• Selected
• Entire List

Abstract:
New macro empirical evidence is provided to assess the relative importance of object and idea gaps in explaining the world income distribution dynamics over a benchmark period 1960-1985. Results are then extended through 1995. Formal statistical hypothesis tests allow us to discriminate between two competing growth models: (i) the standard neoclassical growth model similar to that employed by Mankiw, Romer, and Weil (1992), (ii) a Schumpeterian endogenous growth model closely related to the Nelson and Phelps' approach (1966) that emphasizes the importance of technology transfer in addition to factors accumulation as an opportunity to catch up. First, the latter can hardly be rejected and reveals itself to be a reliable either alternative or complementary model depending on the sample under study. Second, taking into consideration the impact of the technological catch-up phenomenon allows us to better capture and locally fit the pattern of income distribution dynamics that took place over the period.

Schumpeterian growth, neoclassical convergence, technological catch-up, and income dynamics

Abstract:
New macro empirical evidence is provided to assess the relative importance of object and idea gaps in explaining the world income distribution dynamics over a benchmark period 1960-1985. Results are then extended through 1995. Formal statistical hypothesis tests allow us to discriminate between two competing growth models: (i) the standard neoclassical growth model similar to that employed by Mankiw, Romer, and Weil (1992), (ii) a Schumpeterian endogenous growth model closely related to the Nelson and Phelps' approach (1966) that emphasizes the importance of technology transfer in addition to factors accumulation as an opportunity to catch up. First, the latter can hardly be rejected and reveals itself to be a reliable either alternative or complementary model depending on the sample under study. Second, taking into consideration the impact of the technological catch-up phenomenon allows us to better capture and locally fit the pattern of income distribution dynamics that took place over the period.

Schumpeterian growth, neoclassical convergence, technological catch-up, and income dynamics

Abstract:
In this paper, we abandon the stylized median voter and study (i) how distributional tensions can act in many different ways depending on social affinity and on the prospect of upward or downward mobility of the different income classes, (ii) income distribution dynamics, intergenerational community formation and growth. In a world in which redistributive policies, whether fiscal or educational, affect how the entire economy breaks up into different communities, we find multiple politico-economic regimes that are supported by new international empirical evidence. In particular, we highlight a political economy decision mechanism through which the pressure for redistribution can be highly non linear therefore providing an explanation as to why more inequality can be associated with less, rather than more, redistributive taxation. Our framework displays multiple steady states which depend on historical economic discrimination. We also provide sufficient conditions on the initial pattern of income distribution and local versus social spillovers ratio under which inequality and segregation persist in the long run.

Community formation, growth, human capital, redistribution, and social mobility

Abstract:
Will the integration of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) into the global economy provide the biggest boost to the world economy since the industrial revolution? In this paper, we investigate international demand spillovers brought about by an emerging global middle class and their impact on the international structure of production. We put forth a many-industry and two-country trade model featuring international competition, non-homothetic preferences and country-specific asymmetries in income distribution, productivity and population size. Its key characteristic is the introduction of demand complementarities propagating increasing returns across industries and national boundaries, which eventually translate into a global profit-multiplier.

Abstract:
Since the beginning of the 1990s, the question of institutions has been propelled to the top of the economic agenda. If the empirical literature has well documented the general relationship between institutions and development, attention is now being concentrated on the actual nature of the institutional mechanisms at work, the inter-relationships between them and their combined impact on development. Whereas previous analysis of development had mainly drawn on the instruments derived from national accounts, there is not yet an internationally standardized set of institutional indicators. We first propose to contribute to the filling of this gap, putting forward an original database covering a broad and detailed field of institutional characteristics for 51 countries (developing, in transition and developed countries). Second, we identify an 'institutional core' consisting of four major institutional characteristics (governance, security of transactions, innovation and regulations) and present a typology of four institutional profiles: 'authoritarian-paternalistic', 'mild liberal', 'pure liberal' and 'informal'. This typology is then supplemented by a combination of both institutional and economic variables, highlighting two main dimensions: welfare and reform. We finally confirm and precise the causal relationship between institutions and economic development.

Abstract:
This article studies how distributional tensions can act in many different ways depending on the social affinity between the different economic classes and their prospect of upward or downward mobility. We consider that socioeconomic group membership through its implied social interactions and peer effects is an important determinant of an individual's outcome. Agents, while voting on a social contract, take into account the consequences of their choice over their ex post belonging to a particular community. Thus, the endogenous sorting of the population into clusters may lead to a nonmonotonic relationship between inequality and the pressure for redistributive policies.

Abstract:
This study investigates the sources of heterogeneity across a worldwide set of countries. Unspecified ex ante and unanticipated cultural (Protestant versus Catholic), geographical (continents), and institutional (OECD versus non-OECD) clubs emerge endogenously and naturally as homogeneous classes on the basis of their economic structure. The dynamics both within and across the identified groups of countries are consistent with multiple equilibrium growth models proposed by, for instance, Azariadis and Drazen (1990), therefore strengthening the viability of the convergence club hypothesis. In particular, higher stages of development are, on average, non linearly associated with higher stages of growth.

growth, convergence clubs, poverty trap, cultural factors, location