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The central component of most economic models that analyse the transition from the Malthusian regime to self-sustaining developed economies is education. Improved health is normally envisaged as simply a by-product of economic growth. Whereas growth does, indeed, tend to improve health status, the reverse is also true, namely that health improvements are a dynamic force capable of driving economic expansion. This paper underlines the importance of health improvements in escaping from Malthusian stagnation. Further, and in contrast to existing literature, which emphasizes the effects of changes in mortality rates, this paper focuses on the relationship between health status and the efficiency of human capital technology. Through this channel, health improvements stimulate investments in child quality in terms of both nourishing and schooling and drive the economy towards the Modern Growth regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers some theoretical and methodological observations on a model of growth and distribution, recently developed by Franklin Serrano and others and called the Sraffian supermultiplier model, in which the growth of autonomous capitalist consumption demand and distribution are exogenously given and capacity utilization is at an exogenously given "normal" level in long‐run equilibrium. First, it provides a simple long‐run equilibrium version and dynamic formulation of the model, and compares it to other models of growth and distribution using a common framework and focusing on the effect of a change in income distribution on growth. Second, it shows that the model can be modified to examine other components of autonomous demand growth, including government spending, exports, consumption by workers, and investment and technical change, and to simultaneous multiple sources of autonomous demand growth. Finally, it comments on some methodological issues concerning the model, and on its implications for the notion of long‐run equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilizes for the first time age-structured human capital data for economic growth forecasting. We concentrate on pooled cross-country data of 65 countries over six 5-year periods (1970-2000) and consider specifications chosen by model selection criteria, Bayesian model averaging methodologies based on in-sample and out-of-sample goodness of fit and on adaptive regression by mixing. The results indicate that forecast averaging and exploiting the demographic dimension of education data improve economic growth forecasts systematically. In particular, the results are very promising for improving economic growth predictions in developing countries. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the mainstream, resource economics, and ecological economics models of growth. A possible synthesis of energy-based and mainstream models is presented. This shows that when energy is scarce it imposes a strong constraint on the growth of the economy; however, when energy is abundant, its effect on economic growth is much reduced. The industrial revolution released the constraints on economic growth by the development of new methods of using coal and the discovery of new fossil fuel resources. Time-series analysis shows that energy and GDP cointegrate, and energy use Granger causes GDP when capital and other production inputs are included in the vector autoregression model. However, various mechanisms can weaken the links between energy and growth. Energy used per unit of economic output has declined in developed and some developing countries, owing to both technological change and a shift from poorer quality fuels, such as coal, to the use of higher quality fuels, especially electricity. Substitution of other inputs for energy and sectoral shifts in economic activity play smaller roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study develops an economic growth model with residential distribution. The model synthesises the main ideas in the Solow-Uzawa growth model, the Alonso urban model, and the Muth housing model with perfect competition in all the markets, by proposing an alternative approach to household behaviour. We show that economic growth with the economic geography is governed by a single differential equation and analyse dynamic behaviour of the model. For explanation, we simulate the model over time and space. Resumen. Este estudio desarrolla un modelo de crecimiento económico con distribución residencial. El modelo sintetiza las ideas principales del modelo de crecimiento de Solow-Uzawa, el modelo urbano de Alonso, y el modelo de vivienda de Muth con una competencia perfecta en todos los mercados, por medio de proponer un enfoque alternativo al comportamiento de hogares. Mostramos que el crecimiento económico con la geografía económica está gobernado por una única ecuación diferencial y analizamos el comportamiento dinámico del modelo. A modo de explicación, realizamos una simulación del modelo en el tiempo y en el espacio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The two-level CES aggregate production function—that nests a CES into another CES function—has recently been used extensively in theoretical and empirical applications of macroeconomics. We examine the theoretical properties of this production technology and establish existence and stability conditions of steady states under the Solow and Diamond growth models. It is shown that in the Solow model the sufficient condition for a steady state is fulfilled for a wide range of substitution parameter values. This is in sharp contrast with the two-factor Solow model, where only an elasticity of substitution equal to one is sufficient to guarantee the existence of a steady state. In the Diamond model, multiple equilibria can occur when the aggregate elasticity of substitution is lower than the capital share. Moreover, it is shown that for high initial levels of capital and factor substitutability, the effect of a further increase in a substitution parameter on the steady state depends on capital–skill complementarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon the Global Trade Analysis Project ( GTAP) database, and other time series data, we construct a multi-sector Ramsey model that shows the transition growth of the Brazilian agricultural sector and its effects on growth of the industrial and service sector of the economy, with particular emphasis given to the years 1994-2010. Our results capture the importance of the agriculture's capital intensity and the sector's factor productivity on the sector's growth, the substitution of capital for labor in agriculture, and the sustaining of agriculture's share in Brazilian GDP. These features are rather unique among emerging economies, most of which have experienced a transition out of agriculture and growth in nonfarm production relative to agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we model the Schumpeterian growth theory in a simple discrete-time framework in which both economies and institutions need to be developed. Individuals need to borrow from an imperfect financial market to develop an economy. A government can adopt two potential strategies for improving the borrowing capacity of individuals and, as a result, enhancing economic performance: 'the rule of law' and 'industrial policies'. We interpret market-oriented reform in transition economies as a shift from 'industrial policies', exemplified at the extreme by the traditional planned economy, to 'the rule of law'. The presented model shows that both strategies could be the best choice at different stages of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa has undergone a remarkable transformation since its democratic transition in 1994, but economic growth and employment generation have been disappointing. Most worryingly, unemployment is currently among the highest in the world. While the proximate cause of high unemployment is that prevailing wages levels are too high, the deeper cause lies elsewhere, and is intimately connected to the inability of the South African to generate much growth momentum in the past decade. High unemployment and low growth are both ultimately the result of the shrinkage of the non-mineral tradable sector since the early-1990s. The weakness in particular of export-oriented manufacturing has deprived South Africa of growth opportunities as well as of job creation at the relatively low end of the skill distribution. Econometric analysis identifies the decline in the relative profitability of manufacturing in the 1990s as the most important contributor to the lack of vitality in that sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We construct a growth model of overlapping generations with vintage capital. There exists an equilibrium that converges to the balanced growth path through endogenous fluctuations of investment, consumption, and output in terms of the growth rate. When the technological change arrives and a rise in productivity is embodied only in newly invested capital, the economy converges to a new balanced growth path with a higher growth rate of output, but when we interpret the price of existing old capital as the stock market capitalization, the rise in productivity is accompanied by an initial decline in the stock market. Oscillatory equilibria are supported as perfect-foresight equilibria in the present framework with finitely lived agents and capital. Any oscillatory equilibrium is associated with the regime switch from an economy with both young and old capital in use into one with only old capital in use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]