A New Typology for Economic Sectors with a view to Policy Implications

This paper is an attempt to tease out a typology of economic sectors based on a systems approach to innovation and economic growth that may be useful for policy analysis. The typology explored here revolves around novel products rather than ethereal knowledge-producing entities. This insight goes back to Allyn Young (1928) and Joseph Schumpeter (1934) who argued that the introduction of new goods was the engine of economic growth. More precisely, our typology of sectors focuses on novel products which are efficiency-enhancing within and between sectors through the market mechanism. The scheme revolves around the relationship between 'Enabling' and 'Recipient' sectors (which gives the typology its name: ER), and offers a lens for viewing and interpreting a substantive part of the mechanics of modern economic growth. The last part of the paper briefly discusses a few immediate policy implications, although it has the potential for greater use and value in this regard.     

A tale of two countries: Directed technical change,trade and migratory movements

We propose a North-South model that reconciles trade and production strategies, flows of innovators and the path of economic divergence, or convergence, between countries. We explain the mechanisms behind these forces and show how the technological and economic gaps can be reversed if southern countries stop imitating northern goods and, instead, produce complementary goods. Such a strategy of complementarity on production yields the necessary incentives to innovators to engage in research in southern countries, which enhances the catching-up process between countries. It is also shown that migratory movements of unskilled labor between countries are also relevant to understand the dangers and benefits of different trade strategies for economic growth. This paper suggests a positive (negative) correlation between technological innovation in the North (South) and the level of substitutability in production, while under complementarity, technological innovation catches up in the South, therefore fostering the economic catching up process. A positive correlation between inflows of skilled and unskilled labor and substitutability of production between countries is also verified.     

经济增长的变化本质

在过去的一个世纪中,富裕国家的经济本质已经发生了巨大的变化。因此,文章提出“技术生理演变(technophysio evolution)”概念,即快速技术变化和人类生理进步的协同作用。这主要表现在以下三个方面：(1)消费结构和工作体闲时间分配的改变;(2)经济和家庭产出分配方面受高水平经济成就的影响;(3)全球市场迅速急剧转向耐用消费品和高科技服务。     

中国经济学研究与教学存在的基本问题与解决思路

当代中国经济学教学与研究面临的主要矛盾,是社会主义市场经济实践对经济理论提出的高要求与现有经济学研究与教学的相对低水平之间的矛盾。核心问题是应该如何在坚持马克思主义经济学指导地位的前提下,构建符合社会主义市场经济实践的经济理论;关键是要坚持用发展中的马克思主义经济学作为中国经济学的指导思想;重点是在辨证扬弃的基础上,大胆借鉴和充分利用西方市场经济经济学理论,将发展了的马克思主义经济学与辨证扬弃了的西方市场经济理论有机结合起来。     

Preventing HIV in injection drug users: exploring the tradeoffs between interventions

Injection drug users (IDUs) transmit the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) via both needle sharing and sex. Available interventions for this population have varying costs and effectiveness and focus on different risk behaviors. In this analysis, we look at two interventions. One is inexpensive, broad-based and provides modest risk reductions (street outreach (SO)); the other is narrowly focused, expensive and relatively effective (methadone maintenance). This analysis explores the effects of population risk behavior, intervention effectiveness, intervention costs, and decision constraints when allocating funds between these two interventions to maximize effectiveness. We develop a model of the spread of HIV, dividing IDUs into susceptibles (uninfected) and infectives, and separately portraying sex and injection risk. We simulate the epidemic in New York City for time periods from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, and incorporate the behavioral effects of two interventions performed singly or in combination to find the allocation that maximizes the number of infections averted in the IDUs and their noninjecting sex partners, assuming interventions have increasing marginal costs. We find that the optimal allocation nearly always involves spending the maximum allowable amount on SO. This result is largely insensitive to variations in risk parameters, intervention efficacy, or cost. The model's structure, however, makes clear that many factors contribute to this insensitivity, namely the scope of the interventions, the dual drug/sex nature of HIV risk in the population, the asymmetry of sexual risk for men and women, and the potential benefits to nonIDUs.     

经济实质与法律形式的选择、判断及经济后果——基于会计反映和税收征纳的比较分析

经济实质与法律形式,历来是会计和税收中核心的职业判断问题,由于税收与会计密切相关,有必要将二者放在一起加以比较并深入讨论,以期引发会计实务人员、税收征收管理人员以及纳税人等企业利益相关者深入的思考。基于这一目的,文章首先从会计反映的角度论述了交易的会计实质与法律形式的关系以及会计利益相关者的操纵方式,然后从税收征纳双方的角度详细论证交易的税收实质判断与其外在法律形式之间的关系及具体表现方式。     

Institutions and economic growth in Portugal: a quantitative exploration

This paper presents a broad diagnostic of the level of institutional development in Portugal in the legal, corporate governance and financial systems. A comparative assessment suggests that Portuguese institutions are less developed than their European Union and East Asian counterparts, more developed than Greek institutions and on a level similar to that of Spanish institutions. We use data for a wide cross-section of countries since 1960 and correlate indicators of institutional development with the long-term average growth rate, identifying issues where reform is likely to significantly affect economic growth. We construct three new indices that measure the potential of institutional reform - the impact of reform on growth, the required reform effort and the efficiency of reform index - by taking into consideration the institutional distance between Portugal and the European Union. These indices measure, respectively, which reforms have the most payoff in terms of growth, which are less costly to undertake and which deliver the most growth per required effort. Our results strongly suggest that in a large number of issues, institutional reform may translate into substantially higher rates of economic growth. Of the ten most promising reforms, six are in the legal area, irrespective of which of the indices is considered. Whereas legal reform is promising at the aggregate and the microeconomic levels, in the financial sector aggregate indicators offer the wider scope for productive reform, while in the corporate governance area it is indices at the micro level that hold the most promise. These results support the view that a comprehensive reform effort is likely to deliver higher rates of growth in Portugal, allowing faster real convergence with the rest of the European Union.Received: January 2003, Accepted: February 2004, JEL Classification: O0, O5, K00, K4, G2, G3This paper is based on Firms, Financial Markets and the Law: Institutions and Economic Growth in Portugal, prepared for the conference Desenvolvimento Económico Português no Espaço Europeu: Determinantes e Políticas, organized by the Banco de Portugal. Financial support by the Banco de Portugal, NOVA FORUM and FUNDAÇÃO Para a Ciência e tecnologia and Polti through feder are gratefully acknowledged. Comments from Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, two anonymous referees and the editor are sincerely appreciated. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Tourism and economic development: Which investments produce gains for regions?

Across three decades numerous metropolitan regions have made substantial investments in different tourist amenity packages. These investments were made to either capture a portion of the growing tourism market or establish an image that attracted the human capital needed to advance economic development. This article analyzes the returns for the tourism industry and for economic development from different amenity packages and finds those related to sports and amusements generated the most significant gains for regions.     

The Otus theory of hotel demand and supply

The structural balance of an economy and the economic policies that influence its development are shown to be determinants of the volume and structure of hotel supply. Similarly, these features of an economy are also shown to be determinants of the volumes of domestic hotel business and leisure demand.