Creative Destruction, Investment Volatility, and the Average Age of Capital

In this article, a new numerical procedure is used to compute the equilibrium of a vintage capital growth model with nonlinear utility, where the scrapping time is nonconstant. We show that equilibrium investment and output converge nonmonotonically to the balanced growth path due to replacement echoes. We find that the average age of capital is inversely related to output, which is consistent with recent micro evidence reinforcing the importance of the embodied question. We also find that an unanticipated permanent increase in the rate of embodied technological progress causes labor productivity to slowdown in the short run.     

Scarcity, regulation and endogenous technical progress

This paper studies to which extent a firm using a scarce resource input and facing environmental regulation can still manage to have a sustainable growth of output and profits. The firm has a vintage capital technology with two complementary factors, capital and a resource input subject to quota, the latter being increasingly scarce through an exogenously rising price. The firm can scrap obsolete capital and invest in adoptive and/or innovative R&D resource-saving activities. Within this realistic framework, we first characterize long-term growth regimes driven by scarcity (induced-innovation) vs. long-term growth regimes driven by quota regulation (Porter-like innovation). More importantly, we study the interaction between scarcity and quota regulation. In particular, we show that there exists a threshold level for the growth rate of the resource price above which the Porter mechanism is killed while the scarcity-induced growth regime may emerge. Symmetrically, we also find that there must exist a threshold value for the environmental quota under which the growth regime induced by scarcity vanishes while the Porter-like growth regime may survive.     

Early Mortality Declines at the Dawn of Modern Growth*

We explore the hypothesis that demographic changes which began in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are at the root of the acceleration in growth rates at the dawn of the modern age. During this period, life tables for Geneva and Venice show a decline in adult mortality; French marriage registers reveal an important increase in literacy; historians measure an acceleration of economic growth. We develop an endogenous growth model with a realistic survival law in which rising longevity increases individual incentives to invest in education and fosters growth. We quantitatively estimate that the observed improvements in adult mortality account for 70% of the growth acceleration in the pre‐industrial age.     

History’s a curse: leapfrogging, growth breaks and growth reversals under international borrowing without commitment

A simple open-economy AK model with collateral constraints accounts for growth breaks and growth-reversal episodes, during which countries face abrupt changes in their growth rate that may lead to either growth miracles or growth disasters. Absent commitment to investment by the borrowing country, imperfect contract enforcement leads to an informational lag such that the debt contracted upon today depends upon the past stock of capital. The no-commitment delay originates a history effect by which the richer a country has been in the past, the more it can borrow today. For (arbitrarily) small delays, the history effect offsets the growth benefits from international borrowing and dampens growth, and it leads to both leapfrogging in long-run levels and growth breaks. When large enough, the history effect originates growth reversals and we connect the latter to leapfrogging. Finally, we argue that the model accords with the reported evidence on changes in the growth rate at break dates. We also provide examples showing that leapfrogging and growth reversals may coexist, so that currently poor but fast-growing countries experiencing sharp growth reversals may end up, in the long-run, significantly richer than currently rich but declining countries.     

Developing measures for performance excellence: is the Baldrige criteria sufficient for performance excellence in higher education?

The implementation of the education criteria for performance excellence (ECPE)—the education version of the Baldrige criteria—is driven by the growing need for performance excellence in higher education. Ironically the criteria meant for performance excellence have no theoretical underpinning and are based on normative performance improvement requirements. The lack of content and internal validity is reflected in some critical weaknesses in the criteria. Based on a critical review, this paper highlights potential improvements in the areas of aligning processes with the organisational mission, operations focus, customer focus, workforce focus, and performance measurement. To help enhance the ECPE, the paper develops performance measures for systematic implementation of the criteria. This is discussed in terms of defining desired outcomes, developing key measures, identifying specific indicators to track performance, and choosing methods to assess performance. The discussions provide a basis for future revisions to the ECPE.     

How do epidemics induce behavioral changes?

This paper develops a theory of optimal fertility behavior under mortality shocks. In an OLG model, young adults determine their optimal fertility, labor supply and life-cycle consumption with both exogenous child and adult mortality risks. We show that a rise in adult mortality exerts an ambiguous effect on both net and total fertility in a general equilibrium framework, while child mortality shocks unambiguously lead to a rise in total fertility, leaving net fertility unchanged. We complement our theory with an empirical analysis using a sample of 39 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries over the 1980–2004 period, examining the overall effects of the child and adult mortality channels on both total and net fertility. We find child mortality to exert a robust, positive impact on total fertility but no impact on net fertility, whereas a rise in adult mortality is found to negatively influence both total and net fertility. Given the particular demographic profile of the HIV/AIDS epidemic (killing essentially young, active adults), we then conclude in favor of an unambiguous negative effect of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on net fertility in SSA.     

The Development Problem under Embodiment

This paper studies technology adoption in an optimal growth model with embodied technical change. The economy consists of the final good sector, the capital sector, and the technology sector which role is the imitation of exogenous innovations. Scarce labor resources are allocated to the technology and final good sectors. The final good is allocated to consumption and to the capital sector. The authors analytically characterize the long run optimal allocations. Using a calibrated version of the model, they find that an acceleration in the rate of embodied technical change should not be responded by an immediate and strong adoption effort. Instead, adoption labor should decrease in the short run, and the optimal technological gap is shown to increase either in the short or in the long run. The state of the institutions and policies around the technology sector is key in the design of the optimal adoption timing.