A Theory of Economic Growth


Book Description

This book provides an in-depth treatment of the overlapping generations model in economics incorporating production.




Growth and International Trade


Book Description

Revised and updated for the 2nd edition, this textbook guides the reader towards various aspects of growth and international trade in a Diamond-type overlapping generations framework. Using the same model type throughout the book, timely topics such as growth with bubbles, robots and involuntary unemployment, financial integration and house price dynamics, policies to mitigate climate change and the persistence of religion in a globalized market economy are explored. The first part starts from the “old” growth theory and bridges to the “new” growth theory (including R&D and human capital approaches). The second part presents an intertemporal equilibrium theory of inter- and intra-sectoral trade, investigates innovation, growth and trade and limits to public debt as well as nationally and internationally optimal climate policies. The debt dynamics of the Euro Zone and the origins of intra-EMU and Asian-US trade imbalances are also explored. The book is primarily addressed to upper undergraduate and graduate students wishing to proceed to the analytically more demanding journal literature.




Public Debt and Endogenous Growth


Book Description

This book considers public debt dynamics in various endogenous growth mod els, namely the AK model and explicit models of innovation and human cap ital accumulation. Furthermore, the closed economy, the small open economy and a two-country world are analysed. In the closed economy model, the focus is on budget deficit and public debt dynamics and their influence on capital growth and output growth. Then, in the open economy model, the effects on foreign debt growth are considered. In a two-country setting, public debt growth in one country affects growth in the other country. In each scenario the government either fixes the deficit ratio or the tax rate. For both strategies the steady state is derived and stability is analysed. Then, dynamics induced by various shocks and policy measures are explored. Many diagrams illustrate the dynamics. I greatly benefited from comments by Michael Carlberg. In addition, Alkis Otto and Justus Haucap discussed with me many parts of the book. I wish to thank them all. Hamburg, February 2003 Michael Briiuninger Contents 1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part I The Closed Economy with AK Production 2 The Solow Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . . . . . . . . . 2. 1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2. 2 Fixing the Deficit Ratio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . 2. 2. 1 The Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . 2. 2. 2 Stability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2. 2. 3 Some Shocks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 . . . . . . . . . 2. 2. 4 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2. 3 Fixing the Tax Rate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 . . . . . . . . . 2. 3. 1 The Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2. 3. 2 Stability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2. 3. 3 Some Shocks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 . . . . . . . . . 2. 3. 4 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .




The Macroeconomics of Corruption


Book Description

This textbook examines corruption through a macroeconomic lens, exploring the relationship between corruption, fiscal policy, and political economy. The book merges macroeconomic growth models with elements of political economic theory to address important applied topics such as income inequality within and across countries, growth slowdowns, and fiscal crises. Most of the basic ideas are illustrated using a two-period model of government investment that captures the future cost of policies that favor the present (Chapters 2-3). The more subtle and advanced issues are illustrated and, in some cases, quantified, using the overlapping-generations model of economic growth (Chapters 4-6). The models used to illustrate the mechanisms of economic growth are extended to incorporate politics and the behavior of public officials (Chapters 3, 5-7). The text concludes with a thorough discussion of policy reforms designed to address the issues discussed in earlier chapters. Intended for students familiar with intermediate-level economics, the book contains a technical appendix, including detailed explanations of each model, end-of-chapter questions and problems, and a complete solutions manual, making it ideal for self-study. Offering a unified explanation for the causes and consequences of government failure, fiscal crisis, and the needed policy reforms, this text is appropriate for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate courses in macroeconomics, political economy, and public policy.




Introduction to Modern Economic Growth


Book Description

From Nobel Prize–winning economist Daron Acemoglu, an incisive introduction to economic growth Introduction to Modern Economic Growth is a groundbreaking text from one of today's leading economists. Daron Acemoglu gives graduate students not only the tools to analyze growth and related macroeconomic problems, but also the broad perspective needed to apply those tools to the big-picture questions of growth and divergence. And he introduces the economic and mathematical foundations of modern growth theory and macroeconomics in a rigorous but easy to follow manner. After covering the necessary background on dynamic general equilibrium and dynamic optimization, the book presents the basic workhorse models of growth and takes students to the frontier areas of growth theory, including models of human capital, endogenous technological change, technology transfer, international trade, economic development, and political economy. The book integrates these theories with data and shows how theoretical approaches can lead to better perspectives on the fundamental causes of economic growth and the wealth of nations. Innovative and authoritative, this book is likely to shape how economic growth is taught and learned for years to come. Introduces all the foundations for understanding economic growth and dynamic macroeconomic analysis Focuses on the big-picture questions of economic growth Provides mathematical foundations Presents dynamic general equilibrium Covers models such as basic Solow, neoclassical growth, and overlapping generations, as well as models of endogenous technology and international linkages Addresses frontier research areas such as international linkages, international trade, political economy, and economic development and structural change An accompanying Student Solutions Manual containing the answers to selected exercises is available (978-0-691-14163-3/$24.95). See: https://press.princeton.edu/titles/8970.html For Professors only: To access a complete solutions manual online, email us at: [email protected]




Economic Growth and Development


Book Description

This text is an introduction to the newer features of growth theory that are particularly useful in examining the issues of economic development. Growth theory provides a rich and versatile analytical framework through which fundamental questions about economic development can be examined. Structural transformation, in which developing countries transition from traditional production in largely rural areas to modern production in largely urban areas, is an important causal force in creating early economic growth, and as such, is made central in this approach. Towards this end, the authors augment the Solow model to include endogenous theories of saving, fertility, human capital, institutional arrangements, and policy formation, creating a single two-sector model of structural transformation. Based on applied research and practical experiences in macroeconomic development, the model in this book presents a more rigorous, quantifiable, and explicitly dynamic dual economy approach to development. Common microeconomic foundations and notation are used throughout, with each chapter building on the previous material in a continuous flow. Revised and updated to include more exercises for guided self study, as well as a technical appendix covering required mathematical topics beyond calculus, the second edition is appropriate for both upper undergraduate and graduate students studying development economics and macroeconomics.




Advanced Macroeconomics


Book Description

Macroeconomic policy is one of the most important policy domains, and the tools of macroeconomics are among the most valuable for policy makers. Yet there has been, up to now, a wide gulf between the level at which macroeconomics is taught at the undergraduate level and the level at which it is practiced. At the same time, doctoral-level textbooks are usually not targeted at a policy audience, making advanced macroeconomics less accessible to current and aspiring practitioners. This book, born out of the Masters course the authors taught for many years at the Harvard Kennedy School, fills this gap. It introduces the tools of dynamic optimization in the context of economic growth, and then applies them to a wide range of policy questions – ranging from pensions, consumption, investment and finance, to the most recent developments in fiscal and monetary policy. It does so with the requisite rigor, but also with a light touch, and an unyielding focus on their application to policy-making, as befits the authors’ own practical experience. Advanced Macroeconomics: An Easy Guide is bound to become a great resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate students, and practitioners alike.




Economic Growth, second edition


Book Description

The long-awaited second edition of an important textbook on economic growth—a major revision incorporating the most recent work on the subject. This graduate level text on economic growth surveys neoclassical and more recent growth theories, stressing their empirical implications and the relation of theory to data and evidence. The authors have undertaken a major revision for the long-awaited second edition of this widely used text, the first modern textbook devoted to growth theory. The book has been expanded in many areas and incorporates the latest research. After an introductory discussion of economic growth, the book examines neoclassical growth theories, from Solow-Swan in the 1950s and Cass-Koopmans in the 1960s to more recent refinements; this is followed by a discussion of extensions to the model, with expanded treatment in this edition of heterogenity of households. The book then turns to endogenous growth theory, discussing, among other topics, models of endogenous technological progress (with an expanded discussion in this edition of the role of outside competition in the growth process), technological diffusion, and an endogenous determination of labor supply and population. The authors then explain the essentials of growth accounting and apply this framework to endogenous growth models. The final chapters cover empirical analysis of regions and empirical evidence on economic growth for a broad panel of countries from 1960 to 2000. The updated treatment of cross-country growth regressions for this edition uses the new Summers-Heston data set on world income distribution compiled through 2000.




Hysteresis and Business Cycles


Book Description

Traditionally, economic growth and business cycles have been treated independently. However, the dependence of GDP levels on its history of shocks, what economists refer to as “hysteresis,” argues for unifying the analysis of growth and cycles. In this paper, we review the recent empirical and theoretical literature that motivate this paradigm shift. The renewed interest in hysteresis has been sparked by the persistence of the Global Financial Crisis and fears of a slow recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. The findings of the recent literature have far-reaching conceptual and policy implications. In recessions, monetary and fiscal policies need to be more active to avoid the permanent scars of a downturn. And in good times, running a high-pressure economy could have permanent positive effects.




Public Capital, Growth and Welfare


Book Description

Laying a solid foundation of economic facts and ideas, this book provides a comprehensive look at the critical role of public capital in development.