Economic Growth Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This study explores the long-term impact of population ageing on labour supply and human capital investment in Canada, as well as the induced effects on productive capacity. The analysis is conducted with a dynamic computable overlapping... more

- by and +1
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- Economics, Econometrics, Economic Growth, Human Capital

Presented paper aims to indicate what types of interrelationships between energy usage patterns prevailing in particular country, economic growth and finally, sustainable development could be distinguished. The topic of paper, or, rather research area, is neither new nor original. Nevertheless, an array of approaches towards character of considered interrelationships can be encountered. Complicity of chosen issue, we reckon, lies in differences of perception of the following questions. Our findings consequently would depend on, at first, how we measure economic growth in short and long terms, the second, how we measure energy security, and, the third, how we benchmark progress towards sustainable development. Methods, which we consider as being applicable for measuring of selected interrelationships, comprise a separate part of scientific elaboration. Therefore we formulate a task to overview the most contemporary measurable perceptions of economic growth, perceptions of energy security facets affecting economic growth and consequent reaction of sustainable development to various scenarios of energy consumption and economic growth. Resulting conclusions about measurement of indicated phenomena and argumentations of their plausible interrelation would lead us to choice of methodological approaches of described interrelations' analysis.

Traditional resource economics has been criticised for assuming too high elasticities of substitution, not observing material balance principles and relying too much on planner solutions to obtain long-term growth. By analysing a multi-sector R&Dbased endogenous growth model with exhaustible natural resources, labour, and knowledge capital as inputs, the present paper addresses this critique. We study transitional dynamics and the long-term growth path and identify conditions under which firms keep spending on research and development so that growth is sustained. We demonstrate that long-run growth can be sustained under free market conditions even when elasticities of substitution between man-made inputs and resources are low.

- by Sjak Smulders
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- Economic Growth, Economic Theory, Applied Economics, Technological change
- by Julian Lampietti
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- Marketing, Climate Change, Nutrition, Natural Resources

6 Fiji is an exception in some respects in that political parties are fairly stable and there is little party hopping and not a high turnover of politicians. However, this political party stability is based on the ethnic Indian-indigenous Fijian racial divide, and so at the heart of the stability and the lack of party hopping is the desire to hold power by appealing to ethnic differences. 7 Such clientelism politics is not restricted to the Pacific. Keefer (2004) mentions similar behavior in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It is also not restricted to developing countries but appears to be much less common in developed countries. argues that this is because national candidates and parties are more able to make credible promises about the delivery of public good provision.

- by Haruo Nakagawa and +1
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- Economic Growth, Pacific Islands

The study examines the causality of financial institutions and economic growth of Nepal during the period of 1975 to 2012 through granger causality, Johansen cointegration and vector error correction model (VECM). The empirical analysis shows that there is existence of long run association among the gross domestic product (GDP), gross capital formation (GCF), broad money (M2) and domestic credit to private sectors (DCPS). The VECM suggests for the validity of long run association among the variables. There is no granger causality between GCF and GDP; M2 and GDP; DCPS and GDP and DCPS and M2 however, there is bidirectional granger causal relationship between M2 and GCF and unidirectional relationship between GCF and DCPS. The empirical results conclude that there is a long-run association between financial institutions and economic growth in Nepal.

- by bumocol col
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- Economic Growth, Financial Institutions, Granger causality

Institutions have a decisive impact on the prevalence and nature of entrepreneurship. To date, the impact of institutions on (productive) entrepreneurship and the effects of entrepreneurship on economic growth have largely been investigated in isolation. In this paper, we bring together institutions, entrepreneurship, and economic growth using a parsimonious growth model in a 3SLS specification. In our first stage, we regress multiple measures of entrepreneurial activity on institutional proxies that are known to correlate with more productive forms of entrepreneurial activity. Using the fitted values of this first-stage regression as our proxy for productive entrepreneurship, we can then estimate a panel growth regression following Islam (1995) in a second stage. The third stage then optimizes the estimation of the two equations simultaneously. Our results show that productive entrepreneurship contributes to economic growth. In our set of proxies for institutional quality, financial stability, small government, and perceived start-up skills are the most important predictors of such productive entrepreneurship.

- by Dr. Tomi Ovaska
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- Entrepreneurship, Economics, Institutional Economics, Economic Growth

This study takes a new look at the non-linear dynamics of the relationship between taxes and growth by considering six major tax instruments, namely personal income taxes, corporate income taxes, consumption taxes, social security contributions, payroll & workforce taxes, and property taxes, which account for a significant share of total tax revenues in the countries in the sample. To do so, we use a panel data set of nine economies selected on the basis of the availability of data for the period 1981-2017. Unlike most other studies, we calculate marginal tax rates for each tax instrument in the sample countries. We also use a relatively new and more appropriate econometric approach, namely the Panel Smooth Transition Regression (PSTR) model developed by González et al. (2017) to address endogeneity and heterogeneity issues. The main empirical result of the study is that there is a threshold effect in the relationship between individual tax instruments and growth. More specifically, the results show that there is a robust negative relationship between individual tax instruments and growth both below and above the thresholds that are endogenously determined. Overall, the empirical results suggest that corporate income taxes are the most detrimental (or least beneficial) to long-run growth, followed by personal income taxes, consumption taxes, social security contributions, payroll & workforce taxes, and property taxes, respectively. These results suggest that income taxes are growth-harming taxes, suggesting that policymakers should focus on other taxes rather than income taxes to promote growth in the long run.

- by Hüseyin Şen and +1
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- Economic Growth, Taxation

During the 1990s several alarming reports have been filed concerning policy failures in Third World countries. They indicate that globalisation and the structural adjustment policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have reduced the capacity of government to conduct education and social policies that counteract poverty. Here we suggest an alternative explanation focusing upon internal factors within

- by Svante Ersson
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- Social Policy, Economic Growth, Human Development, Third World

The notion of green growth has emerged as a dominant policy response to climate change and ecological breakdown. Green growth theory asserts that continued economic expansion is compatible with our planet’s ecology, as technological change and substitution will allow us to absolutely decouple GDP growth from resource use and carbon emissions. This claim is now assumed in national and international policy, including in the Sustainable Development Goals. But empirical evidence on resource use and carbon emissions does not support green growth theory. Examining relevant studies on historical trends and model-based projections, we find that: (1) there is no empirical evidence that absolute decoupling from resource use can be achieved on a global scale against a background of continued economic growth, and (2) absolute decoupling from carbon emissions is highly unlikely to be achieved at a rate rapid enough to prevent global warming over 1.5°C or 2°C, even under optimistic policy conditions. We conclude that green growth is likely to be a misguided objective, and that policymakers need to look toward alternative strategies.

We provide a comprehensive review of China's financial system, and explore directions of future development. First, the financial system has been dominated by a large banking sector. In recent years banks have made considerable progress in reducing the amount of non-performing loans and improving their efficiency. Second, the role of the stock market in allocating resources in the economy has been limited and ineffective. We discuss issues related to the further development of China's stock market and other financial markets. Third, the most successful part of the financial system, in terms of supporting the growth of the overall economy, is a non-standard sector that consists of alternative financing channels, governance mechanisms, and institutions. The co-existence of this sector with banks and markets can continue to support the growth of the Hybrid Sector (non-state, non-listed firms). Finally, among the policies that will help to sustain stable economic growth in China are those that reduce the likelihood of damaging financial crises, including a banking sector crisis, a real estate or stock market crash, and a "twin crisis" in the currency market and banking sector.

- by Mengxin Zhao
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- Real Estate, Economic Growth, Stock Market, Financial System

- by William Maloney
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- Information Technology, Knowledge Management, Globalization, Economic Growth
- by Jinn-yuh Hsu
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- Human Geography, Economic Growth, Political Science, Resource Allocation

Numerous studies have focused on delineating the relationship between tourism and economic growth. In this article, we present the results of a rigorous meta-regression analysis based on 545 estimates drawn from 113 studies that empirically tested the tourism-led growth hypothesis (TLGH). The results suggest the presence of publication bias in the literature on this topic, where the majority of studies report positive and statistically significant estimates. Findings provide support for the TLGH, but they also suggest that the estimates are sensitive to a number of factors that are related to country, data, specification, and estimation characteristics, and time span. Such sensitivities suggest that greater emphasis should be placed on reporting estimates of the relationship between tourism and economic growth across a variety of methodological characteristics and specification and estimation choices. The implications of the results for theory development are also discussed.

- by Robin Nunkoo, Ph.D and +2
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- Economics, Tourism Studies, Tourism Marketing, Tourism economics

This paper reviews recent contributions to the economics and economic history of famine. It provides a context for the history of famine in the twentieth century, which is unique. During the century, war and totalitarianism produced more famine deaths than did overpopulation and economic backwardness; yet by its end, economic growth and medical technology had almost eliminated the threat of major famines. Today's high-profile famines are "small" by historical standards. Topics analyzed include the role played by food markets in mitigating or exacerbating famine, the globalization of disaster relief, the enhanced role of human agency and entitlements, distinctive demography of certain twentieth-century famines, and future prospects for "making famine history."

- by Cormac O Grada
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- Economic History, Economics, Economic Growth

El objetivo general que se plantea el trabajo es explicar el modo en que el patrón de crecimiento Argentino estuvo restringido por la escasez de divisas . Se hace foco en distintas variables que determinan el peso de la restricción externa en el crecimiento destacándose la estructura productiva, los términos de intercambio, el rol del tipo de cambio y del endeudamiento entre otras. En particular, se centra en el estudio de la etapa que transcurre entre 1940 y 2018 vinculando la trayectoria del balance de pagos a la trayectoria del producto con especificidades propias de cada periodo.

Numerous studies have focused on delineating the relationship between tourism and economic growth. In this article, we present the results of a rigorous meta-regression analysis based on 545 estimates drawn from 113 studies that empirically tested the tourism-led growth hypothesis (TLGH). The results suggest the presence of publication bias in the literature on this topic, where the majority of studies report positive and statistically significant estimates. Findings provide support for the TLGH, but they also suggest that the estimates are sensitive to a number of factors that are related to country data, specification, and estimation characteristics, and time span. Such sensitivities suggest that greater emphasis should be placed on reporting estimates of the relationship between tourism and economic growth across a variety of methodological characteristics and specification and estimation choices. The implications of the results for theory development are also discussed.

- by B. Seetanah
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- Marketing, Economics, Tourism Studies, Tourism Marketing
- by Mark Beeson
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- Environmental Studies, Economic Growth, Capitalism, Environmental Sustainability

Nigeria is endowed with abundant energy resources, both conventional and renewable, whichprovide her with immense capacity to develop an effective national energy plan. However, introduction of renewable energyresources into the nation's energy mix have implications on itsenergy budget. The national energy supply system has been projected intothe future using MARKAL, a large scale linear optimization model.However, this model may not be absolutely representative of the highlynon-linear future of renewable energy. Results of the model reveal that under onlya least cost constraint, only large hydro power technology is the prominentcommercial renewable energy technology in the electricity supply mix of thecountry. Despite the immense solar energy potentials available, solar electricity generation is attractive only under severeCO2 emissions mitigation of the nation's energy supply system. Similarly, the penetration of small-scale hydro power technology in theelectricity supply mix is favoured only under CO2 emissionsconstraints. Due to economy of scale, large hydropower technology takes the lion share of all the commercial renewableenergy resources share for electricity generation under any CO2emissions constraint. These analyses reveal that some barriers exist to thedevelopment and penetration of renewable energy resources electricity production in Nigeria's energy supplysystem. Barriers and possible strategies to overcome them arediscussed. Intensive efforts and realistic approachtowards energy supply system in the country will have to be adopted inorder to adequately exploit renewable energy resources and technologiesfor economic growth and development.

- by Lynda Obiefuna
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- Renewable Energy, Economic Growth, Resource sharing, Renewable Energy Resource
- by Atakan DURMAZ
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- Economic Growth, Diaspora Studies, Turkish Diaspora, Central Asia

Questo libro è il primo e-book elaborato dal Gruppo di Discussione "Crescita, Investimenti e Territorio" nel 2014. il secondo ebook: Cappellin R., Baravelli M., Bellandi M., Camagni R., Ciciotti E., Marelli E. (2015), a cura di,... more

This article presents empirical evidence from household and firm survey data collected during 2009−2010 on the implementation of the 2008 Labor Contract Law and effects on China’s workers. The Government and local labor bureaus have made substantial efforts to enforce the provisions of the new Law, which has likely contributed to reversing a trend toward increasing informalization of the urban labor market. Enforcement of the Law, however, varies substantially across cities. The article analyzes the determinants of worker satisfaction with the Law’s enforcement, workers’ propensity to have a labor contract, their awareness of the Law’s content and their likelihood of initiating disputes, and finds that all are highly correlated with education level, especially for migrants. Although higher labor costs may have had a negative impact on manufacturing employment growth, this has not led to an overall increase in aggregate unemployment or prevented the rapid growth of real wages. Less p...

- by John Giles
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- Psychology, Economics, Development Economics, Labor Economics

Developing economies may face a trade-off between specializing according to existing comparative advantage (in low-technology goods), and entering sectors in which they currently lack a comparative advantage, but may acquire such an advantage in the future as a result of the potential for productivity growth (in high-technology goods). Comparative advantage is endogenously determined by past technological change, while simultaneously shaping current rates of innovation. Hence, specialization according to current comparative advantage under free trade may be welfare reducing. Selective intervention may be welfare improving, both for the economy undertaking it, and for its trade partner.

- by Stephen Redding
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- Economics, International Trade, Economic Growth, Productivity

Empirical results suggest that economic growth and trade openness have a significant positive impact on foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in Rwanda. Depreciation of the real exchange rate stimulates FDI inflows and the inflation rate does not significantly affect FDI inflows. Results of the forecast error variance decomposition and impulse response functions indicate that the most important determinant to FDI inflows is growth. In fact, long-lasting effects of an increase in economic growth on FDI inflows are found. Interestingly enough, FDI fully reacts to an unexpected increase in economic growth only after three years. Secondly, the real exchange rate effect on FDI flows are found in both the static and dynamic models. However, the impacts of trade and debt ratio on FDI flows are not as significant in the static model as in the dynamic model. Lastly, the impact of the inflation rate on FDI flows in both models was trivial.

- by Sung No
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- Economic Growth, Foreign Direct Investment, Vector Autoregression, Trade Openness

While virtually everyone has heard of the Industrial Revolution, which is correctly credited with bringing increased prosperity to the world, very few know much about the magnitude of that prosperity. Moreover,the beliefs that many hold about the causes of that economic growth, beyond the basics of the Industrial Revolution, are wrong. This short paper summarizes the economic growth of the past two centuries and the reason for this growth at this time in history, in what is known as the Great Enrichment.

- by David Ahlstrom
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- Economic Growth

Adaptive radial-based direction sampling (ARDS) algorithms are specified for Bayesian analysis of models with nonelliptical, possibly, multimodal target distributions. A key step is a radial-based transformation to directions and distances. After the transformations a Metropolis-Hastings method or, alternatively, an importance sampling method is applied to evaluate generated directions. Next, distances are generated from the exact target distribution by means of the numerical inverse transformation method. An adaptive procedure is applied to update the initial location and covariance matrix in order to sample directions in an efficient way.

- by Herman Van Dijk and +3
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- Economics, Econometrics, Data Analysis, Economic Growth

Modeling the spatial aspect of growth has finally become an important subject of economics as exemplified by the increasing popularity of the new economic geography. However, new economic geography models have still not been able to develop a consistent approach to integrate innovation, space and economic growth into a coherent theoretical framework A potential reason for this is that the spatial dimension of knowledge production is still only partly understood in the empirical literature. To shed some additional light on the spatial dimension of innovation we present results of a first-cut analysis building on a recently developed cross sectional-time series data set of US innovation, private and university research and high technology employment. The novelty of this data set is that it opens up the possibilities to incorporate the time dimension into knowledge production function analysis at an appropriate level of spatial aggregation (i.e., US metropolitan areas) that has not been possible in empirical research yet.

- by Dr. Varga Attila
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- Economic Growth, Time Series Data, Empirical Research, Cross Section

This study investigates the relationship between exports, foreign direct investments (FDI) and economic growth in five Eurozone countries (Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, and Italy) using panel data for the period 1970 to 2011. The panel data causality results revealed that there is bidirectional causality between exports and economic development, while there is no causality between economic growth and FDI nor between FDI and exports.

- by pavlos stamatiou
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- Economics, Macroeconomics, International Trade, Applied Econometrics

All rights reserved 1 2 3 4 13 12 11 10 This volume is a product of the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/ The World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this volume do not necessarily reflect the views of the Executive Directors of The World Bank or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgement on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. v

- by Andreas Seiter
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- Economics, Health Care, Economic Growth, Cancer
- by Ahmet A Aşıcı
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- Economics, Economic Growth, Environmental Sustainability, Panel Data

This work examines the impact that economic growth can have on biodiversity and on the ecological dynamics that would naturally emerge in the absence of human activity. The loss of biodiversity may induce policy makers to implement defensive actions that prevent single species from extinction. These defensive actions, however, may deeply alter the natural dynamics of interaction between species, leading to an ecological equilibrium that is completely different from the one that would exist in the absence of human intervention. This suggests that there might exist a conflict between preserving biodiversity (through stabilization of the ecological system) and preserving the intrinsic features of the ecological dynamics.

- by Simone Borghesi
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- Applied Mathematics, Economic Growth, Predator-Prey Interactions, Biodiversity

Environmental pollution is nowadays one of the main challenges of the world. The global economic growth and the associated environmental degradation have put environmental protection at the forefront of attention. Regarding the aim of economic growth and its impact on environmental quality, the effect of various economic and human factors on environmental pollution and degradation is increasingly gaining importance in Iran. This study investigated the effects of economic growth, energy consumption, trade liberalization, urbanization, financial development, and human development on ecological footprint and environmental degradation in Iran over the period 1971-2015 using the Markov switching-error correction method (MS-ECM). Based on the results, the environmental Kuznets hypothesis was confirmed for the ecological carbon footprint with a reversed-U shape. Economic growth, urbanization, and energy use were found to have a positive and significant effect on environmental degradation, while financial development negatively influenced environmental degradation. Also, human development had a positive effect on the ecological carbon footprint. Finally, it is recommended to save energy, especially fossil fuels, by using clean energy, increase environmental awareness, and enforce strict environmental monitoring.

- by Environmental Resources Research and +1
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- Economic Growth, Pollution, Environmental degradation

Spatial price dispersion varies because of climatic fluctuations, marketimperfections, economic growth or economic policies. These variations areoften neglected in poverty studies.In this paper, we propose a simple simulation formula to assess the effecton poverty of a change in the spatial mean or spatial variance of price indiceswithout having to model each household situation. This approach constitutes aconvenient first step of the analysis of the impact of change in pricedistributions before more sophisticated investigation of causality structures andhousehold heterogeneity.

- by christophe muller
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- Economics, Economic Growth, Economic policy

In this note I explore how a non-constant rate of time preference on the part of policymakers affects economic growth. In a simple dynamic general equilibrium model I show that if the incumbent government has a rate of time preference in the form of a quasi-hyperbolic discounting function tax rates can be substantially higher and economic growth considerably lower than the standard case of exponential discounting.

- by Diego Nocetti
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- Economics, Economic Growth

We combine data on international trade linkages with network methods to examine the global trading system as an interdependent complex network. We map the topology of the international trade network and suggest new network based measures of international economic integration, at both a global system-wide level and a local country-level. We develop network based measures that incorporate not only the

- by Javier Reyes
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- Marketing, International Business, International Trade, Economic Growth

Over the past 25 years, Vietnam has attracted, lobbied and effectively used official development assistance (ODA) capital quite effectively, contributing to the increasing economic growth. Particularly, 2017 ended quite impressively by the achievements of the whole period of 2011-2017. Regarding socio-economy, for the first time in many years, we have completed and exceeded all 13 planned targets. Regarding economic growth, GDP reached 6.81%, exceeding the set plan, which is high compared to other countries in the region and the world. The article will provide evidence and data related to the contribution to Vietnam's economic growth from ODA. Based on the results that we have achieved and taking advantage of the advantages available at home and abroad to be ready to cope with ongoing challenges, specific solutions are required to achieve highly effective and sustainable growth.

- by Hoang-Tien Nguyen
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- Economic Growth, Vietnam, Official Development Assistance (ODA)

Laubscher provides an analysis of SA's business cycle history, 1970 to 2017, focusing on the interaction between long-run growth and short-run cyclical change. The chapter enhances our understanding of the impact of discrete structural shocks and their interaction with the endogenous SA business cycle evolution. A perceptive narrative of the latter, combined with a quantitative analysis, allows a revealing synthesis.

- by Pieter Laubscher
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- Economic History, Economic Growth

The essential services such as banking, transportation, medicine, education and defense are being progressively replaced by cheaper and more efficient Internet-based web applications. Therefore, the availability of Web services is very critical for the socio-economic growth of the society. Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks pose an immense threat to the availability of these services. The services are severely degraded and hence lot of business loses are incurred due to these attacks. To objectively evaluate DDoS attack's impact, its severity and the effectiveness of a potential defense, we need precise, quantitative and comprehensive DDoS impact metrics that are applicable to web services. In this paper an attempt has been made to analyze impact of DDoS attacks on the Web services. The experiments are conducted in NS-2. The attack traffic is mixed with legitimate traffic at different strengths and impact of DDoS attacks are measured in terms of throughput, response time, ratio of average serve to request rate, percentage link utilization, and normal packet survival ratio (NPSR). electronic document is a "live" template. The various components of your paper [title, text, heads, etc.] are already defined on the style sheet, as illustrated by the portions given in this document.

The convergence hypothesis maintains that an economy whose productivity lags behind other economies has a potential to grow faster. We introduce a procedure for testing this hypothesis and apply it to 24 OECD countries for the period 1950 ± 1990. Our approach is an attempt to capture the economics of the convergence hypothesis, while avoiding the problems associated with two popular tests of convergence, namely b-convergence and s-convergence. An application of an ARMA process to our sample data finds only modest support for the convergence hypothesis in the OECD during the postwar era. Patterns of investment, government consumption, and exports largely explain the observed convergence in the OECD. D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

- by Bharat Kolluri and +1
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- Economics, Economic Growth, Productivity, Convergence

Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

- by Silvia Faggian
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- Applied Mathematics, Demography, Optimal Control, Economic Growth

We analyse the implications of public debt on economic growth and inflation in a group of 52 African economies between 1950 and 2012. The results indicate that the limits of public debt affect economic growth and exhibit negatively, from a given level of debt, an inverted U behaviour regarding the relationship between economic growth and public debt. The highest average rates of real and per capita growth are achieved when public debt reaches 60% of the real GDP and an average inflation rate of 8.2%. When this ratio falls between 60-90%, the average rate of economic growth drops by up to 1.32 p.p. and continues dropping by up to 1.64 p.p. when the ratio exceeds 90%. Briefly, the high levels of public debt are reflected in reduced rates of economic growth and rising levels of inflation. Our results for three specific geographical areas resemble those of the overall analysis, despite some differences. In North African countries, the growth rates of the GDP and inflation also show an inverted U behaviour as the ratio of public debt/GDP increases. The highest rate of economic growth is recorded when the ratio public debt/GDP is below 30% of GDP and corresponds to an average inflation rate of 5.33%. Identical behaviour of the GDP growth rates and inflation also appears in Sub-Saharan countries until the third interval (60-90%). However, the highest growth rate of the GDP and GDP per capita is registered when the public debt/GDP ratio is in the second interval (30-60%). For SADC countries, the highest average rate of economic growth (6.8%) is similar to North African countries, when the ratio public debt/GDP is below 30% of GDP, with an average inflation rate of 11%. The high level of public debt is reflected in reduced rates of economic growth and increasing inflation rates.

- by Alexandra Lopes
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- Economics, Economic Growth, Inflation, Deflation
- by Shihe Fu
- •
- Business, Economics, Economic Growth, Foreign Direct Investment

Using panel data for the period 1989-2006 we revisit the empirics of economic growth in the context of the post-communist transition. We pay particular attention to the mechanisms of causation and to the potential endogeneity of the macroeconomic stability indicators considered to be important in the existing literature. Carefully employing a variety of econometric techniques we consistently find that macroeconomic instability is bad for economic growth. We find some evidence that institutions of governance are important for economic growth through their influence on the macroeconomic environment. That is, good institutions are conducive to macroeconomic stability which in turn positively impacts upon economic growth. We also find, in contrast with other work, that investments in education have had a strong positive impact on growth in transition while other 'standard' economic growth determinants remain less important. These findings are shown to be robust to a variety of e...

- by Christopher J Gerry
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- Economics, Economic Growth, Panel Data, Institutions

The Western futures project was originally founded on empiricist notions of prediction, forecasting and control. While other approaches to futures work, other traditions and ways of knowing, have certainly become established, the early framing of Futures Studies arguably occurred out of this broadly reductionist framework-what Wilber has since termed 'flatland'. As a result, current ideologies such as: economic growth, globalisation, the pre-eminence accorded to science and technology, and 'man's conquest of nature'-were insufficiently problematised. Technology-led views of the future remain influential within Futures Studies, bureaucratic thinking and popular culture. In this view, the future is less open than it might be because it is seen merely as an extension of the present. Critical Futures Studies question such assumptions. The paper explores how the work of this leading transpersonal synthesist can contribute both to a broadening and deepening of Futures Studies and thus help to activate cultural options that are presently obscured.

- by Richard Slaughter
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- Sociology, Popular Culture, Economic Growth, Science and Technology

This paper uses data from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to empirically test Wagner's Law in explaining public expenditure growth in association with economic growth; and if this growth enhanced the public welfare. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has witnessed a marked increase in government expenditure. We use the Engle and Granger (E-G) two-step cointegration method to examine the relationship between government expenditure and economic growth. Out of the four model specifications that we have tested, two models indicate that a positive long run relationship exists between government expenditure and economic growth. However, the income elasticities are not large enough to suggest that the growth in government expenditure exceeds the growth in national income; only that upward pressure is exerted. Looking at available data it is clear that governmental expenditures from GDP expansions increased public welfare for Saudis over the test period.

- by Albert Wijeweera
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- Economics, Econometrics, Economic Growth, Applied Economics

This study answers two questions about power sector reform in Moldova. First, did reform affect the poor and the non-poor differently? Second, are household consumption patterns different for private and public distribution networks? The study concludes that reforms have not disproportionately affected the poor. The gap in electricity consumption between poor and non-poor is closing, as a result of improvements in the supply of electricity, particularly in rural areas, and the significant growth in income over the past four years. Moldova's residential electricity consumption remains exceptionally low and is probably highly inelastic, especially for the very poor. This implies that unless they are accompanied by increases in income, future tariff increases could create large potential consumer welfare losses-as well as large revenue gains for the utility. It also implies that there may be room for substantial welfare gains by helping households better manage their electricity ex...

- by Nora Dudwick
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- Economics, Economic Growth, Refrigeration, Climate