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on Economic Growth |
| By: | Sascha Becker Becker (Monash Univeristy); Jared Rubin (Chapman Univeristy); Ludger Woessmann (University of Munich) |
| Abstract: | We use the elements of a macroeconomic production function—physical capital, human capital, labor, and technology—together with standard growth models to frame the role of religion in economic growth. Unifying a growing literature, we argue that religion can enhance or impinge upon economic growth through all four elements because it shapes individual preferences, societal norms, and institutions. Religion affects physical capital accumulation by influencing thrift and financial development. It affects human capital through both religious and secular education. It affects population and labor by influencing work effort, fertility, and the demographic transition. And it affects total factor productivity by constraining or unleashing technological change and through rituals, legal institutions, political economy, and conflict. Synthesizing a disjoint literature in this way opens many interesting directions for future research. |
| Keywords: | religion, growth, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, preferences, norms, institutions, capital, saving, financial development, human capital, education, population, labor, demography, fertility, total factor productivity, technological change, rituals, political economy, conflict |
| JEL: | Z12 O40 N30 I25 O15 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2402&r=gro |
| By: | Obolensky, Marguerite (Columbia University); Tabellini, Marco (Harvard Business School); Taylor, Charles A. (Harvard Kennedy School) |
| 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. |
| Keywords: | migration, climate matching, value of climate |
| JEL: | J15 J61 N31 N32 Q54 R11 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16710&r=gro |
| By: | Luis Alcala |
| Abstract: | This paper studies a discrete-time version of the Lucas-Uzawa endogenous growth model with physical and human capital. Equilibrium existence is proved applying tools of dynamic programming with unbounded returns. The proofs rely on properties of homogeneous functions and also apply well-known inequalities in real analysis, seldom used in the literature, which significantly simplifies the task of verifying certain assumptions that are rather technical in nature. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2401.00342&r=gro |
| By: | Luca Zamparelli (Department of Social and Economic Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates alternative ways of introducing technological progress in heterodox theories of economic growth. We model technical change as: i) exogenous and costless; ii) a positive externality of capital accumulation, the wage share or the employment rate; iii) endogenous and costly. We implement these formalizations in Classical growth theories, where investments coincide with full capacity savings, and Keynesian theories where capital accumulation is demand constrained. We also distinguish between abundant and inelastic labor market closures. We discuss the outcomes of these models in terms of long-run growth, functional income distribution and employment. |
| Keywords: | Technical change, heterodox growth models, R&D, factor income shares, employment |
| JEL: | D24 E25 D33 O30 O41 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:new:wpaper:2404&r=gro |
| By: | Daniel Aparicio-Pérez (Department of Finance and Accounting, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain); Jordi Ripollés (Institute of International Economics and Department of Economics, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to identify the heterogeneity in the resource-growth nexus and explore the relative importance of the potential factors that may drive it. By exploiting a panel dataset of 97 countries from 1990 to 2019, we employ the Group Fixed Effect estimator of Bonhomme and Manresa (2015) to endogenously identify groups of countries with different time-varying patterns of economic growth that, in addition, present a heterogeneous economic response to changes in natural resource wealth. Subsequently, we employ an ordered probit to characterize the identified heterogeneity, assessing the relevance of multiple institutional factors and other transmission channels. Our findings indicate that the effect of natural resources on economic growth varies significantly among groups of countries, particularly in relation to the quality of economic and political institutions, social capital, export diversification, and financial development. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth; Grouped fixed effects; Heterogeneity; Institutions; Natural resources; Ordered probit. |
| JEL: | C23 O13 O43 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jau:wpaper:2024/02&r=gro |
| By: | Mark Setterfield (Department of Economics, New School For Social Research, USA) |
| Abstract: | The Kalecki-Robinson tradition in growth theory is surveyed, focusing on a central theme of this literature: the relationship between distribution and growth. A generic model is used to develop successive variants of the Kalecki-Robinson tradition: the neo- Keynesian (Robinson) model; the Kalecki-Steindl (Kaleckian) model; and the Bhaduri- Marglin model. Selected recent developments that offer new insights into the relationship between distribution and growth are then outlined. |
| Keywords: | Growth, distribution, technical change, Kalecki, Robinson |
| JEL: | E11 E12 O41 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:new:wpaper:2402&r=gro |
| By: | Kleinman, Benny; Liu, Ernest; Redding, Stephen J.; Yogo, Motohiro |
| Abstract: | We generalize the closed-economy neoclassical growth model (CNGM) to allow for costly goods trade and capital flows with imperfect substitutability between countries. We develop a tractable, multi-country, quantitative model that matches key features of the observed data (e.g., gravity equations for trade and capital holdings) and is well suited for analyzing counterfactual policies that affect both goods and capital market integration (e.g., U.S.-China decoupling). We show that goods and capital market integration interact in non-trivial ways to shape impulse responses to counterfactual changes in productivity and goods and capital market frictions and the speed of convergence to steady-state. |
| Keywords: | economic growth; international trade; capital flows |
| JEL: | F10 F21 |
| Date: | 2023–12–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:121381&r=gro |
| By: | Andrea Roventini |
| Abstract: | This work presents the evolutionary growth theory, which studies the drivers and patterns of technological change and production together with the (imperfect) mechanisms of coordination among a multitude of firms. This requires to studies economies as complex evolving systems, i.e. as ecologies populated by heterogenous agents whose out-of-equilibrium local market interactions lead to the emergence of some collective order at higher level of aggregation, while the system continuously evolves. Accordingly a multi-country multi-industry agent-based model is introduced, where the restless competition of firms in international markets lead to the emergence of growth and persistent income divergence among countries. Moreover, each economy experiences a structural transformation of its productive structure during the development process. Such dynamics results from firm-level virtuous (or vicious) cycles between knowledge accumulation, trade performances, and growth dynamics. The model also accounts for a rich ensemble of empirical regularities at macro, meso and micro levels of aggregation. Finally, the model is employed to assess different strategies that laggard countries can adopt to catch up with leaders. Results show that in absence of government interventions, laggards will continue to fall behind. On the contrary, industrial policies can successfully drive international convergence among countries. |
| Keywords: | Endogenous growth, structural change, technology-gaps, industrial policies, evolutionary economics, agent-based models |
| Date: | 2024–01–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2024/02&r=gro |