Relative underperformance Alla Turca

From 1960 to 2003, Turkey has underperformed relative to several Western economies, in terms of hours worked and output per hour. Our sectoral analysis illustrates two points. First, Turkey's large drop in hours is due to the fact that the substantial decline in agricultural hours has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in nonagricultural market hours. Second, the sectoral composition of output is important for understanding Turkey's relatively weak rise in output per hour. We develop a simple model of structural transformation and home production to provide an account of Turkey's performance relative to the U.S. and Southern Europe. We find that the evolution of exogenous differences in sectoral productivity and taxes, between Turkey and the U.S., as well as Southern Europe, can account quantitatively for most of Turkey's relative underperformance to these regions.     

Financial development and economic growth in Greece: an empirical investigation with Granger causality analysis

This paper empirically examines the causal relationship between the degree of openness of the economy, financial development and economic growth by using a multivariate autoregressive VAR model in Greece for the examined period 1960:I-2000:IV. The results of cointegration analysis suggest that there is one cointegrated vector among GDP, financial development and the degree of openness of the economy. Granger causality tests based on error correction models show that there is a causal relationship between financial development and economic growth, but also between the degree of openness of the economy and economic growth.     

Land inequality and the transition to modern growth

Can the initial distribution of land, in a country's early history, affect its subsequent economic development? In this paper, I show that when land ownership is sufficiently concentrated, the landed elite will lobby the government to raise barriers to industrialization in order to protect its rents in the rural economy. I develop a small open economy model in which barriers take the form of tariffs on the imports of intermediate inputs used in industry. Such tariffs can affect both the timing and the pace of industrialization. The quantitative application of the theory is motivated by an important question in economic history: why did Argentina not replicate Canadian economic success, despite reasonable expectations to the contrary in the late 19th century? I provide evidence that Argentina had a markedly higher inequality in land ownership than Canada. Taking as given the observed differences in land distributions in the early 20th century, the model produces differences in equilibrium tariffs similar to the ones observed at the time, and the ones required to account for the Canadian–Argentine income gap until 1950. Over time however, as land becomes unimportant in production, land inequality ceases to be a source of policy disparities and income gaps.     

TRANSPORTATION COSTS,AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY,AND CROSS‐COUNTRY INCOME DIFFERENCES*

I study the role of transportation for development by introducing regional trade and a transportation sector into the standard two‐sector model of agriculture–nonagriculture. Low transport productivity can distort the allocation of resources across geographically dispersed production units within sectors and between agriculture and nonagriculture. I infer cross‐country transport productivity disparities from observed domestic transport costs and transport infrastructure stocks. “Endowing” rich countries with the transport productivity of poor countries would reduce their income by 10%. Combining transport productivity disparities with disparities in nonagricultural productivity and arable land the model yields a 50% higher rich–poor income ratio than the two‐sector model.     

Pulsatility and resistance indices in intrarenal arteries of normal adults

In order to establish the normal range of values of Pulsatility (PI) and Resistance (RI) Indices in the intrarenal vasculature, a study of 50 healthy volunteers (23 males, 27 females), divided into five groups of 10 according to age, was performed with Duplex Doppler ultrasound. Both kidneys were examined in all individuals and, in 12, indices were also compared between upper and lower poles of both kidneys. In addition, repeat examinations were performed in nine subjects on three different days, in order to assess the reproducibility of the method. No differences were found in the mean values of both indices between males and females, upper and lower poles, right and left kidneys. A statistically significant increase (p < 0.01, unpaired t-test) was demonstrated when the oldest age group (7th decade) was compared to the youngest age group (3rd decade). The method appeared remarkably reproducible for RI (4.2–7%), with wider variation in the PI (9.5–22.7%).     

A causal relationship between government spending and economic development: an empirical examination of the Greek economy

During the past few years, in many countries, both developed and developing, there has been a tendency to increase government spending. This article intends to examine this tendency of the public sector as well as the existing relationship between the extent of government spending and economic development. The data used cover a time period between 1960 and 2001. An effort is made to determine causal relationships between spending and economic development through the use of Wagner's theory.