Sandra T. Silva | Universidade do Porto (original) (raw)

Papers by Sandra T. Silva

An evolutionary model of industry dynamics and firms’ institutional behavior with job search, bar... more An evolutionary model of industry dynamics and firms’ institutional behavior with job search, bargaining and matching

Review of Development Economics, 2016

Studies relating ageing and countries' economic performance address mostly developed economies. H... more Studies relating ageing and countries' economic performance address mostly developed economies. However, extant studies demonstrate that less developed countries (LDC) and emerging economies (EE) are reaching the transition process faster than those from developed regions, which renders the speed of ageing, besides ageing, a critical variable to explore in this context. Comparing system dynamic panel data estimations for 40 LDC, 19 EE and 28 developed countries (DC), between 1990 and 2013, we uncovered that ageing is detrimental to countries' economic growth, with noticeable nuances depending on countries' development level. The current level of ageing significantly and negatively impacts on DC's growth but not on that of LDC or EE. For these latter groups, the most relevant issue is the speed of ageing. The current annual growth of old age dependency ratio significantly diminishes EE's growth prospects whereas the lagged annual growth of the ageing index and the old age dependency ratio significantly curtails LDC's growth. Such results emphasize the need for urgent public policies that might mitigate the imbalance in LDCs' age structure before the speed of ageing leads LDCs to become even much poorer.

Journal of Policy Modeling, 2016

In this paper we intend to empirically examine the impact of political rivalry on four selected m... more In this paper we intend to empirically examine the impact of political rivalry on four selected macroeconomic variables: public investments in education, school enrollment, GDP per capita and income inequality. We first construct a political rivalry indicator and examine how it varies across different groups of countries. We then perform a series of regressions and find that in lower income countries there is a significant negative impact of political rivalry on the selected variables, while in higher income countries the impact is weaker. This suggests that the channels linking political rivalry to macroeconomic variables differ with the development level.

In the last two decades there has been a noticeable increase in published research in evolutionar... more In the last two decades there has been a noticeable increase in published research in evolutionary economics. The idea that formal modelling is a sine qua non condition for establishing a rigours and coherence scientific frame, has led to an over concern with formalization issues among evolutionary researchers. The general perception is that formalization lags behind the appreciative work. Notwithstanding, this general reading has not yet been supported by real data analysis. This work presents a comprehensive survey on evolutionary economics, intending at exploring the main research paths and contributions of this theorizing framework using bibliometric methods. This documentation effort is based on an extensive review of the abstracts from articles published in all economic journals gathered from the Econlit database over the past fifty years. Evolutionary contributions apparently have not converged to an integrated approach. In the present paper, we document the more important pa...

World Development, 2016

This paper develops a meta-analysis of the empirical literature that estimates the effect of ineq... more This paper develops a meta-analysis of the empirical literature that estimates the effect of inequality on growth. It covers studies published in scientific journals during 1994–2014 that examine the impact on growth of inequality in income, land, and human capital distribution. We find traces of publication bias in this literature, as authors and journals are more willing to report and publish statistically significant findings, and the results tend to follow a predictable time pattern over time according to which negative and positive effects are cyclically reported. After correcting for these two forms of publication bias, we conclude that the high degree of heterogeneity of the reported effect sizes is explained by study conditions, namely the structure of the data, the type of countries included in the sample, the inclusion of regional dummies, the concept of inequality and the definition of income. In particular, our meta-regression analysis suggests that: cross-section studies systematically report a stronger negative impact than panel data studies; the effect of inequality on growth is negative and more pronounced in less developed countries than in rich countries; the inclusion of regional dummies in the growth regression of the primary studies considerably weakens such effect; expenditure and gross income inequality tend to lead to different estimates of the effect size; land and human inequality are more pernicious to subsequent growth than income inequality is. We also find that the estimation technique, the quality of data on income distribution, and the specification of the growth regression do not significantly influence the estimation of the effect sizes. These results provide new insights into the nature of the inequality–growth relationship and offer important guidelines for policy makers.

Journal of Economic Surveys, 2013

Institutions crucial for the analysis of how agents deal with uncertainty have been gaining incre... more Institutions crucial for the analysis of how agents deal with uncertainty have been gaining increasing relevance on the economic research agenda. In this paper, we analyze the institutional literature aiming to explain why this perspective obtains better results than others in development economics. In particular, we stress the relevance of New Institutional Economics as an adequate framework for a broad understanding of development issues.

Research Papers in Economics, 2021

Journal of Organisational Transformation & Social Change, 2005

The characterization of individual firms is an essential step toward the study of the behaviour o... more The characterization of individual firms is an essential step toward the study of the behaviour of industries and other more aggregated units of economics, and so to the analysis of economic growth processes. Hence, the main goal of this study is to achieve a critical discussion around the conceptualisation of the firm and its role in the dynamical process of 'It is our strongly held belief, however, that modeling at an industry-or an economy-wide level ought to be guided and constrained by a plausible theory of firm capabilities and behavior that is consistent with the microcosmic evidence.' (Nelson and Winter 1982: 52

In this work we intend to study how the quality of the institutional factor may influence the eff... more In this work we intend to study how the quality of the institutional factor may influence the efficiency of redistribution policy s pecifically associated with human capital accumulation. We develop a conceptual discu s ion building on the importance of income redistribution for economic growth and the k ey role of political institutions in securing growth-enhancing redistribution policies. We introduce endogenous growth theory elements into our analysis by considering as a fundamental source of economic growth human capital accumulation, motivated by tax -financed education secured through efficient redistribution policies. We outli ne crucial insights on the underlying mechanisms, emphasizing however that extensive rese arch on the subject is undoubtedly still required. In particular, we ident ify the main factors negatively affecting the decisive role of political institutio ns and, consequently, distorting efficient redistribution policy. We then define a political-e conomic equ...

Procura-se avaliar e contribuir para a explicacao da evolucao das disparidades regionais na Uniao... more Procura-se avaliar e contribuir para a explicacao da evolucao das disparidades regionais na Uniao Europeia ao longo do periodo de 1980-95. Apos constatarmos, por um lado, a elevada amplitude das assimetrias dos niveis regionais de desenvolvimento e, por outro, a inexistencia de um processo significativo de convergencia absoluta, testamos empiricamente duas explicacoes alternativas para a nao-convergencia. A primeira explora a possibilidade de existencia de convergencia condicionada, a luz de um quadro teorico onde as diferentes regioes europeias estariam a convergir para diferentes niveis de steady-state, sendo que consideramos como variaveis definidoras do nivel regional de steady-state variaveis associadas a especificidades nacionais, a diferentes tipos de estrutura economica, a localizacao regional, a efeitos de aglomeracao e a dotacao regional em infraestruturas fisicas. Os resultados por nos obtidos neste quadro de convergencia condicional evidenciam que, mesmo assim, apenas se...

The understanding of the economy's aggregate growth patterns is a fundamental objective of ec... more The understanding of the economy's aggregate growth patterns is a fundamental objective of economic growth theorizing. However, the micro constructions are strongly linked to economic growth and so cannot be neglected in such process. This paper is concerned with this problem, proposing a formal mechanism to establish the bridge between macro regularities and micro evolutionary behavior. Within a micro to macro or bottom-up perspective, the adopted approach is focused in the influence of firms’ ‘institutional settings’ on economic growth and in the industry dynamics that lies behind more aggregate behaviors. The analysis associates such settings to firms’ labor choices in terms of hiring/firing policies and to their screening capabilities. Building a computer simulation model which deals with the nature and evolution of the knowledge that guides firms’ efforts to improve their institutional settings, we were able to draw some important implications. The results show that firm’s ...

In this paper we intend to empirically examine how different political institutions may define th... more In this paper we intend to empirically examine how different political institutions may define the long-term economic development, determined by educational investments and income inequality. With this objective, we assess the impact of political rivalry on four selected macroeconomic variables: public investments in education, individual learning choice, GDP per capita and income inequality, motivated by previous theoretical results. We first construct a composite political rivalry indicator and examine how it varies across different groups of countries. Then, using cross-sectional data, we perform a series of regressions for examining political rivalry effects on the selected variables. Our empirical findings indicate that in lower income countries there is indeed a significant negative impact of political rivalry, which increases with the decrease in the development level. The same is not confirmed for higher-income countries, which may suggest that the relationship between polit...

Over the last two decades there has been a growing interest in determining the impact of inequali... more Over the last two decades there has been a growing interest in determining the impact of inequality on growth. The empirical literature has, however, produced controversial results regarding both the signal and the magnitude of such impact. This paper develops a meta-analysis on this literature on an attempt to systematize and explain the diversity in studies' results. We nd that most of the heterogeneity is due to di erences in studies' methodological characteristics, such as the structure of the data, the sample coverage, the type of distribution, the de nition of income, and the estimation technique. These results suggest that there is not one but several underlying e ects of inequality on growth, which are likely to di er in their nature and operate in opposing directions. We also nd traces of publication bias, as, on the one hand, authors and journals are more willing to report and publish statistically signi cant results, and, on the other hand, studies' results te...

After a period of convergence where many perceived the country as a success case, Portugal’s econ... more After a period of convergence where many perceived the country as a success case, Portugal’s economic performance proved to be disappointing in the last decade. In this study we focus on the relationship between technology and economic catching-up in order to answer to two major questions: (i) Has the technological structure of the Portuguese economy been an obstacle for catching up? (ii) What was the role played by the inefficient use of the available resources? Using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), we show that over the last few decades the efficiency level of Portugal relative to a sample of 19 OECD countries fell sharply, which resulted in a divergent pattern of the Portuguese economy relative to the technological frontier.

The relation between growth and unemployment is being studied throughout a diverse set of contrib... more The relation between growth and unemployment is being studied throughout a diverse set of contributions over the last years. Taking into account the current economic situation, this topic is regaining attention amongst economists essentially due to the importance of this relationship as a way to overcome the high unemployment rate that has been characterizing the European labour market. In the first part of the paper we provide an analysis and a categorization of the most important contributions on the field until 2000s. In the second part we develop a bibliometric analysis in order to identify the evolution pattern of the main research lines, using a quantitative approach. Then, we provide an update of the literature by describing the new theoretical mechanisms and empirical evidence regarding the relationship between growth and unemployment. A substantial increase of new effects (reallocation effect, leapfrogging effect, disciplinary unemployment effect, minimum wage effect, updat...

The phenomenon of population ageing and its influence on the economic growth of countries has lon... more The phenomenon of population ageing and its influence on the economic growth of countries has long been the focus of major concern for both governments and the scientific community. Considering the scientific contributions that have been published on the matter in recent years, it seems timely to take a comprehensive and objective account of this stream of the literature. Using bibliometric techniques and based on 144 articles centred on ageing and economic growth gathered from Scopus, we found some interesting evidence: 1) ageing has increasingly attracted more researchers within economics-related literature; 2) more recently, studies have revealed the willingness of researchers to evaluate less immediate mechanisms relating ageing and economic growth, most notably consumption and saving patterns, and human capital; 3) there is a growing need in ageing research to test economic phenomena with real–world data against the theory, as reflected by the noticeable increase in the use of ...

Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation

While the e ects of innovation on employment have been a controversial issue in economic literatu... more While the e ects of innovation on employment have been a controversial issue in economic literature for several years, this economic puzzle is particularly relevant nowadays. We are witnessing tremendous technological developments which threaten to disrupt the labour market, due to their potential for significantly automating human labour. As such, this paper presents a qualitative study of the dynamics underlying the relationship between innovation and employment, using an agent-based model developed in Python. The model represents an economy populated by firms able to perform either Product Innovation (leading to the discovery of new tasks, which require human labour) or Process Innovation (leading to the automation of tasks previously performed by humans). The analysis led to three major conclusions, valid in this context. The first takeaway is that the Employment Rate in a given economy is dependent on the automation potential of the tasks in that economy and dependent on the type of innovation performed by firms in that economy (with Product Innovation having a positive e ect on employment and Process Innovation having a negative e ect). Second, in any given economy, if firms' propensity for product and process innovation, as well as the automation potential of their tasks are stable over time, the Employment Rate in that economy will tend towards stability over time. The third conclusion is that higher levels of Process Innovation and lower levels of Product Innovation, lead to a more intense decline of wage shares and to a wider gap between employee productivity growth and wage growth.

Although a myriad of important theoretical and empirical contributions on ageing populations exis... more Although a myriad of important theoretical and empirical contributions on ageing populations exist, these contributions are diffuse and lack an integrated vision of the distinct mechanisms through which ageing populations impact on economic growth. As such, in this paper we survey the literature that provides insights on the ageing population and its effect on economic growth. In particular, we sought to uncover the main mechanisms through which ageing impacts on economic growth. The literature review shows that the impact of ageing on the performance of countries is intimately related to the mechanism elected. About 70% of the empirical studies that focused on the ‘public social expenditure’ mechanism convey a negative impact of ageing on economic performance, whereas the majority (60%) of empirical studies that focus on ‘human capital’ fail to uncover any significant statistical relation between ageing and the economic growth proxy and the positive impact is more closely related t...

Population Research and Policy Review