation results suggest that, in the short run, a stationary population produces significantly higher income per capita than rapid population growth; in the long run, however, rapid population growth produces a slightly higher income per capita. Under assumptions of very low fertility trends, the population size, equivalent adult consumers, and labor force can be expected to grow by no more than 50% in a century, whereas under the very high fertility trend assumptions, they would more than double. The reason that lower fertility populations produce a smaller gross domestic product per capita in the long run than the normal fertility population is that the negative effects of a slower growing labor force dominate the positive effects of a faster growing capital formation. In terms of the present values of annual income per capita, the slow growing population shows considerably better economic performance. Given the immediate economic advantages of lower fertility, it is important for developing countries with high birth rates to reduce fertility in order to produce higher per capita income effects and break out of poverty. It is considered of little importance that the slow growing populations eventually produce slightly smaller per capita.     

Demography and pollution

In this paper, we consider an OG model with endogenous fertility and pollution externalities. We assume that pollution lowers the productivity. In the long run, under dominant income (substitution) effects, a raise in the cost of rearing children, increases (decreases) consumption and decreases (increases) pollution. In the short run, under dominant income effects, a sufficiently low pollution elasticity of labor productivity promotes deterministic cycles through a Hopf bifurcation jointly with expectations-driven fluctuations.     

部门间生产率差距、劳动力去工业化与结构性减速

基于中国劳动力就业结构出现过快和过早去工业化的迹象，本文从部门间生产率差距的视角，利用多部门一般均衡模型、数值模拟和计量实证分析方法研究发现：（1）理论上，当服务业劳动生产率增长慢于工业，部门间生产率差距将扩大，导致劳动力去工业化速率加快；且部门间生产率差距的存在使得劳动力去工业化对经济增长产生结构性减速效应。服务业部门生产率加快提升，部门间生产率差距将会缩小，从而减缓去工业化速率和降低结构性减速压力；工业部门生产率提升尽管会扩大部门间生产率差距从而加快劳动力去工业化，但在长期中起到均匀化经济增长速率的作用。（2）利用2001—2018年中国省级和城市级面板数据的计量实证分析发现，部门间生产率差距的存在导致劳动力去工业化的效应在全时段样本下显著，但劳动力去工业化对经济增长的结构性减速效应仅在2009—2018年区间样本下显著，表明近年来中国经济增长减速与部门间生产率差距及其导致的劳动力去工业化相关。（3）赶超成功与失败国家的经验比较也表明，工业与服务业部门劳动生产率的改善与协调是跨越中等收入陷阱以及跨越后实现持续赶超的关键。     

Population growth,soil fertility,and agricultural intensification

This paper presents a renewable resource model of soil fertility with a nonconvexity in the net benefit function. In this setting, recurring cycles of cropping and fallow can be the optimal soil management strategy. The model is used to illuminate the Boserup discussion of agricultural development, in which population growth leads to agricultural intensification, defined as an increase in cropping frequency. Previous formal models of the Boserup hypothesis focus on the land-labor ratio rather than cropping frequency and have not directly incorporated soil fertility dynamics. These models assume a convex production technology and are not optimistic about the prospect for agricultural development without technological progress. This paper explicitly models soil fertility dynamics and demonstrates that nonconvexities in the production technology are an important feature of the use of long fallow periods for soil management. As population grows, and the demand for food increases, the importance of the nonconvexity diminishes and more frequent cropping becomes economical. Given a nonconvexity in the production technology, it is possible, though not necessary, that average labor productivity increases with agricultural intensification. Thus, it is possible to reconcile the greater labor requirement of intensive farming with an increase in average labor productivity. In addition, Boserup argued that a larger and denser population facilitates the development of economic and social infrastructure which improve agricultural productivity.     

Habit persistence and the long-run labor supply

Standard macroeconomic models possess the undesirable feature that people stop working in the long run. Assuming standard parameters, the neoclassical model predicts that 2% of annual productivity growth leads to a 99% decline in the labor supply after 624 years. Yet, this contradicts the fact that labor hours per capita are relatively stable, even over a long period of time. This paper shows how internal and external habit persistence each work to stabilize the long run labor supply, independent of key parameter choices.     

The Long Run Growth and Productivity Performance of the United Kingdom

This paper examines Britain's long run growth and productivity performance since the late nineteenth century, taking an international comparative perspective and disaggregating by sector. Britain was richer than the United States and Germany in 1870 largely because of high levels of labour productivity in services and agriculture rather than in industry, together with a highly favourable structure, particularly a small share of the labour force in agriculture. By 1990, the productivity gap in manufacturing had not grown bigger. Rather, the deterioration in Britain's overall comparative labour productivity position has been concentrated in services and agriculture, together with the effects of structural change, particularly the later shift of labour out of agriculture in the United States and Germany.     

Unemployment and Growth in the Long Run: an Efficiency‐Wage Model With Optimal Savings*

An efficiency‐wage model of steady‐state equilibrium with labor‐augmenting technical progress is developed to explore the long‐run relationship between unemployment and growth. The rate of productivity growth is either specified exogenously or determined endogenously. In both cases, we preserve key results of the Shapiro–Stiglitz efficiency‐wage analysis without growth. Our model, however, also yields some striking new results. For instance, an exogenous increase in the growth rate may raise the rate of efficiency‐wage unemployment, and a once‐for‐all rise in the labor force may reduce the unemployment rate in the endogenous‐growth case.     

The impact of artificial intelligence on economic growth and welfare

Focusing on the self-accumulation ability and the nonrival characteristic of artificial intelligence (AI), this paper develops a three-sector endogenous growth model and investigates the impact of the development of AI along the transitional dynamics path and the balanced growth path. The development of AI can increase economic growth along the transitional dynamics path, and can increase household short-run utility if an increase in the accumulation of AI is due to the rising productivity in the goods or AI sector, but can be detrimental to household short-run utility if an increase in the accumulation of AI is because firms use more AI to replace human labor. In addition, the development of AI is not necessarily beneficial to household welfare in the long run. The main results are unaffected when considering the case where AI can improve the accumulation of human capital, the traditional research and development model, and different kinds of physical capital.     

服务投入与中国农业劳动生产率的追赶进程--对中国农业劳动生产率阶段性特征的新解释

长期以来,中国农业劳动生产率严重滞后于国际先进水平。文章对我国农业劳动生产率相对于美国的追赶进程进行了分阶段的分析,基于增长核算框架着重分析了服务投入在其中所发挥的作用。研究发现,我国农业劳动生产率在1995－2003年期间对美国的追赶效应明显,但服务投入密度提高的贡献相对偏小。我国农业劳动生产率在2003－2009年期间对美国的追赶效应更加明显,但服务投入密度相对偏低的贡献反而拖累了追赶进程。服务投入的内部结构分析显示,我国农业服务投入的发展滞后基本上是全方位的。进一步提高我国农业劳动生产率,缩小与国际先进水平的发展差距,需要充分认识到服务投入的重要性。解决我国农业服务投入发展滞后的问题需要在农业金融、农业保险、农业营销、农业物流、农业“互联网＋”和农业机械融资租赁服务等方面予以改进。     

The agricultural basis of comparative development

This article shows, in a two-sector Malthusian model of endogenous population growth, that output per capita, population density, and industrialization depend upon the labor intensity of agricultural production. Because the diminishing returns to labor are less pronounced, high labor intensity (as in rice production) leads not only to a larger population density but also to lower output per capita and a larger share of labor in agriculture. Agronomic and historical evidence confirm that there are distinct, inherent differences between rice and wheat production. A calibration of the model shows that a relatively small difference in labor intensity in agriculture can account for a large portion of the observed differences in industrialization, output per capita, and labor productivity between Asia and Europe prior to the Industrial Revolution. Significantly, these differences can be explained even though sector-level total factor productivity levels and the efficiency of factor markets are held constant in the two regions.     

Climate reversals and the transition to agriculture

The transition to agriculture is generally acknowledged to be the economic foundation for population growth over the last 10,000 years and for modern civilization itself. Dates for pristine transitions to agriculture have become a key input into empirical work on economic growth over the very long run. We propose a model of the transition in which population and technology respond endogenously to climate. The available data on the southwest Asian case, other cases of pristine transition, and cases of non-transition are consistent with our model, but often inconsistent with rival explanations. In addition, our theory of the origins of agriculture has implications for instrumental variable strategies that can be used in empirical research on long run economic growth and development.      

CAPITAL‐ AND LABOR‐SAVING TECHNICAL CHANGE IN AN AGING ECONOMY

Does population aging and the associated increase in the old‐age dependency ratio affect economic growth? The answer is given in a novel analytical framework that allows for population aging to affect endogenous capital‐ and labor‐saving technical change. In a steady state capital‐saving technical progress vanishes, and the economy's growth rate of per‐capita variables reflects only labor‐saving technical change. The mere possibility of capital‐saving technical change is shown to imply that the economy's steady‐state growth rate becomes independent of its age structure: Neither a higher life expectancy nor a decline in fertility affects economic growth in the long run.     

Asymmetric impacts of ICT and energy intensity on agricultural productivity: Evidence from Asia-Pacific region

In the contemporary times of rising food insecurity and malnutrition, the agricultural sector needs more attention. This study aims to investigate the asymmetric impacts of information and communication technologies (ICTs), energy intensity, urbanization, and inequality on agricultural productivity for 20 Asia-Pacific countries from 1990 to 2020. To investigate asymmetric impacts, the study employs the panel nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model. The estimated results revealed that positive and negative shocks in ICT, energy intensity, and urbanization have asymmetric impacts on agricultural productivity in the long run, whereas symmetry is observed in short-run impacts. It is found that a 1% increase (decrease) in ICT and urbanization increases (decreases) agricultural productivity by 0.292% (0.662%) and 2.717% (2.759%), respectively, whereas a 1% increase (decrease) in energy intensity decreases (increases) agricultural productivity by 0.252% (0.216%) in the long run. Furthermore, the results of the Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality test point out the existence of bi-directional causality between agricultural productivity and the independent variables (ICT, energy intensity, urbanization, and inequality). Based on the findings, the study suggests that the Asia-Pacific countries should increase the application of ICT and use energy more efficiently in agriculture to boost agricultural productivity.