nep-gro 2017-08-06 papers

on Economic Growth

Issue of 2017‒08‒06
three papers chosen by
Marc Klemp
Brown University

Gender: An Historical Perspective By Paola Giuliano
Historical urban growth in Europe (1300–1800) By Rafael, González-Val
India in the World Economy: Inferences from Empirics of Economic Growth By Takahiro SATO

By:	Paola Giuliano
Abstract:	Social attitudes toward women vary significantly across societies. This chapter reviews recent empirical research on various historical determinants of contemporary differences in gender roles and gender gaps across societies, and how these differences are transmitted from parents to children and therefore persist until today. We review work on the historical origin of differences in female labor-force participation, fertility, education, marriage arrangements, competitive attitudes, domestic violence, and other forms of difference in gender norms. Most of the research illustrates that differences in cultural norms regarding gender roles emerge in response to specific historical situations, but tend to persist even after the historical conditions have changed. We also discuss the conditions under which gender norms either tend to be stable or change more quickly.
JEL:	N0 Z1
Date:	2017–07
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23635&r=gro

Historical urban growth in Europe (1300–1800)

By:	Rafael, González-Val
Abstract:	This paper analyses the evolution of the European urban system from a long-term perspective (from 1300 to 1800). Using the method recently proposed by Clauset, Shalizi, and Newman (2009), a Pareto-type city size distribution (power law) is rejected from 1300 to 1600. A power law is a plausible model for the city size distribution only in 1700 and 1800, although the log-normal distribution is another plausible alternative model that we cannot reject. Moreover, the random growth of cities is rejected using parametric and non-parametric methods. The results reveal a clear pattern of convergent growth in all the periods.
Keywords:	city size distribution, power law, Pareto distribution, Zipf’s law, Gibrat’s law
JEL:	C12 C14 R11 R12
Date:	2017–07–28
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:80475&r=gro

India in the World Economy: Inferences from Empirics of Economic Growth

By:	Takahiro SATO
Abstract:	The aim of this study is to investigate the growth experiences of India in relation to the experiences of around one hundred countries in the world during the last half-century by exploiting the inferences drawn from the cross-country growth regressions. This study obtains the following findings. First, the outcome of growth regression supports the conditional convergence hypothesis. In contrast, both India's growth rate and income level have increased, breaking the convergence hypothesis. Second, the growth regression shows life expectancy at birth, investment ratio and external openness contributes to economic growth. In India these three were improved. Third, the growth regression suggests human capital has a non-linear effects on economic growth and that the schooling years beyond 3 years raise the growth rate. In India both schooling years and growth rate have increased. Fourth, the growth regression shows that total fertility rate has a negative effect on the growth. In India the growth rate increased as the total fertility rate declined. Fifth, the growth regression shows that government consumption reduces the growth rate. Contrary to the regression results both India's growth rate and government consumption have increased. Sixth, the growth regression suggests inflation has a negative effect on growth rate. However, there are no clear relationship between inflation and growth in India. Seventh, the growth regression shows the improvement of terms of trade contributes to economic growth. The same was observed in India where terms of trade fluctuated over time. Finally the growth regression supposes that democracy and economic growth have a non-linear complex relationship and that the relationship differs depending on the position of the distribution of growth rates.There are no clear relationship between democracy and growth in India where the India's status of democracy has hardly varied. JEL classification: O11, O47, O53 Key words: economic growth, growth regression, India.
Date:	2017–04
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esj:esridp:338&r=gro

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