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Abstract:
The model developed in this paper expands upon the traditional neoclassical exogenous growth model by facilitating a long-run growth analysis of the impact of openness to trade within a multi-country framework. Openness affects growth by impacting the extent of knowledge spillovers from abroad. This feature effectively converts the traditional closed-economy exogenous growth model into a multi-country, open-economy endogenous growth model. Nevertheless, the conditional convergence and identical growth predictions of the neoclassical model are preserved here with the extent of trade now playing a role in determining the relative heights of the countries' parallel output paths.

growth, convergence, trade liberalization

Abstract:
The model developed in this paper expands upon the traditional neoclassical exogenous growth model by facilitating a long-run growth analysis of the impact of openness to trade within a multi-country framework. Openness affects growth by impacting the extent of knowledge spillovers from abroad. This feature effectively converts the traditional closed-economy exogenous growth model into a multi-country, open-economy endogenous growth model. Nevertheless, the conditional convergence and identical growth predictions of the neoclassical model are preserved here with the extent of trade now playing a role in determining the relative heights of the countries' parallel output paths.

growth, convergence, trade liberalization

Abstract:
To the extent that trade policy affects trade flows between countries, the ramifications can be far-reaching from an economic growth perspective. This paper examines one aspect of these ramifications, namely the impact of changes in the extent of trade between countries on changes in the rate of reduction in the size of the income gap that exists between them. Export and import data are used as the criteria for determining bilateral trade between major trade partners, resulting in the creation of 127 pairs of countries on the basis of export data and 134 pairs on the basis of import data. An increase in trade between major trade partners - and in particular, increased exports by poorer countries to their wealthier partners - is shown to be related to an increase in the rate of convergence between the countries.

Abstract:
What is the impact on output of movement towards free trade? Can trade liberalization have a permanent effect on output levels, and more importantly, does it have an impact on steady-state growth rates? The model developed here emphasizes the role" that knowledge spillovers emanating from heightened trade can have in income convergence and growth rates over the long run. The model also facilitates an analysis of the dynamic behavior of income levels and terms of trade as well as growth rates during the transition between steady states. Among the results of the model, unilateral liberalization by one country induces a level effect on the liberalizing country that reduces the income gap between it and other wealthier countries. In some cases, the liberalizing country may even leapfrog over initially wealthier countries. From the long-run growth perspective, unilateral (and multilateral) liberalization generates a positive impact on the steady-state growth of all the trading countries.

Abstract:
Can trade liberalization have a permanent affect on output levels, and more importantly, does it have an impact on steady-state growth rates? The model emphasizes the role that knowledge spillovers emanating from heightened trade can have on income convergence and growth rates during transition and over the long run. Among the results of the model, unilateral liberalization by one country reduces the income gap between the liberalizing country and other, wealthier, countries. From the long-run growth perspective, unilateral (and multilateral) liberalization generates a positive impact on the steady-state growth of all the trading countries.

Abstract:
This paper provides evidence on the unit root hypothesis and long-term growth by allowing for two structural breaks. We reject the unit root hypothesis for three-quarters of the countries approximately 50% more rejections than in models that allow for only one break. While about half of the countries exhibit slowdowns following their postwar breaks, the others have grown along paths that have become steeper over the past 120 years. The majority of the countries, including most of the slowdown countries, exhibit faster growth after their second breaks than during the decades preceding their first breaks.

Abstract:
This paper proposes an explicit test for determining the significance and the timing of" slowdowns in economic growth during the postwar period. We examine a large sample of" countries (both industrialized and developing), and find that a majority though not all " exhibit a significant structural break in their postwar growth rates. In nearly all of these cases the break was followed by a growth slowdown. The breaks fall into two primary periods" which delineate countries by developmental and regional characteristics as well as by the" magnitude of the subsequent slowdowns. We find that (a) most industrialized countries" experienced postwar growth slowdowns in the early 1970s, though (b) the United States Canada and the United Kingdom did not, and (c) developing countries (and in particular American countries) tended to experience much more severe slowdowns which with the more developed countries, began nearly a decade later.

Abstract:
This paper focuses on one possible explanation for the empirical evidence of (a) income convergence among the world's poorest countries and among its wealthiest countries, and (b) income divergence among most of the remaining countries. The model incorporates the assumption of subsistence consumption into the neoclassical exogenous growth model - yielding outcomes that are consistent with the convergence-divergence empirical evidence. While subsistence consumption can lead to negative saving and disaccumulation of capital, it can also coincide with positive saving and accumulation of capital. The model predicts that the poorer the country, the lower its saving rate, a result that also appears to be borne out by the evidence provided here.

Abstract:
This paper focuses on one possible explanation for the empirical evidence of: (a) income convergence among the world's poorest countries and among its wealthiest countries; and (b) income divergence among most of the remaining countries. The model incorporates the assumption of subsistence consumption into the neo-classical exogenous growth model yielding outcomes that are consistent with the convergence-divergence empirical evidence. While subsistence consumption can lead to negative saving and disaccumulation of capital, it can also coincide with positive saving and accumulation of capital. The model predicts that the poorer the country, the lower its saving rate, a result that also appears to be borne out by the evidence provided here.

Abstract:
In light of the substantial movement towards trade liberalization during the postwar period, this paper attempts to determine if, and when, countries experienced statistically significant changes in the paths of their export-GDP and import-GDP ratios. We find that: (1) most trade ratios exhibited a" structural break in their time paths; (2) postbreak trade exceeded prebreak trade for the majority of countries; (3) the coincidence in timing between the import and export breaks does not appear to be particularly strong, and; (4) there is little relation between the extent of changes in imports and the extent of changes in exports for most countries.

Abstract:
NOTE: The following is a description of the paper and not the actual abstract. The decades following the Second World War have been distinguished by an unprecedented movement toward openness among the world's economies. This study examines the resultant changes in the trade volumes of nearly 50 countries over the past four and a half decades. Using sequential trend break tests, it determines the timing and significance of structural breaks in the time paths of each country's export and import shares of output between 1948 and 1993. Roughly 80% of the countries are found to exhibit a significant structural break in their trade-output ratios. All but one of these breaks came on or after 1968 the year that the Kennedy Round agreement of the GATT - commonly considered the largest comprehensive global attempt at reducing formal trade barriers - came into effect. In the vast majority of instances, the breaks were followed by greater trade flows. Interestingly enough, import trend breaks are not overwhelmingly related to export trend breaks. While the most frequent break year for imports was 1973, the year of the first major oil embargo, this was not a particularly common year for exports. Furthermore, the extent of the increase in imports did not exhibit a particularly strong relationship with the extent of increase in exports.

Abstract:
In light of the substantial movement towards trade liberalization during the postwar period, this paper attempts to determine if, and when, countries experienced statistically significant changes in the paths of their export-GDP and import-GDP ratios.

Abstract:
One of the more important measures of a scholar's research impact is the number of times that the scholar's work is cited by other researchers as a source of knowledge. This paper conducts a first of its kind examination on Israel's academic economists and economics departments, ranking them according to the number of citations on their work. It also provides a vista into one of the primary reasons given by junior Israeli economists for an unparalleled brain drain from the country - discrepancies between research impact and promotion.

The type of examination carried out in this paper can now be easily replicated in other fields and in other countries utilizing freely-available citations data and compilation software that have been made readily accessible in recent years.

academic economists, Israel, rankings

Abstract:
The brain drain issue used to revolve primarily around migration from developing to developed countries. In recent years, there is an accumulation of evidence that this is an issue that should interest developed countries as well. Recently published numbers by the European Commission and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development indicate a nonnegligible flow of European academics to American universities. This article provides the first case study conducted on the most massive out-migration of academics on record. At a time when Europe and other developed countries have begun to express concern about the phenomenon, the rate of academic emigration from Israel to the United States is already four to six times the European emigration rate. The particular focus here is on the area of economics, in which the exodus of younger academics from Israel coupled with a heightened retirement rate among the older academics has brought Israel’s top economics departments - among the best in the world, until now - to the brink. Countries wanting to create conditions for fostering and nurturing the necessary productivity advances underlying economic growth must become aware of how far and how quickly an academic implosion can occur, if left unchecked. The findings brought forth here should help increase the level of this awareness.

Abstract:
This paper provides a comparative examination of how public universities in two countries, the United States and Israel, have evolved over the past few decades - and how differences between the two have culminated in a rate of academic brain drain from the latter to the former that is unparalleled in the western world. The number of Israelis in the top 40 American departments in physics, chemistry, philosophy, computer science and economics, as a percentage of their remaining colleagues in Israel, is over twice the overall academic emigration rates (at all levels) from European countries. Signs of what is currently occurring in Israel have already begun to appear in other developed countries as well, though on a completely different scale - still - making the country an important case study that other countries should study, understand and prepare against a similar eventuality.

brain drain, higher education, migration

Abstract:
Despite their small number, Israeli economists have become an important fixture in the international academic scene. In recent years, this phenomenon has been characterized by an additional attribute: the number of Israelis who have chosen to leave the country's universities - or not to return to them - a process that has brought Israel's top economics departments to the brink.

The elimination of the country from the international research envelope in the future has become a realistic possibility that will impact not only the State of Israel, which stands to lose the most, but the profession in general. This article provides a snapshot of an implosion in progress. It also provides a case study that is important for other countries to understand as some steadily advance toward the Israeli scenario.

academic economists, brain drain, Israel, migration, rankings

Abstract:
This paper preserves many of the primary features of the standard neoclassical framework while introducing some modifications that transform it into an open economy endogenous growth model with knowledge accumulation. The accumulation of knowledge is determined in part by the extent of knowledge spillovers from abroad, which in turn are affected by commercial policy that regulates the extent of trade between countries. The model predicts that trade liberalization (even if it is unilateral) will increase steady-state output growth in all countries while benefitting the liberalizing country the most in terms of relative income levels.

Abstract:
This paper provides some historical evidence on the impact of trade reform on income disparities between the liberalizing countries. The convergence test developed here involves joint estimation of augmented Dickey-Fuller type equations using seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) techniques. Monte Carlo simulations are used to calculate the critical values which are in turn used to determine the significance of convergence. We find that countries which embarked on extensive trade liberalization programs exhibited significant income convergence with one another while countries that did not liberalize trade showed no evidence of convergence.