Growth and Economic Development

Growth and Economic Development
Author: P. Arestis
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1847204082

. . . this volume is a very good and important addition to economic growth and development. On the basis of authority, the selection is well-balanced. . . This book should be a mandatory textbook for graduate students in development economics, and essential reading for all policy-makers. Voxi Heinrich Amavilah, Progress in Development Studies This valuable and engaging new book bears eloquent testimony to A.P. Thirlwall s substantial contribution to economics over the last 40 years. The volume does not attempt to provide a comprehensive review of such a prolific figure, but rather demonstrates the considerable influence that his work on economic theory has had on his contemporaries, and the profession as a whole. From his early pioneering research in regional and labour economics to his more recent exploration of growth and development economics, leading experts in the field bear witness to the significant role he has played in the evolution of the discipline. In addressing some of the most pivotal aspects of his career, the contributors cover a range of topics including Thirlwall s Law , the application of Keynesian macroeconomic approaches, the General Theory within open economies, the connection between short-run cycles and long-run growth, endogenous growth theory, the Stability and Growth Pact, as well as broader development issues and problems. In championing Thirlwall s challenging work, this volume provides a lively and comprehensive account of some of the most important areas of economics today. This book will prove an essential read for academics and policy makers alike who are interested in trade, growth and development economics.

Trade, Growth, and Economic Policy in Open Economies

Trade, Growth, and Economic Policy in Open Economies
Author: Karl-Josef Koch
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3662004232

Part 1 of this volume focusses on globalization. Gains from trade, international competitiveness, labour market issues in open economies, customs unions, dumping and intra-firm trade are the topics of this part. Part 2 puts a stronger emphasis on dynamic economics. Social income, intergenerational transfers, public pension systems, and bequest and gift motives in overlapping generation models are main topics. Economic policies are analyzed in Part 3, including the relation between wage rigidity and migration, several aspects of German financial and monetary policy, as well as tax competition. The volume concludes with institutional issues of globalization, a western view on eastern transition, social cost of rent seeking, and the evolution of social institutions.

Three Essays on the Endogenous Growth of a Regional Economy Under the Impacts of Demographic Changes

Three Essays on the Endogenous Growth of a Regional Economy Under the Impacts of Demographic Changes
Author: Tae-Jeong Kim
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2010
Genre:
ISBN:

The impact of an ageing population on the economy is one of the key issues in most developed countries. It is a generally accepted notion that an ageing population could cause negative effects, including a decrease of per-capita output and economic welfare, on the economy mainly due to the decline of the labor force and aggregate saving rate. The first chapter adopts the two-sector overlapping generation (OLG) model to capture the impact of population ageing on the regional economy and compares the effectiveness of government policy in an endogenous growth perspective. Comparing the computational results of a one-sector OLG model where agent0́9s productivity is given exogenously, the simulation result confirms that endogenously determined investment in human capital significantly offsets the negative effects of the ageing population on the regional economy. The chapter also attempts to check if there is room for the government to weaken and prevent the negative effects of the ageing population. For this, this chapter examines the effects of two kinds of government transfer systems on the regional economy: money transfer and educational transfer systems. The money transfer, which is redistributed to agents by the government, could be used for an individual0́9s consumption, saving and educational investment. Educational transfer is given directly to the individual proportional to his or her opportunity cost stemming from education investment. The result shows that the educational transfer system is superior to money transfer system in the long-run in terms of growth of per-capita income, aggregate welfare and stabilizing the factor prices. However, the results imply that there exists a trade-off relationship in implementing an educational transfer system between economic growth and equity of income and wealth. The second chapter seeks to examine the effects of the ageing population in Illinois with inclusion of the household0́9s ex-ante intra-generational heterogeneity across race and migration status. For this, this chapter empirically shows that there are significant gaps in returns to education between race and migration status in Illinois; and there exists significant relationships between a resident0́9s demographics and the probability of in- and out- migration around Illinois. These empirical results, including heterogeneous properties across race and migration status and demographic- related migration tendency, are calibrated into the two-sector OLG model. Using this two-sector OLG model incorporated with the intra-generational heterogeneity over race and migration status, this chapter projects the economic growth of Illinois will decelerate substantially until the mid 2020s due to population ageing. After that time, the growth of Illinois will partially recover. The major economic problems of the ageing era stem from the deficiency of the labor force. Also the Black0́9s unemployment rate tends to be substantially high in Illinois. Taking the two labor market- related problems of ageing population and high Black0́9s unemployment into consideration, the government could implement a labor policy measure aiming at increasing the employment rate of the Black to the level of the other races through the absorption of the unemployed Blacks by offering industry subsidies or incentives. However, the result shows that an indirect educational policy, targeting the upgrading of the transmission channel of human capital stock from the old generation to the young generation of the Black, is more preferable than the direct employment policy in terms of long-run effects on per-capita income and social welfare. Also, this chapter shows that the effects of the government0́9s immigration policy, which aims at replacing low-productive international immigrants with native, relatively high-productive unemployed individuals who have been unemployed, are very limited in terms of per-capita income, welfare and aggregate productivity. On the contrary, tax and transfer policy inducing international immigrants to invest more in their education works relatively better. Furthermore, under this policy scheme, the native0́9s human capital stock also improves significantly because of positive spillover effects even though the transfer system0́9s direct beneficiary is the international immigrant group. The third chapter attempts to project the economic paths for the individual Midwest states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, as well as the Rest of the US) in the future when the population ageing becomes more pronounced. To accomplish this task, a dynamic general equilibrium model is developed so that it could incorporate the inter-regional transactions and endogenous growth mechanisms within the framework of an OLG model. Key parameter values associated with the regional interconnections were assigned by using multi-regional Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) of the Midwest states. Two different steady-state results were presented with the two different age-cohort population structures corresponding to year 2007 and 2030. These steady-state results imply that there should be considerable negative impacts on the regional economies in the sense of declining per-capita output. The rate of declining of per-capita output are projected to be heterogeneous across the regions due to the different developments of age-cohort population structures and consequently different levels of endogenously determined educational investment of workers. Furthermore, the regions could be grouped separately according to the levels of average human capital stock of workers: high-skilled and low-skilled regions, being roughly consistent with actual labor productivity statistics. It is intuitive that the supply-demand interactions between the regions should be affected by developments of demographics in each region. This intuition is consistent with the simulation results in the sense that the result revealed the development of output price in a certain region reflects the dynamics of demographics of every region. Meanwhile, according to the dynamic simulation, the negative impacts of population ageing will not be so severe unlike what was presented in the steady-state results. This mitigation of negative effects could be attributed mainly to the growth of human capital stock of workers. The dynamic simulation results reveal that the per-capita output of every region is projected to grow positively in the near future when the population ageing will be pronouncing. However, the growth rate of the per-capita output is projected to be heterogeneous across the regions: the regions with high-skilled workers hold the potential threat that population ageing could give more negative impacts on the economy due to the relatively sluggish growth of human capital stock. Also, the dynamic simulation results show that certain regions in Midwest will experience their terms-of-trade deteriorate in the near future, implying that careful attention should be given to their future trade conditions.

The Quality of Society, Volume III

The Quality of Society, Volume III
Author: Adolfo Figueroa
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2023-10-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3031210727

This book contains another set of essays dealing with the fundamental economic problems of our time: inequality, environment degradation, and social disorder, which are analyzed in light of the unified theory of capitalism. This theory is a scientific endeavor that seeks to explain the capitalist system taken by parts and then taken as a whole, as a unified theory. By parts, the theory analyzes the First World and the Third World and also the short run, long run, and very long run economic processes, showing why and how economic growth has led to a new epoch, with ecological equilibrium disruption, known as the Anthropocene Age. The empirical predictions of the theory are proven to be consistent with the available facts. Therefore, the theory can be accepted as a good representation of the real-world capitalism; moreover, its derived causality relations become inputs for the debate on the needed science-based policies for the new age. Indeed, this book proposes structural policies to change the way capitalism operates, through changes in its basic institutions, mainly the electoral democracy, which would certainly imply a re-foundation of the capitalist system.

Essays on Business Cycles and Endogenous Growth

Essays on Business Cycles and Endogenous Growth
Author: Dmitry Brizhatyuk
Publisher:
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2020
Genre:
ISBN:

This dissertation explores the nexus between asset and credit market cycles, short-run fluctuations, and growth. What factors contribute to slow and incomplete recoveries from major crises? Why are some economies more prone to such dynamics than others and what lessons does it offer for policymakers? These are among the questions that I explore in my research. In the first chapter, I document that persistent fluctuations in trend growth -- medium frequency cycles -- tend to be more volatile and negatively skewed in emerging as opposed to developed small open economies. I argue that this evidence can be understood as stemming from the non-linear interaction between credit cycles, occasionally binding collateral constraints, and innovation-driven endogenous growth. Negative shocks are highly detrimental to productivity growth in vulnerable economies that are prone to sudden stops, but this is not the case in economies with deep financial markets where agents are more often able to optimally borrow to offset temporary negative income shocks. The second chapter studies the long-term effects of housing market boom-and-bust cycles. I first examine the relationship between the dynamics of the housing market, household debt, and economic activity in a historical panel of 50 countries. I show that housing market crashes robustly predict slower future output growth, most of which is explained by slower total factor productivity growth. Notably, the magnitude of this relation is increasing in the measure of preexisting household debt. To interpret these stylized facts, I construct a two-agent (borrower-saver) dynamic general equilibrium model with an occasionally binding collateral constraint tied to housing equity. Productivity grows endogenously in the model through forward-looking innovation investment. When the preexisting level of debt is sufficiently high, negative housing demand shocks cause the collateral constraint to bind and trigger deleveraging. The endogenous slowdown in TFP growth emerges as one of the adjustment margins during this process, prolonging the real effects of a crisis. The initial shock is amplified by a negative feedback loop between deleveraging, borrowers' housing wealth, and growth. I use the calibrated model to identify implications for the policy response during episodes of household deleveraging. Measures that reduce the debt burden of borrowers are effective in alleviating the short-run and persistent effects of deleveraging. In terms of monetary policy, the endogenous response of productivity growth warrants a greater focus on short-run output stabilization as opposed to inflation stabilization. Finally, in the third chapter (joint with Fabio Ghironi) we study the macroeconomic consequences of trade policy uncertainty emphasizing its negative effects on productivity growth. To that end, we build a small open economy model with nominal rigidity, innovation-driven endogenous growth, and time-varying volatility of domestic import tariffs. Several conclusions emerge: import tariff uncertainty shocks act as aggregate supply shocks; they cause a temporary improvement of the current account along with the real exchange rate appreciation in the medium run. In addition, an increase in import tariff uncertainty causes a sharp decline in the introduction of new intermediate products, which is detrimental to productivity growth and prolongs the effect of the shock. The size of these persistent effects -- relative to short-term effects -- is much larger for tariff uncertainty shock than for tariff level shocks. We show that endogenous risk premia in equity and bond markets is the key channel transmitting the shock to the broader economy and study role monetary policy in shaping it.

Productivity Growth and Economic Performance

Productivity Growth and Economic Performance
Author: J. McCombie
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2002-12-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 023050423X

This collection of essays on Verdoorn's Law - the relationship between the growth of industrial productivity and output - presents a number of comprehensive surveys and assessments of the vast literature available. The collection not only includes an English translation of Verdoorn's seminal article originally published in Italian, but also new empirical evidence for the Verdoorn Law and new developments in the theoretical modelling of cumulative causation.

Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Economic Policy

Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Economic Policy
Author: P. Arestis
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2011-07-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0230313752

Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Economic Policy are at the core of research and study in economics. The essays in this volume have been specifically commissioned and brought together to celebrate the work of Malcolm Sawyer, who has made substantial contributions in these areas.