Schumpeter's circular flow,learning by doing and cyclical growth

A two-sector growth model with endogenous technical change is presented. Concerning technical change, we assume that it is reflected by increases in the stock of human capital which are acquired through learning by doing. As a result, it turns out that transitory or, using the Hopf bifurcation theorem, persistent oscillations of the economic variables may be the outcome. Thus we are able to show that learning mechanisms alone may be sufficient to destroy the circular flow as described by Schumpeter.     

Digitalisierung im Gesundheitswesen — zwischen Datenschutz und moderner Medizinversorgung

The digital transformation of the healthcare branch is important and unstoppable. The enormous possibility of digitalisation to redesign and enhance processes has been shown in other branches. Digital technologies offer the similarly large potential to improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare services. However, in terms of digitalisation, the German health system lags behind other European countries. But given a lack of available evidence, the effects of the digitalisation of the healthcare system cannot be reliably evaluated. Digital access to patient data necessitates constructive error cultures in organisations in order to limit defensive medicine. And digital access to health information necessitates individual competence in searching and using this information for participatory decision-making. As with all technological progress, information security is very important in order to gain citizens’ confidence in a digital healthcare system. Thus, it is necessary to simultaneously pursue both enhanced privacy standards and state-of-the-art medical technology.     

Sorting it out: pile sorting as a mixed methodology for exploring barriers to cancer screening

We discuss a mixed methodology for analyzing pile sorting data. We created a list of 14 barriers to colon cancer screening and recruited 18, 13, and 14 participants from three American Indian (AI) communities to perform pile sorting. Quantitative data were analyzed by cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling. Differences across sites were compared using permutation bootstrapping. Qualitative data collected during sorting were compiled by AI staff members who determined names for the clusters found in quantitative analysis. Results showed five clusters of barriers in each site although barriers in the clusters varied slightly across sites. Simulation demonstrated type I error rates around the nominal 0.05 level whereas power depended on the numbers of clusters, and between and within cluster variability.     

Tourism and the ‘dry law’ in Kerala – exploring the nexus between tourism and alcohol

ABSTRACT

On the 24th of August 2014 the state of Kerala announced that alcohol will be progressively banned through different phases, with a plan of implementing a complete ban by 2025. The ban was eased in July 2017; yet, it sparked heated debates about its impacts on the tourism industry, which highlighted the strong nexus between alcohol and tourism. Despite animated discussions continued online for months after the announcement of the ban, there have not been studies assessing the impact of the ban on tourism/tourists. Through a thematic analysis of online texts published on TripAdvisor, this paper explores tourists’ perceptions and opinions of the implementation of the ‘Dry Law’ in Kerala. Moreover, this work also investigates whether the ban discouraged potential tourists to visit Kerala. Overall, our analysis reveals that the ban did not discourage potential tourists to visit Kerala, although many regarded the possibility of having moderate amounts of alcohol on holiday as pleasant. Importantly, our study also contends that the narratives about the ‘Dry Law’ produced and propagated online were often representative of political structures of power, which linked tourism to alcohol irrespective of the real impact of the ban on tourism.     

Cyclically oscillating product quality: A simple model of the product life cycle

This paper presents a dynamic model of the firm, where the firm can exert influence on demand by setting the price and by controlling the quality index. Assuming profit maximization, it is shown by means of the Hopf Bifurcation theorem that persistent oscillations of the variables may occur if there is positive growth at the steady state together with a high discount rate. Oscillations may also occur if the influence of an additional unit of the quality index on demand and price is sufficiently large, thus yielding a special version of the product life cycle. A numerical example is used in order to illustrate the results derived in the general framework. Valuable comments from an anonymous referee are gratefully acknowledged.     

Human capital formation,learning by doing and the government in the process of economic growth

We present an endogenous growth model with human capital and learning by doing. Human capital is not an input factor in the production process of final output but it affects the ability to build up knowledge capital as a by‐product of cumulated investment (learning by doing). Human capital is formed in the schooling sector that is financed by the government. The government may run into debt but obeys the inter‐temporal budget constraint. The article analyzes the structure of the model and studies the effects of different budgetary policies as regards the balanced growth rate, transition dynamics and with respect to welfare.     

Public Debt and Economic Growth in Emerging Market Economies

This paper empirically studies the relationship between public debt and economic growth for selected emerging market economies by performing panel data estimations. The results reveal a statistically significant positive correlation between public debt and the subsequent growth rate of per capita gross domestic product (GDP). Population and investment are also positively correlated with per capita growth, whereas the initial level of real GDP per capita exerts a negative influence on growth, implying conditional convergence. Other variables such as the inflation rate, the trade balance or the exchange rate do not yield a statistically significant effect with respect to economic growth.