This article advances a theory to show that geographical advantage for agricultural production helps an economy to become more prosperous in the predominantly agricultural regime, but delays the timing of transition to manufacturing production (i.e., the timing of industrialization). It also delays the change in labor structure toward an increase in proportion of skilled labor, and hence, the economy may be overtaken in the development process by another with less geographical advantage for agriculture. This theoretical result is in accordance with recent empirical evidence and helps explain the reversals of national fortune, which are documented in economic history. Within its analytical framework, the article also enriches the existing literature by explaining the decline in fertility and the evolution of labor structure, along with technological progress, in the development process.
This paper explores, theoretically and empirically, the role of the declining gender gap in education in the demographic transition and the emergence of modern economic growth. Specically, the paper develops a model in the tradition of the unied growth theory that captures and interconnects the key empirical features of the demographic transition, the decline in gender gap in education, and the transition to sustained growth across less-developed economies. The mechanism on which the model relies comprises several interplaying components. First, technological progress reduces housework time through the creation and diusion of labor-saving home appliances, which frees women's time for childrearing, resulting in an initial increase in fertility, as well as in labor-force participation. Second, due to the possibly higher female labor-force participation as housework time decreases, households invest relatively more in their daughters' education, given its higher return following the initial imbalance. This improves gender equality in education and increases the opportunity cost of childrearing, which leads to a subsequent decrease in fertility. Third and nally, the decrease in the education gender gap through higher investment in daughters' education increases average human capital, thus accelerating technological progress in turn. This reinforcing loop results in the transition to a new fertility regime and accelerated economic growth. We provide the empirical conrmation of the model's predictions using data from developing countries in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
We consider in this paper overlapping generations economies with pollution resulting from both consumption and production. The competitive equilibrium steady state is compared to the optimal steady state from the social planner's viewpoint. We show that the dynamical inefficiency of competitive equilibrium steady state with capital-labor ratio exceeding the golden rule ratio still holds. Moreover, the range of dynamically efficient steady state capital ratios increases with the effectiveness of the environment maintainance technology, and decreases for more polluting production technologies. We characterize some tax and transfer policies that decentralize as a competitive equilibrium outcome the transition to the social planner's steady state.
June 2011
AbstractWe consider in this paper overlapping generations economies with pollution resulting from both consumption and production. The competitive equilibrium steady state is compared to the optimal steady state from the social planner's viewpoint. We show that the dynamical inefficiency of competitive equilibrium steady state with capital-labor ratio exceeding the golden rule ratio still holds. Moreover, the range of dynamically efficient steady state capital ratios increases with the effectiveness of the environment maintainance technology, and decreases for more polluting production technologies. We characterize some tax and transfer policies that decentralize as a competitive equilibrium outcome the transition to the social planner's steady state.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.