114 research outputs found
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The impact of international trade flows on economic growth in Brazilian states
Full text linkThis paper explores the impact of trade openness on the economic growth of Brazilian states according to their initial income level. This empiri- cal study covers 26 Brazilian states over the period 1989-2002. Growth rates of Brazilian states are modeled as dependent on international trade flows and a set of control variables such as initial income level, human capital, private and public physical capital, growth rate of labor force and a number of inter- action terms with trade openness. This empirical analysis relies on dynamic growth regressions, using the system GMM estimator. The results indicate that trade openness is more beneficial to states with a high level of initial per capita income and therefore contributes to increased regional dispari- ties in Brazil. In addition, trade openness favors more industrialized states, well-endowed in human capital, rather than states whose economic activity is mainly based on agriculture and farming. These results have important policy implications since achieving balanced territorial development has be- come a priority for the Brazilian federal government over the last few decades
Do the Rich Vote Conservative Because They Are Rich?
Full text linkPolitical economics predicts that the rich oppose redistribution and vote for conservative parties. Although this seemingly fits the data well in most countries, I show that the relationship breaks down when we control for unobservable characteristics. Using Norwegian survey data, I study to what extent voting is caused by income. Although a positive association between income and conservative voting persists when controlling for unobservables, the magnitude of the effect is reduced by a factor of five. To correct for measurement error, I instrument income with average income by profession. The magnitude of the coefficients becomes higher, but the main conclusion remains
Institutions and Economic Reforms
Full text linkRecent studies in economic development seek to establish that institutional quality is an important determinant of long-run living standards. Moreover, it appears that property rights institutions are causal for development whereas contracting institutions affect the nature of financial intermediation in the economy. I use these results to explore two questions. If property rights institutions matter for economic growth, can they help explain large-scale reform surprises? The reforms in Western Germany in 1948 are viewed as 'miraculous' whereas those in the early 1990s in the former Soviet transition economies are viewed as disappointing. I argue that the former had a limited task because they only had to restore existing property rights institutions whereas the latter had to create new ones and find new owners for assets. The second question is whether the persistence of variety in contracting institutions across countries that have developed successfully has implications for the design of financial and corporate governance reforms
Editorial Note
Full text linkThe Review of Economics and Institutions is the New Series of Economia, Società e Istituzioni, edited by Luiss University Press up to 2005. The New Series is published by the University of Perugia maintaining the founders' idea that political economy scholars should aim at understanding social and economic issues in their concreteness and completeness, in their historical perspective and within their institutional framework. The nature and scope of the Review remain general. Although submissions of high-quality theoretical articles will be considered, a privileged attention will be paid to applied contributions. A distinctive feature of the New Series is that it offers authors the possibility to have their papers accepted in less than three months; specifically, it is conceived for attracting high quality works of young economists at their earlier phase of research activity. This First Issue of the New Series is a collection of invited works by international leading scholars; these articles provide clear examples of the fields of research and the quality standards the Review aims at attaining
Are Global Imbalances Sustainable? Post Crisis Scenarios
Full text linkoai:ojs.www.rei.unipg.it:article/23This paper assesses the sustainability of global imbalances by testing for the presence of unit roots in the current account positions (measured in relation to GDP) of the United States, China, Japan, Germany and the oil-exporting countries using a methodology that allows for structural breaks in levels and trends. We find that the external positions of these major countries/regions are stationary around structural breaks, which define episodes of current account reversals. On the basis of an event analysis of past reversals, it appears that structural breaks are associated with shifts in the fiscal stance, exchange rate parities and potential output growth, a finding that underscores the scope for macroeconomic and structural policies to ensure the sustainability of external positions while avoiding potentially disruptive reversals. These findings have implications for long-term capital flows after the crisis
Productivity Growth in Europe and the US: a Sectoral Study
Full text linkThis paper describes recent trends in productivity growth in the EU and the US. By adopting a sectoral perspective, we achieve a deeper understanding of the compositional patterns of aggregate growth and shed light on the reasons why the EU productivity has lagged behind the US during the period 1995-2007. This may be of use for policy makers in order to design policies to close the gap. Whilst our findings indicate that performance in manufacturing sectors of many EU countries has been strong, we observe notable disadvantages in relation to productivity performance of key market service sectors. Restrictions in product and labour markets prevailing in many EU countries have been put forward as potential factors causing poor productivity; research shows that these can have particular harmful effects in services sectors given their large size and inter-linkages to other sector of the economy
The Role of Innovation in Development
Full text linkInnovation is often seen as carried out by highly educated labour in R&D intensive companies with strong ties to leading centers of excellence in the scientific world. Seen from this angle innovation is a typical "first world" activity. There is, however, another way to look at innovation that goes significantly beyond this high-tech picture. In this, broader perspective, innovation - the attempt to try out new or improved products, processes or ways to do things - is an aspect of most if not all economic activities. In this sense, innovation may be as relevant in the developing part of the world as elsewhere. Section two discusses the existing theoretical and empirical literature on the subject. An important conclusion is that to be able to exploit technology to their own advantage, developing countries need to develop the necessary capabilities for doing so. The third section of the paper, therefore, discusses ways to identify and measure capabilities at the national level, while section four focuses on recent attempts to survey innovation activity in firms. The final section summarizes the main lessons
Tangible and Intangible Capital and the Pattern of Specialisation in the EU
Full text linkThis paper investigates the determinants of specialisation in 7 European countries and 4 major industrial sectors in the last 20 years. Next to the impact of traditional factors such as productivity and the endowment of labour and capital, we look at the importance of accounting for capital heterogeneity, by distinguishing between ICT and non-ICT assets, and for intangible capital such as skills and R&D. Our results show that intangible capital and innovation play an important part in increasing the value added shares of the Manufacturing sector while increasing investments in ICT have driven resources away from Manufacturing and towards the Service industry
Pro-Poor Progress in Education in Developing Countries?
Full text linkAttendance in education and associated years of schooling have expanded substantially in developing countries in recent years. But has this expansion in enrolments reduced existing inequalities in educational access and achievements? This paper analyzes differences in improvements in the access to the education system and in educational outcomes across the welfare distribution between and within countries, and also by gender and regions for a sample of 37 developing countries using Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). For the analysis, the toolbox of pro-poor growth analysis is applied to several educational indicators. We find drastic inequalities in educational attendance across the income distribution. Interestingly, inequalities in attendance declines with rising average attendance, while inequality in completion rates or schooling years increases with rising completion rates or schooling years
Flexible Strategies for Centralized Public Procurement
Full text linkWhen designing a national public procurement system, the degree of centralization (or, equivalently, the degree of demand aggregation) is one of the most crucial as well as puzzling policy choices. Centralized procurement has been traditionally considered as an instrument to reduce public spending. In more recent years, though, and particularly after the 2008 global financial turmoil, a growing interest has arisen among both policy makers and researchers in government procurement as a lever to pursue broader policy goals, such as competitive markets structure, sustainable development and innovation. This paper reviews and discusses several issues related both to the rationales and to the practical implementation of centralized procurement strategies, with a particular focus on the procurement of goods and services