INSTITUTIONS, INVESTMENT, AND GROWTH: NEW CROSS-COUNTRY AND PANEL DATA EVIDENCE

This paper outlines the alternative channels through which institutions affect growth, and studies the empirical relationship between institutions, investment, and growth. The empirical results indicate that (i) free-market institutions have a positive effect on growth; (ii) economic freedom affects growth through both a direct effect on total factor productivity and an indirect effect on investment; (iii) political and civil liberties may stimulate investment; (iv) an important interaction exists between freedom and human capital investment; (v) Milton Friedman's conjectures on the relation between political and economic freedom are correct; (vi) promoting economic freedom is an effective policy toward facilitating growth and other types of freedom. ( JEL O17, O40, P51)     

Is the relationship between inequality and growth affected by physical and human capital accumulation?

Using the latest available data and semiparametric methods, we investigate how human and physical capital accumulation affects the relationship between income inequality and subsequent economic growth. We find that higher income inequality generally reduces economic growth over the next 5-year period. Within nations possessing little human capital, this inequality-growth penalty is exacerbated by higher levels of physical capital, thus implying that as the returns to human capital rise relative to physical capital, inequality becomes more harmful to growth. This inequality-growth pattern does not hold in well educated nations.     

DO NATURAL DISASTERS PROMOTE LONG‐RUN GROWTH?

In this article, we investigate the long-run relationships among disasters, capital accumulation, total factor productivity, and economic growth. The cross-country empirical analysis demonstrates that higher frequencies of climatic disasters are correlated with higher rates of human capital accumulation, increases in total factor productivity, and economic growth. Though disaster risk reduces the expected rate of return to physical capital, risk also serves to increase the relative return to human capital. Thus, physical capital investment may fall, but there is also a substitution toward human capital investment. Disasters also provide the impetus to update the capital stock and adopt new technologies, leading to improvements in total factor productivity.     

East Asia Lifelong Learning Community 2020: Objective, Organization and Operation

Nowadays increasing emphasis has been placed on the positive role of human capital in promoting economic growth and social prosperity. While East Asia has firmly established and actively taken on its role in global development, a good implementation of lifelong learning to promote human capital and integrate educational resource on the whole regional level is crucial to its future. We explore the concept of life-long learning and point out the challenge to East Asia in building a regional lifelong learning system. To meet the challenge and realize the idea of lifelong learning, we design the framework of East Asia Lifelong Learning Community 2020 by presenting the objective, organization and operation for this regional cooperative system, in which universities and enterprises will be the main actors to make it work.     

FACTOR AUGMENTATION,FACTOR ELIMINATION,AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

Economic growth theory distinguishes between reproducible and nonreproducible factors of production. In traditional growth models based on factor‐augmenting technical change, perpetual economic growth requires that each essential nonreproducible factor, such as labor, be augmented by a reproducible factor, such as human capital. Recent models of factor‐eliminating technical change deliver perpetual growth by eliminating the nonreproducible factors. Heretofore, the literature has kept factor augmentation and factor elimination separate. We analyze a model with both. The model generalizes the traditional factor augmentation approach by relaxing the usual restriction that factor elimination is absent. We obtain the striking result that factor‐augmenting technical change is a misspecification when factor‐eliminating technical change is present. The result raises several questions about technical change and endogenous growth. (JEL O41, O31, O33)     

包容性增长：中国经济从量变向质变切换

“包容性增长”概念的提出,正当其时。包容性增长最基本的含义是公平合理地分享经济增长。中国经济、社会需要科学发展,需要“包容性增长”,就当下及未来一段时间而言,关键是如何将这一概念融入经济、社会发展的政策与实践中。倡导包容性增长须去经济增长的GDP化;践行包容性增长必须优先开发人力资本;强化包容性增长需要加快实现基本公共服务均等化;实现包容性增长需要着力推进城乡发展一体化;推进包容性增长需要深化收入分配制度改革;加快包容性增长需要始终追求社会公平正义。     

Human Capital,Social Support,and Economic Well-being among Rural,Low-income Mothers: A Latent Growth Curve Analysis

The purpose of this study was to better understand human capital and social support in the long-term economic well-being of rural, low-income mothers in the US. Three waves of data from a multi-state, longitudinal investigation tracking the well-being of rural families, known as “Rural Families Speak,” were used to test two latent growth curve models of economic well-being. Results indicated that human capital alone is not a good predictor of economic well-being over time for this sample. A model of economic well-being that includes both social support and human capital provides a better fit for these data. Findings suggest that social support is a key contributor to long-term economic success for this sample. Implications for public policy are presented.

FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: THE GROWTH ACCOUNTING PERSPECTIVE

A positive relationship between FDI and economic growth under two economic conditions has been estimated: a sufficient level of human capital and well-developed financial markets, respectively. However, these two conditions can be fundamentally different catalysts for FDI to promote economic growth in the perspective of growth accounting. Using data from 69 countries over 1970–1989, we find that FDI promotes productivity growth only when the host country reaches a threshold level of human capital; and FDI promotes capital growth only when a certain level of financial development is achieved. ( JEL F21)     

LEGISLATIVE TURNOVER,FISCAL POLICY,AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM U.S. STATE LEGISLATURES

Increased turnover among legislators can make them short‐sighted, affecting fiscal policy and economic growth. We exploit the exogenous variation in legislative turnover induced by term limit laws and by redistricting in the 50 U.S. states, finding that increased turnover increases capital spending by state governments, which may be designed to constrain future governments. The changes may cause long‐run distortions in the economy, reducing long‐term economic growth. (JEL H72, H73, H76)     

Social externalities,overlap and the poverty trap

Previous studies find that some social groups are stuck in poverty traps because of network effects. However, these studies do not carefully analyze how these groups overcome low human capital investment activities. Unlike previous studies, the model in this paper includes network externalities in both the human capital investment stage and the subsequent career stages. This implies that not only the current network quality, but also the expectations about future network quality affect the current investment decision. Consequently, the coordinated expectation among the group members can play a crucial role in the determination of the final state. We define “overlap” for some initial skill ranges, whereby the economic performance of a group can be improved simply by increasing expectations of a brighter future. We also define “poverty trap” for some ranges, wherein a disadvantaged group is constrained by its history, and we explore the egalitarian policies to mobilize the group out of the trap.     

FISCAL FEDERALISM,DECENTRALIZATION, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: A META‐ANALYSIS

The theoretical literature on fiscal federalism has identified several channels through which government decentralization could affect economic growth. Much of the literature focuses on the efficiency aspects of a decentralized provision of public services, but decentralization may also increase growth by raising the ability of the political system to innovate and carry out reforms. In contrast, some authors argue that decentralization increases corruption and government inefficiency, and thus may diminish growth. Given this theoretical ambiguity, several studies have attempted to identify the effect of decentralization on economic growth empirically over the last two decades. We review and conduct a meta‐analysis of this empirical literature. Based on our analysis, we point out open questions and discuss possible ways to answer them. (JEL H77, O43, C52)     

Relationships between psychological capital,job satisfaction,and organizational commitment in the Saudi oil and petrochemical industries

During the past decade, Saudi Arabia experienced a significant social, economic, and organizational change. The rapid economic growth created a need for seasoned management professionals and necessitated the development of human capital. Psychological capital, a newly developed construct by academics and practitioners, is defined as the extent to which an individual operates in a positive psychological state, and this state is characterized by high self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and resiliency. By measuring the positive psychological constructs, an organization can learn about employees’ positive psychological states and how training and support can promote positive psychological states. Improving the positive psychological capital can lead to better organizational commitment, favorable organizational citizenship behaviors, lower employee absenteeism, and higher job satisfaction. This quantitative study examined the relationship among psychological capital, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment through a sample of managers in the Saudi Arabian oil and petrochemical industries.     

Social Capital,Economic Hardship,and Health: A Test of the Buffering Hypothesis in Transition and Nontransition Countries

Social capital is positively associated with a number of health outcomes, and it is theorized that social capital serves as a “buffer” during economic hard times, reducing the negative quality of life impacts of economic hardship. Using self-rated health as the outcome variable, we test whether social capital modifies the effect of economic hardship in a sample of 35 transition and non-transition countries and multilevel ordinal logistic regression models that interact social capital with economic hardship variables. Overall, we find consistent evidence that social capital improves health but our analyses do not suggest that social capital conditions the effect of economic hardship. Hence, social capital does not appear to act as “buffer” during trying economic times. We suggest that more research is needed to truly understand how social capital improves health.     

Social security in Italy: towards a mixed system?

We evaluate recent reforms of Italian social security with respect to both the (long) transition and the new steady state, as defined by the notional defined contribution formula. The first is hardly sustainable in the face of the projected sharp increase in the dependency ratio. The second is hardly compatible with a good allocation of risks, given the preponderance of the pay-as-you-go (PAYG) component. We believe that further reforms will have to be enacted within PAYG (with a correction to "seniority pensions") and beyond PAYG, with the introduction of an opting-out clause directed at readjusting the relative weights of the two components in households' retirement wealth. The opting-out clause could be combined with TFR (severance pay) diversion, which in itself appears insufficient to realize such an adjustment. Recent government proposals (2001) are briefly discussed.     

湖南教育投入对区域经济发展动态影响的研究

选取资本、劳动力、教育经费投入变量,建立湖南区域经济发展的非线性生产函数模型,运用1978—2011年的数据资料进行实证分析,得到结论：时间因素对经济发展影响是显著的,同时高等教育经费投入、资本和劳动力对区域经济发展有促进作用,教育投入每增长1％,将会促进GDP增长0．206％,但其作用不是很明显,需要采取措施促进湖南教育经费投入与区域经济的协调发展。     

Life Expectancy, Schooling Time, Retirement, and Growth

I analyze how changes in life expectancy affect retirement age, education time, and growth rates of economies. I set up a continuous time, overlapping generations model of endogenous growth with externalities in human capital production. I find that increases in life expectancy give rise to first, higher retirement ages and second, higher education spans. A threshold level for life expectancy exists such that per capita growth rates follow an inverted U pattern.     

Inequality and growth in advanced economies: an empirical investigation

This paper empirically investigates the effect of income and human capital inequality on economic growth in different regions of the world. In the estimation of a dynamic panel data model that controls for country-specific effects and takes into account the persistency of the inequality indicators, the results show a different effect of inequality on growth depending on the level of development of the region. Specifically, we find a negative effect of income and human capital inequality on economic growth, both in the sample as a whole and in the low and middle-income economies, an effect that vanishes or becomes positive in the higher-income countries.     

Russia: What’s Next?

This paper analyses the assumption that in the actual globalized system, both the role of the state and of the economy have completely changed. In this context it is necessary to highlight that there are some new growth theories, which are going to introduce in the classical economical theory the human capital variable and policy variable as important factors to explain an economic growth as fully as possible. The paper focuses on the case of the Russian Federation and its attempts to modernize the country. Is it correct to adequate the Russian political system to some parameters which can be defined as merely Western? What will be the future of the Russian Federation if the political and the economic élite won’t change their way of conceiving the economic growth and the political system? In fact, at this stage no other options are left to Russia if not to modernize and quickly recover the lost time of the last 30 years, from Gorbaciov to the until now seen Putin leadership.     

Economic Growth,Health and Poverty: An Exploratory Study for India

This article analyses the possible links between economic growth, poverty and health, using panel data for the Indian states. The findings indicate that, though growth tends to reduce poverty, significant improvements in health status are also necessary for poverty to decrease. Also, economic growth and health status are positively correlated and have a two‐way relationship, suggesting that better health enhances growth by improving productivity, and higher growth allows better human capital formation. Health expenditure is an important determinant of both higher growth and better health status, and is therefore a key tool available to policy‐makers. Among other exogenous variables, literacy and industrialisation seem to improve both health outcomes and growth, and to reduce poverty.     

试论建立与服务经济相适应的资源配置体系

服务经济是指以知识、信息和智力要素的生产、扩散与应用为经济增长的主要推动力,以科学技术和人力资本的投入为核心生产方式,以法治和市场经济为制度基础,经济社会发展主要建立在服务产品生产和配置基础上的经济形态。加快形成以服务经济为主的产业结构,是上海创新驱动发展、经济转型升级的必然要求。从服务经济发展的一般规律看,它包含与经济社会发展相关的一系列配套内容,主要包括市场体系、区位布局体系、创新体系、社会体系等。发展服务经济,需要整体构建与服务经济相适应的资源配置体系。