Innovation, Imitation and Intellectual Property Rights: A Note on Helpman's Model

This note analyses the effect of the policy of tightening Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) on the rate of innovation in the North and on the welfare in both North and South in a model which is otherwise identical to Helpman (1993) except in the concept of knowledge capital. We assume that the South based imitated products do not contribute to the knowledge capital in the North. It is shown that the tightening of IPR raises the rate of innovation in the North and may improve the welfare of both North and South. These results are significantly different from those in Helpman (1993).     

Economic mobility along the business cycle. The case of Peru

The performance of Latin American countries in reducing poverty and expanding the middle class has been remarkable. By taking a close look at the Peruvian experience, we examine how this aggregate behavior relates to business cycle conditions and whether different population groups share this behavior. We find that social mobility is cyclical; it decreases in recessions but increases with strong economic growth. The reduction in poverty in Peru appears to be the result of a sustained increase in the poverty exit rate together with a prolonged decrease in the poverty entry rate. These results hold among heterogeneous groups and are particularly marked for households regarded as initially disadvantaged.     

Learning for Innovation and the Skill Premium

The computer revolution took very long to pay off in productivity growth in the computer-using sectors. The relative wage of skilled workers, however, has risen sharply from the early days of the computer revolution onward. As skilled workers wages reflect their productivity, the two observations together pose a puzzle.This paper provides a micro-based explanation for the long diffusion period of the computer revolution. The general equilibrium model of growth zooms in on the research process and provides an explanation for sluggish growth with booming relative wages of the skilled. Technological progress in firms is driven by research aimed at improving the production technology (innovation) and by assimilation of ideas or principles present outside the firm (learning). A new General Purpose Technology (GPT) like the computer revolution generates an initial slowdown in economic growth and an increase in the skill premium.Acknowledgement I am indebted to Theo van de Klundert for suggestions and encouragement. Suggestions by Jan Boone, Bas Jacobs, Patrick Francois, Henri de Groot, Lex Meijdam, Niek Nahuis Sjak Smulders, Harald Uhlig and anonymous referees have contributed to the paper.     

Skill-Specific rather than General Education: A Reason for US–Europe Growth Differences?

In this paper, we develop a model of technology adoption and economic growth in which households optimally obtain either a concept-based, general education or a skill-specific, vocational education. General education is costly to obtain, but enables workers to operate new production technologies. Firms weigh the cost of adopting and operating new technologies against increased profits and optimally choose the level of adoption. We show that an economy whose policies favor vocational education will grow slower in equilibrium than one that favors general education. More importantly, the gap between their growth rates will increase with the growth rate of available technology. By characterizing the optimal Ramsey education policy we also demonstrate that the optimal subsidy for general education increases with the growth rate of available technology. Our theory suggests that European education policies that favored specialized, vocational education might have worked well, both in terms of growth rates and welfare, during the 1960s and 1970s when available technologies changed slowly. However, in the information age of the 1980s and 1990s when new technologies emerged at a more rapid pace, they might have contributed to an increased growth gap relative to the United States.     

Cointegration, causality and export-led growth in Mexico, 1895–1992

Cointegration and Granger-causality tests show that real exports and real GDP in Mexico over 1895–1992 were cointegrated and there was a significant and positive Granger-causal relationship running from exports to economic growth.     

中小企业成长性评价模式的比较研究

中小企业成长性的评价模式从评价指标体系的角度可以分为单一指标体系和复合指标体系,从评价方法的角度可以分为客观评价法和主客观相结合的评价方法。本文在对现有的评价模式进行比较研究的基础上指出在现代计算机技术的辅助下,可以运用主成分分析法对中小企业的成长性进行综合评价,进而得出评价结果。     

我国引进技术消化吸收与青少年成长教育类比分析及建议

消化吸收是我国技术引进后实现良性循环的重要环节,但目前一直存在效果不佳的问题。为了充分发挥技术引进的后发优势,通过应用相似系统理论,从我国青少年成长过程期间可能遇到的问题及预防措施来类比我国技术引进消化吸收工作中存在的不足,并给出相应的建议措施。     

Financial crisis and persistence: evidence from sticky expectations consumption growth model

We estimate the degree of stickiness in aggregate consumption growth for the U.S. considering the effects of the Great Recession. The behavior of stickiness estimate in the crisis is somewhat as the U-shaped pattern. Our findings imply that during the crisis consumers’ attentiveness to aggregate information has slightly increased, thereby reducing the persistence of aggregate consumption growth. However, the reduction in persistence is transitory. Since 1980, the U.S. faced five recessions and in most of them the degree of stickiness declined, albeit temporarily.     

Existence of a competitive equilibrium in a one sector growth model with heterogeneous agents and irreversible investment

Summary. We prove existence of a competitive equilibrium in a version of a Ramsey (one sector) model in which agents are heterogeneous and gross investment is constrained to be non negative. We do so by converting the infinite-dimensional fixed point problem stated in terms of prices and commodities into a finite-dimensional Negishi problem involving individual weights in a social value function. This method allows us to obtain detailed results concerning the properties of competitive equilibria. Because of the simplicity of the techniques utilized our approach is amenable to be adapted by practitioners in analogous problems often studied in macroeconomics. Received: September 13, 2001; revised version: December 9, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" We are grateful to Tapan Mitra for pointing out errors as well as making very valuable suggestions. Thanks are due to Raouf Boucekkine and Jorge Duran for additional helpful discussions. We also thank an anonymous referee for his/her helpful comments. The second author acknowledges the financial support of the Belgian Ministry of Scientific Research (Grant ARC 99/04-235 “Growth and incentive design”) and of the Belgian Federal Goverment (Grant PAI P5/10, “Equilibrium theory and optimization for public policy and industry regulation”). Correspondence to: C. Le Van     

中部地区金融发展与经济增长关系的实证研究

在“中部崛起”这一号召之下，中部金融业的发展如何能更有效地为其经济增长起到支撑作用显得尤为重要。本文运用回归分析和格兰杰因果检验法对我国中部地区六省1995-2004年金融发展与经济增长的关系进行实证研究，探求二者之间的因果关系，并在此基础上给出相应政策建议。这一研究对中部地区形成科学而有效的发展战略，实现经济振兴是有益的。