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China's real estate has been a key engine of its sustained economic expansion This paper argues, however, that even before the COVID‐19 shock, a decades‐long housing boom had given rise to severe price misalignments and regional supply–demand mismatches, making an adjustment both necessary and inevitable We make use of newly available and updated data sources to analyze supply–demand conditions in the fast‐moving Chinese economy The imbalances are then compared to benchmarks from other economies We conclude that the real estate sector is quite vulnerable to a sustained aggregate growth shock, such as COVID‐19 might pose In our baseline calibration, using input–output tables and taking account of the very large footprint of housing construction and real estate related sectors, the adjustment to a decline in housing activity can easily trim a cumulative 5–10 percent from the level of output over a period of years

We document novel facts about the relationship between aggregate growth and firm dynamics using a large set of countries. We argue that firm employment patterns are not necessarily informative about cross‐country differences in aggregate growth because they are induced by changes in the productivity of a firm relative to others. In contrast, aggregate growth is linked to average firm‐level productivity growth and firm age. We formalize this intuition through a tractable model of endogenous aggregate growth and firm dynamics where firms realize positive returns to investment with some probability. We find that cross‐country disparities in this probability can account for two‐thirds of the variation in aggregate growth. (JEL D21, D22, E23, O4)

We examine the asset pricing implications of a production economy whose long-term growth prospects are endogenously determined by innovation and R&D. In equilibrium, R&D endogenously drives a small, persistent component in productivity that generates long-run uncertainty about economic growth. With recursive preferences, households fear that persistent downturns in economic growth are accompanied by low asset valuations and command high-risk premia in asset markets. Empirically, we find substantial evidence for innovation-driven low-frequency movements in aggregate growth rates and asset market valuations. In short, equilibrium growth is risky.

Resume Cet article fait etat des recherches poursuivies depuis 1985 sur les caracteristiques et l'evolution du secteur des hautes technologies au Canada. Nous y discutons extensivement des problemes methodologiques relies a la definition du secteur des hautes technologies et au developpement d'une banque de donnees. Les premiers resultats revelent que ce secteur comptait, en 1983, pour 4,2% de l'emploi manufacturer. Il est essentiellement concentre a Toronto, Montreal et Ottawa. C'est un univers de firmes petites et jeunes puisque 60% des firmes ont moins de 50 employes et que 54% ont ete creees depuis 1972. Bien que le secteur ait cru a un laux annuel de 8,7% en termes d'emplois de 1979 a 1983, on observe tout de měme que pres d'une firme sur trois n'a connu aucune croissance. Abstract This article reviews research in progress since 1985 on the characteristics and development of high technology industries in Canada. Particular attention is given to methodological problems associated with the definition of high technology sector and to the creation of a data bank. Early results show that the high technology sector in 1983 accounted 4,2 percent of employment in all manufacturing industries. It is essentially concentrated in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. It is a population of small, young firms where 60 percent have fewer than 50 employees and 54 percent where established after 1972. Although the aggregate growth of the high technology employment was 8,7 percent annually during the period 1979–83, nearly one out of three firms experienced no growth.

This paper argues that dual economy models deserve a central place in the analysis of growth in developing countries. The paper shows how these models can be used to analyse the output losses associated with factor misallocation, aggregate growth in the presence of factor market distortions, international differences in sectoral productivity and the potential role of increasing returns to scale. Above all, small-scale general equilibrium models can be used to investigate the interactions between growth and labour markets, to shed new light on the origins of pro-poor and labour-intensive growth, and to explore the role of the informal sector.

prices during the industrial revolution. His exploration of the partial evidence on current values of exports and on the East India Company's sales contributed significantly to our understanding of price movements during this period. His work stimulated my research in the surviving firm records. None the less, I continue to believe that he is mistaken in his conclusions. Three issues require response. First, he argues that his cotton textile prices estimate seriously undermines the Crafts-Harley view of British economic growth. Second, he maintains that my procedure seriously underestimates the decline in the price of cotton textiles between the 1790s and the end of the Napoleonic Wars. And third, he asserts the superiority of his estimates based on export valuations. I wish to challenge all three of these assertions. The Crafts-Harley view, properly understood, would not be weakened if cotton textile prices, in fact, fell as fast as Cuenca asserts. However, analytic issues we have discussed but have not emphasized in our presentations would now need emphasis. Certainly gaps in the data make the series of cotton textile prices that I presented weaker than I could hope, but Cuenca's alternative calculations rely on a serious misunderstanding and some questionable assertions. Finally, his belief in the a priori superiority of the trade data cannot be accepted. I While there is no doubt that competing estimates of the rate of decline of cotton textile prices significantly affect interpretation of the history of cotton textiles, I would like first to confront their importance to our understanding of the beginnings of sustained growth in British per caput income. The Crafts-Harley challenge to previously held views of the industrial revolution arose from re-examination of Hoffmann's and Deane and Cole's industrial production estimates. We found no evidence of significant acceleration in per caput growth in any but the famous industries. When we constructed new industrial production indices, largely using Hoffmann's sources, we found that the pioneering estimates had unintentionally overstated aggregate growth. The modest per caput acceleration in the growth of aggregate industrial production that our calculations revealed came almost entirely from the famous industries. Furthermore, our lower estimates of the growth of industrial production led to the conclusion that per caput growth of British national income had been modest before the railway age.

SUMMARY The process of agricultural modernisiation in the more advanced countries is analysed with particular reference to the USA. This is characterised as a complex set of technological, economic and social transformations having several implications for the ecological and rural social environment. Aggregate growth trends conceal a dualistic structure in the farm economy with the relative impoverishment of a large category of farmers. At the policy level there are limitations in the way problems are perceived and biases in the way scientific knowledge is generated and applied. While Ireland represents a less advanced stage of modernisation it provides several manifestations of the more general transformation process. Income differences between smaller and larger farmers have been increasing. Farm migration has not resulted in a re-adjustment of land and labour but in the accumulation of under-used land in the demographically depleted sector of the farm population. Policy prescriptions reflect an undue reliance on market and technical solutions which accentuate the trend towards a dualistic farm economy. The conclusion suggests some elements of a desirably broader concept of agricultural development. Resume Le processus de modernisation de l'agriculture dans les pays developpes est analyse en se referant particulierement aux Etats-Unis: on entend par la un ensemble complexe de changements techniques, economiques et sociaux qui ont plusieurs consequences sur l' environnemcnt social et naturel dans L'espace rural. Les tendances globales a la croissance dissimulent une structure dualiste de L'economie agricole, qui s'accompagne de l' appauvrissement relatif d'une large couchc d'agriculteurs. Au plan des politiques, on observe des obstacles dus la maniere dont les problemes sont percue, et aux biais qui caracterisent la production et L'application des connaissances scientifiques. Bienque L'Irlande n' a pas atteint un stade aussi avance de modernisation, elle montre cependant des signes de ce processus general de transformation. Les inegalites de revenus entrc petits et gros agriculteurs s'accroissent. L'exode agricole n'entraine pas un nouvcl equilibre entre la terre et le travail, mais une accumulation de terre sous-utilisee dans les secteurs qui sont en declin demographique. Les propositions, en matiere de politique, mettent une confiance excessive dans les solutions de marche ou de technologie, ce qui conduit de plus en plus a la dichotomie de L'economie agricole. La conclusion propose quelques suggestions pour la formulation d'une conception plus large du developpement agricole. Zusammenfassung Der Modernisierungsprozes der Landwirtschaft in den wirtschaftlich entwickelteren Landern wird mit besonderem Bezug auf die Vereinigten Staaten analysiert. Er wird als ein Komplex technologischer, okonomischer und sozialer Transformationen beschrieben, der eine Reihe von Auswirkungen auf das okologische System und die landliche sozialc Umwelt hat. Aggregierte Wachstumstrcnds verbergen eine dualistische Struktur der Landwirtschaft mit relativer Verarmung einer breiten Schicht von Landwirten. Auf der politischen Ebene gibt es Beschrankungen bci der Wahrnchmung von Problemen und Voreingenommenhciten bei der Gewinnung und Anwendung wissen-schaftlicher Erkenntnisse. Obwohl Irland eine weniger entwickelte Stufe der Modernisierung darstellt, weist es einige Erscheinungen des allgemeineren Transfor-mationsprozesses auf. Einkommensunterschiede zwischen kleineren und groseren Landwirten nehmen zu. Die Abwanderung aus der Landwirtschaft hat zu keiner Neuanpassung von Land und Arbeidskraften, sondern zu einer Vermehrung unzureichend genutzten Landes in den demographisch von landwirtschaftlicher Bevolkerung entleerten Gebieten gefuhrt. Politische Rezepte lassen ein unangemessenes Vertrauen in den Markt und in technische Losungen erkennen, die den Trend zu einer dualistischen Landwirtschaft verstarken. In den Schlusfolgerungen werden einige Elemente eines wun-schenswerten breiteren Konzeptes der landwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung vorgeschlagen.