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on Economic Growth |
| By: | Banda, Mutisunge Allan |
| Abstract: | Just as human age is a key determinant of individual economic productivity, a population’s age structure is a significant causal factor of economic productivity and growth. This paper attempts to update the traditional theories of economic growth by incorporating demographic transition theory and intergenerational transfers into long run economic growth. Whereas contemporary theory interprets the demographic dividend as a transitory and uncertain exogenous stimulant to economic growth, this paper will attempt to demonstrate that age structure is instead a persistent and endogenous determinant of economic productivity. In addition, the paper will argue that a significant portion of modern and ancient economic divergence can be explained by variations in age structure. These findings will have important implications for policymakers and researchers interested economic development. |
| Keywords: | Demographic Economics; Economic Growth; Economic Theory; Macroeconomics; Quantitative Methods |
| JEL: | E0 J1 O47 |
| Date: | 2024–11–18 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:122725 |
| By: | Chu, Angus C.; Furukawa, Yuichi; Peretto, Pietro; Xu, Rongxin |
| Abstract: | Is agricultural productivity conducive to economic development? We develop a two-country open-economy Schumpeterian growth model with endogenous takeoff. With agricultural trade and a subsistence requirement, higher domestic agricultural productivity has ambiguous effects on the economy's takeoff and its transitional growth rate if domestic and imported agricultural goods are substitutes. Without the subsistence requirement, higher domestic agricultural productivity delays industrialization and lowers transitional growth by increasing domestic demand for agricultural labor. This specialization force works in the opposite direction of the change in domestic consumption pattern governed by the subsistence requirement, which tends to release labor from agriculture. Without agricultural trade, the specialization force is absent and the subsistence requirement on agricultural consumption implies that higher domestic agricultural productivity reallocates labor from agriculture to industry, hastening industrialization and raising transitional growth. Using cross-country panel-data, we find that agricultural productivity has a direct positive effect on economic growth but this positive effect weakens and even becomes negative when reliance on agricultural imports is sufficiently high. Simulating the calibrated model, we find that improvement in domestic agricultural productivity accounts for about one-third of the changes in TFP growth in China and Japan, respectively, and more so for their main trading partner, the US. |
| Keywords: | international trade; agricultural productivity; innovation; endogenous takeoff |
| JEL: | F43 O3 O4 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:122630 |
| By: | Lambert, Thomas |
| Abstract: | This research note/paper examines several factors that have been mentioned and debated as determinants of how Britain moves from feudalism to mercantilism and then to capitalism by way of agricultural and industrial innovations and also how it arrives at the cusp of the industrial revolution. Of special interest are somewhat recent conjectures of macroeconomic data, investment estimates, and data on horses, serfs, and slaves of previous centuries that perhaps can better contribute to and add some clarification to the debates over the transition from feudalism to capitalism and the transition from an early form a capitalism or mercantilism to the industrial revolution. The estimates, empirical notes, and exploratory analyses in this paper partially support the Brenner thesis or concept of the transition from feudalism to capitalism and also support the notion that the proceeds of slave sales and slave production provide a substantive portion of British investment amounts leading up to the industrial revolution of the 18th Century. The mainstream economic notions of property rights, thrift, free markets, and free trade are only part of the picture of how Britain achieves economic prominence in the 19th Century. Exploitation of people and animals play a very significant role that has been ignored or minimized in many history and economic history accounts. |
| Keywords: | Baran ratio, economic surplus, investment, slave trade, slavery, serfs, horses, Great Britain |
| JEL: | B51 B52 N13 N33 N44 |
| Date: | 2024–11–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:122644 |