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on Economic Growth |
| By: | Marguerite Obolensky; Marco Tabellini; Charles Taylor |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces the concept of “climate matching” as a driver of migration and establishes several new results. First, we show that climate strongly predicts the spatial distribution of immigrants in the US, both historically (1880) and more recently (2015), whereby movers select destinations with climates similar to their place of origin. Second, we analyze historical flows of German, Norwegian, and domestic migrants in the US and document that climate sorting also holds within countries. Third, we exploit variation in the long-run change in average US climate from 1900 to 2019 and find that migration increased more between locations whose climate converged. Fourth, we verify that results are not driven by the persistence of ethnic networks or other confounders, and provide evidence for two complementary mechanisms: climate-specific human capital and climate as amenity. Fifth, we back out the value of climate similarity by: i) exploiting the Homestead Act, a historical policy that changed relative land prices; and, ii) examining the relationship between climate mismatch and mortality. Finally, we project how climate change shapes the geography of US population growth by altering migration patterns, both historically and into the 21st century. |
| JEL: | J15 J61 N31 N32 Q54 R11 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32035&r=gro |
| By: | William Brock; Anastasios Xepapadeas |
| Abstract: | This paper puts forth a growth model that takes into account the fact that the economy is embedded in a finite Earth. Economic activity causes greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions into the atmosphere and uses services from the biosphere. There are two main messages from the analysis: First, R&D in technologies that reduce GHG emissions and inputs from the biosphere must be ramped up rapidly. Second, in view of the fact that the top 10% of the world's inhabitants have roughly 76% of the world's wealth, consumption that causes emissions and uses inputs from the biosphere must decrease rapidly. |
| Keywords: | growth, limits, biosphere, population dynamics, impact inequality, biosphere saving technology |
| JEL: | O44 J13 Q01 |
| Date: | 2024–01–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aue:wpaper:2402&r=gro |
| By: | Klaus Prettner (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business) |
| Abstract: | Over the past decades, labor productivity and per capita GDP have increased steadily, while real wages for most workers have remained stagnant. This development challenges conventional economic insights according to which the remuneration of a production factor is determined by its productivity. Augmenting an otherwise standard production function with industrial robots as a substitute for workers allows to reconcile the two trends. If workers are compensated according to their marginal product, wages may decrease when robot use intensifies, whereas output and measured labor productivity both increase. Using data on labor input, physical capital input, and industrial robot use in the United States, I show that a sizable part of the observed wedge between wages and labor productivity can be explained using such a framework. |
| Keywords: | automation, productivity, wage growth, inequality |
| JEL: | J31 O11 O33 O40 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp354&r=gro |
| By: | Daniel Gallardo-Albarrán (Wageningen University) |
| Abstract: | This survey sheds light on the causes and consequences of the global sanitary revolution that resulted in the spread of waterworks and sewerage projects since the middle of the 19th century, by drawing on research from the fields of economic history, economics and history. I begin with a discussion of the construction of these infrastructures during the period 1850-1940 showing that their spread was relatively similar in major urban cities across the globe, while diffusion within countries and cities themselves was markedly unequal. Second, I review research looking at the mortality impact of access to clean water and sanitation. These account for ca. 10-30 percent of declines in infant mortality and in industrial settings their joint effect explains between 20 and 25 percent of the fall in infant and overall mortality. Lastly, I examine the drivers of the sanitary revolution with a new framework that distinguishes between proximate factors (e.g. physical capital) and ultimate factors (e.g. institutions). I argue that the state of knowledge in this literature is insufficient to explain between- and within-country differences in access to sanitary services and that more attention should be devoted to the interaction of political factors with economic, cultural and biogeographic contexts. |
| Keywords: | waterworks, sanitation, mortality, political economy, cities |
| JEL: | I18 N30 N90 L95 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0247&r=gro |