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第一部分：经济发展与趋同
Theoretical Part
One feature of the neoclassical economic growth model is the convergence property. The convergence property derives in the neoclassical model from the diminishing returns to capital. The convergence is conditional because the steady-state levels of capital and output per worker depend on the propensity to save, the growth rate of population, government policies with respect to levels of consumption spending, protection of property rights, and distortions of domestic and international markets, and the position of the production function—characteristics that may vary across economies.
The concept of capital in the neoclassical model can be usefully broadened from physical goods to include human capital in the forms of education, experience, and health (Lucas, 1988; Rebelo, 1991; Caballe and Santos, 1993; Mulligan and Sala-i-Martin, 1993; Barro and Sala-i-Martin, 1995). The economy tends toward a steady-state ratio of human to physical capital.
Growth theorists of the 1950s and 1960s recognized this modeling deficiency and usually patched it up by assuming that technological progress occurred in an unexplained manner. The obvious shorting, however, is that the long-run per capita growth rate is determined entirely by the rate of technological progress that comes from outside of the model.
The endogenous growth theory has sought to supply this missing explanation of long-run growth. Arrow (1962) and Sheshinski (1967) constructed models in which ideas were unintended by-products of production or investment, a mechanism described as learning-by-doing.
Romer (1986), Lucas (1988), Rebelo (1991) built on the work of Arrow (1962), Sheshinski (1967), and Uzawa (1965), and did not really introduce a theory of technological change. In these models, growth may go on indefinitely because the returns to investment in a broad class of capital goods do not necessarily diminish as economies develop.
The incorporation of R&D theories and imperfect competition into the growth framework began with Romer (1987, 1990) and includes significant contributions by Aghion and Howitt (1992) and Grossman and Helpman (1991). Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1995) provide expositions and extensions of these models. In these setting, technological advance results from purposive R&D activity, and this activity is rewarded by some form of ex-post monopoly power. The rate of growth and underlying amount of inventive activity tend not to be Pareto optimal because of distortions related to the creation of the new goods and methods of production. In these setting, the long-term growth rate depends on governmental actions, such as taxation, maintenance of law and order, provision of infrastructure services, protection of intellectual property rights, and regulations of international trade, financial markets, and other aspects of the economy.
One shortcoming of these endogenous theories is that they no longer predicted conditional convergence. It is important to extend the new theories to restore the convergence property. One such extension involves the diffusion of technology (Barro and Sala-i-Martin, 1995). Since imitation tends to be cheaper than innovation, the diffusion models predict a form of conditional convergence. This framework combines the long-run growth of endogenous growth theories (from the discovery of ideas in the leading-edge economies) with the convergence behavior of the neoclassical growth model (from the gradual imitation by followers).
Empirical Part
Dy = f (y, y*)
where Dy is the growth rate of per capita output, y is the current level of per capita output, y* is the long-run or steady-state level of per capita output. The target value y* depends on an array of choice and environmental variables. The private sector’s choices include saving rates, labor supply, and fertility rates, each of which depends on preferences and costs. The government’s choices involve spending in various categories, tax rates, the extent of distortions of markets and business decisions, maintenance of the rule of law and property rights, and the degree of political freedom. Also relevant for an open economy is the terms of trade, typically given to a small country by external conditions.
For a given initial level of per capita output, y, an increase in the steady-state level, y*, raises the per capita growth rate over a transition interval. For given values of the choice and environmental variables and y*, a higher starting level of per capita output, y, implies a lower per capita growth rate.
Variables
(1) The dependent variable y. The growth rates of real per capita GDP over three periods: 1965-1975, 1975-1985, 1985-1990.
The estimation uses an instrumental-variable technique, where some of the instruments are earlier values of the regressors. (The method is three-stage least squares, except that each equation contains a different set of instruments).
(2) Initial level of GDP. Five-year earlier values of log(GDP) are used as instruments. The use of these instruments lessens the estimation problems associated with temporary measurement error in GDP.
(3) Initial level of human capital. Three variables: average years of attainment for males aged 25 and over in secondary and higher schools at the start of each period, the log of life expectancy at birth at the start of each period (an indicator of health status), and the interaction between the log of initial GDP and the years of male secondary and higher schooling.
Male primary schooling has an insignificant effect.
Female education at various levels is not significantly related to subsequent growth. Some additional results indicate female schooling is important for other indicators of economic development, such as fertility, infant mortality, and political freedom. A reasonable inference from this relation is that female education would spur economic growth by lowering fertility.
(4) Fertility rate.
(5) Government consumption. The ratio of government consumption (measured exclusive of spending on education and defense) to GDP. A greater volume of nonproductive government spending and the associated taxation reduce the growth rate for a given starting value of GDP.
(6) The rule-of-law index. Knack and Keefer (1995) discuss a variety of subjective country indexes prepared for fee-paying international investors by International Country Risk Guide. The concepts covered include quality of the bureaucracy, political corruption, likelihood of government repudiation of contracts, risk of government expropriation, and overall maintenance of the rule of law.
(7) Terms of trade. The growth rate over each period of the ratio of export to import prices.
(8) Regional variables. It has often been observed that recent rates of economic growth have been surprisingly low in Sub Saharan Africa and Latin America and surprisingly high in East Asia. An important question is whether these regions continue to look like outliers once the explanatory variables have been taken into account.
(9) Investment ratio. The ratio of investment to output. Reverse causation is likely to be important here.
The dependent variables are the average ratios of investment to GDP for 1965-1974, 1975-1984, and 1985-1989.
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