|
on Economic Growth |
| By: | Ryoji Ohdoi (School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how international asymmetries in population aging shape cross-country technology gaps and global growth. I develop a two-country, two-sector overlapping-generations model with endogenous technological progress free from scale effects. The analysis shows that, in the long-run equilibrium, the faster-aging country's relative technology declines through two mechanisms: reduced per capita labor supply and a reallocation of employment toward the non-tradable sector. Consequently, policies aimed solely at increasing labor-force participation are insufficient to prevent such relative technological decline, because the latter mechanism persists. Numerical simulations confirm these mechanisms and reveal potentially non-monotonic effects on global growth under large demographic asymmetries. I also quantify Japan's relative technological decline due solely to differential aging by calibrating the two countries to Japan and the United States. |
| Keywords: | International asymmetries in population aging; Overlapping generations; Endogenous technological progress without scale effects; Non-tradable goods; Sectoral reallocation |
| JEL: | F43 J11 O30 O41 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kgu:wpaper:302 |
| By: | Ariel Coremberg; Emilio Ocampo |
| Abstract: | This paper challenges the widely held view that Argentina’s economy performed relatively well until the early 1970s and that its fabled secular decline began only after 1975. Instead, it advances the alternative hypothesis that the roots of such decline were planted much earlier, and that its pace accelerated in the mid 1940s with the adoption of a corporatist import substitution industrialization (ISI) regime. The resulting distortions in relative prices and misallocation of capital resources generated significant inefficiencies that constrained the economy’s growth potential. Although successive modifications after the mid 1950s improved its performance, by the early 1970s the corporatist ISI regime had exhausted its capacity to sustain growth. The absolute stagnation that followed the 1975 crisis can be explained by the failure of successive governments to overcome the resistance of entrenched interest groups and complete the transition to an open market economy. We support this hypothesis using a range of empirical methodologies –including comparative GDP per capita ratios, convergence analysis, growth accounting and cyclical peak to peak analysis– combined with historical interpretation. We conclude that abrupt regime reversals fostered social conflict, political instability and macroeconomic uncertainty, all of which undermined the sustained productivity gains required for long term growth. |
| JEL: | N16 O11 O43 P16 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cem:doctra:902 |
| By: | Thi Kim Cuong Pham (CNRS, EconomiX, Université Paris Nanterre, 92001 Nanterre); Ngoc-Sang Pham (EM Normandie - École de Management de Normandie = EM Normandie Business School, CNRS, EconomiX, Université Paris Nanterre, 92001 Nanterre); Cuong Le Van (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris, TIMAS, Thang Long University); Tin Nguyen-Trong (CNRS, EconomiX, Université Paris Nanterre, 92001 Nanterre) |
| Abstract: | We develop a dynamic endogenous-growth model with an R&D sector in which the elasticity of innovation with respect to existing knowledge can be negative. We prove the existence and uniqueness of a balanced growth path (BGP) and derive closed-form growth factors, showing that productivity and output growth are semi-endogenous and population-driven. We also establish the global stability under general production function. Under testable parameter restrictions, the economy converges to the BGP. When the knowledge elasticity is sufficiently low, a Jacobian-based condition implies instability, and an N-period innovation cycle can emerge. Comparative statics are conducted to show the role of several factors, including research efficiency, elasticity of inputs and population growth. Calibrated simulations map out transitions and mark the points at which stability is lost. They make clear when innovation frictions endanger balanced growth and provide practical guidance for R&D and demographic policy. |
| Keywords: | endogenous growth, population-driven growth, balanced growth path, stability, instability, innovation, monotone dynamical system |
| Date: | 2025–11–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-05388671 |
| By: | Yasmine Elkhateeb; Riccardo Turati; Jérôme Valette |
| Abstract: | Does immigration challenge the identities, values, and cultural diversity of receiving societies? This paper addresses this question by analyzing the impact of immigration on cultural diversity in Europe between 2004 and 2018. It combines regional cultural diversity indices derived from the European Social Survey with immigration shares from the European Labor Force Survey. The results indicate that immigration increases the salience of birthplace identity along cultural lines, fostering a shift toward nativist identities among the native population. These identity shifts, in turn, trigger a process of cultural homogenization among natives. This effect is stronger in regions receiving culturally distant immigrants. It reflects a process of convergence toward the values of highly skilled liberal natives and divergence from those of low-skilled conservative immigrants. |
| Keywords: | Immigration;Social Identity;Cultural Diversity |
| JEL: | F22 D03 D72 Z10 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2025-18 |
| By: | Jihyuan Liuh |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to provide a micro-foundation for the Cobb-Douglas production function based on statistical physics, and to launch a critique of its political-economic implications. By introducing the Maximum Entropy Principle and an axiom of scale invariance, we prove that in an economic system with incomplete information, the most unbiased distribution of micro-level technical coefficients must take the form of a truncated power law. Based on this, statistical aggregation naturally leads to the emergence of a constant-returns-to-scale Cobb-Douglas function at the macro level. This result not only provides a micro-foundation for neoclassical growth models that does not rely on a representative agent or value aggregation of capital but, more importantly, reveals that the aggregate production function is essentially a lossy compression of micro-level information. In this compression process, the social-historical relations embedded in distribution parameters are 'naturalized' into seemingly eternal technical laws, which is the manifestation of Marx's critique of 'fetishism' at the level of mathematical logic. This paper further deepens the understanding of the production function as a statistical phenomenon rather than a technical law through dialogues with Marx, the Cambridge School, and Shaikh. |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2512.03812 |
| By: | Heng-fu Zou (IAS, Wuhan University and World Bank) |
| Abstract: | We replace Weber's "spirit of capitalism" with a constitutional-cultural framework we call the republican spirit of innovism operating within a re-public of entrepreneurs. In such an order, ordinary people repeatedly propose, test, and lawfully imitate improvements under general, impersonal rules-secure property, open entry and exit, credible contract, and freedoms of speech and association. Building on Mises(calculation and residual claimancy), Hayek (discovery and dispersed knowledge), Kirzner (alertness and equilibration), and the historical evidence assembled by Mc Closkey, Mokyr, and Phelps, we argue that modern prosperity stems less from elite R&D or capital deepening and more from creative construction by the many. We derive empirical signatures-proposal density, feedback speed, and diffusion breadth-and outline a policy agenda favoring open standards, disclosure-oriented intellectual property, contestability, and re producibility. Case evidence from Britain (since 1700), the United States (since the 1780s), and contemporary technological and biomedical sectors shows that when rules keep feedback honest and imitation lawful, total factor productivity rises persistently. |
| Keywords: | republican spirit of innovism, republic of entrepreneurs, dispersed knowledge, entrepreneurial discovery, lawful imitation, diffusion, Industrial Enlightenment, bourgeois dignity, grassroots dynamism |
| JEL: | O31 O33 L26 O43 N10 |
| Date: | 2025–11–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cuf:wpaper:804 |