This book provides the theoretical and analytical background necessary to understanding the process of growth and the implementation of economic policies. First, it presents the growth theory landscape and the evolution of growth as well as modern growth theory arguments where the policy implications of the theoretical approaches are set. The book then covers the relationship between policy and growth, discussing not only the growth prototypes that prevail but also their relation to politics and economic policy formation and decision making. In this context, policy formation determinants, as well as the targets, instruments, and policy implementations, are crucial. The role of structural changes and structural reforms and their relationship with economic growth is also analyzed. The book ends with an interdisciplinary study of how institutions and cultural background, entrepreneurship and innovation affect policy formation.
Foreword by President George W. Bush With contributions from world renowned economists and Nobel prizewinners, The 4% Solution is a blueprint for restoring America’s economic health The United States is reaching a pivotal point in its economic history. Millions of Americans owe more on their homes than they are worth, long-term unemployment is alarmingly high, and the Congressional Budget Office is projecting a sustainable growth rate of only 2.3%—a full percentage point below the average for the past sixty years. Unless a turnaround comes quickly, the United States could be mired in debt for years to come and millions of Americans will be pushed to the sidelines of the economy. The 4% Solution offers clear and unflinching ideas on how to revive America’s economy. It sets a positive economic goal and asks some of the top economic minds on how to achieve it. With a focus on removing government constraints, The 4% Solution defines the policies that will allow Americans to save, invest, and create the jobs that the United States needs. The 4% Solution draws on the best minds in the business, including five Nobel laureates: · Robert E. Lucas, Jr., on the history and future of economic growth · Gary S. Becker on why we need immigrants in order to grow · Edward Prescott on the cost (to growth) of the welfare state · Vernon Smith on why housing leads us into and out of recessions · Myron Scholes on why we need to innovate in order to grow the economy
This book addresses nine relevant questions: Will population growth reduce the growth rate of per capita income because it reduces the per capita availability of exhaustible resources? How about for renewable resources? Will population growth aggravate degradation of the natural environment? Does more rapid growth reduce worker output and consumption? Do rapid growth and greater density lead to productivity gains through scale economies and thereby raise per capita income? Will rapid population growth reduce per capita levels of education and health? Will it increase inequality of income distribution? Is it an important source of labor problems and city population absorption? And, finally, do the economic effects of population growth justify government programs to reduce fertility that go beyond the provision of family planning services?
This book includes empirical contributions focusing on disadvantaged workers. According to the European Commission’s definition, disadvantaged workers include categories of workers with difficulties entering the labour market without assistance and hence, requiring the application of public measures aimed at improving their employment opportunities. In addition to the labour market perspective, this is also relevant in terms of social cohesion, which is one of the central objectives of the European Union and of its Member States. This work deals with the most relevant groups of disadvantaged workers, namely disabled workers, young workers, women living in depressed areas, migrants in the labour market and the long-term unemployed, and analyses the situation in the Italian, Spanish and some African labour markets. The determinants of disadvantage in the labour market are investigated, highlighting both the role of supply variables, including structural factors and the weakness on the demand side, the role of the economic crisis and the ineffectiveness of some labour policies. A complex framework emerges in which disadvantaged groups may share common problems, both in terms of integration into the labour market and in terms of working conditions, but often require group-specific policies, taking into account their intergroup heterogeneity.
The COVID-19 pandemic struck the global economy after a decade that featured a broad-based slowdown in productivity growth. Global Productivity: Trends, Drivers, and Policies presents the first comprehensive analysis of the evolution and drivers of productivity growth, examines the effects of COVID-19 on productivity, and discusses a wide range of policies needed to rekindle productivity growth. The book also provides a far-reaching data set of multiple measures of productivity for up to 164 advanced economies and emerging market and developing economies, and it introduces a new sectoral database of productivity. The World Bank has created an extraordinary book on productivity, covering a large group of countries and using a wide variety of data sources. There is an emphasis on emerging and developing economies, whereas the prior literature has concentrated on developed economies. The book seeks to understand growth patterns and quantify the role of (among other things) the reallocation of factors, technological change, and the impact of natural disasters, including the COVID-19 pandemic. This book is must-reading for specialists in emerging economies but also provides deep insights for anyone interested in economic growth and productivity. Martin Neil Baily Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution Former Chair, U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisers This is an important book at a critical time. As the book notes, global productivity growth had already been slowing prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and collapses with the pandemic. If we want an effective recovery, we have to understand what was driving these long-run trends. The book presents a novel global approach to examining the levels, growth rates, and drivers of productivity growth. For anyone wanting to understand or influence productivity growth, this is an essential read. Nicholas Bloom William D. Eberle Professor of Economics, Stanford University The COVID-19 pandemic hit a global economy that was already struggling with an adverse pre-existing condition—slow productivity growth. This extraordinarily valuable and timely book brings considerable new evidence that shows the broad-based, long-standing nature of the slowdown. It is comprehensive, with an exceptional focus on emerging market and developing economies. Importantly, it shows how severe disasters (of which COVID-19 is just the latest) typically harm productivity. There are no silver bullets, but the book suggests sensible strategies to improve growth prospects. John Fernald Schroders Chaired Professor of European Competitiveness and Reform and Professor of Economics, INSEAD
“an excellent new book” — Paul Krugman, The New York Times History, not ideology, holds the key to growth. Brilliantly written and argued, Concrete Economics shows how government has repeatedly reshaped the American economy ever since Alexander Hamilton’s first, foundational redesign. This book does not rehash the sturdy and long-accepted arguments that to thrive, entrepreneurial economies need a broad range of freedoms. Instead, Steve Cohen and Brad DeLong remedy our national amnesia about how our economy has actually grown and the role government has played in redesigning and reinvigorating it throughout our history. The government not only sets the ground rules for entrepreneurial activity but directs the surges of energy that mark a vibrant economy. This is as true for present-day Silicon Valley as it was for New England manufacturing at the dawn of the nineteenth century. The authors’ argument is not one based on abstract ideas, arcane discoveries, or complex correlations. Instead it is based on the facts—facts that were once well known but that have been obscured in a fog of ideology—of how the US economy benefited from a pragmatic government approach to succeed so brilliantly. Understanding how our economy has grown in the past provides a blueprint for how we might again redesign and reinvigorate it today, for such a redesign is sorely needed.
Going for Growth 2021 identifies country-specific structural policy priorities for the recovery across OECD and key non-member countries (Argentina, Brazil, The People’s Republic of China, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia and South Africa). It frames the main policy challenges of the current juncture along three main areas: building resilience; facilitating reallocation and boosting productivity growth for all; and supporting people in transition.
Economic growth is a constant mantra of politicians, economists and the media. Few understand what it is, but they love and follow it blindly. The reality is that since the global financial crisis, growth has vanished in the more industrialised economies and in the so-called developing countries. Politicians may be panicking, but is this really a bad thing? Using real-life examples and innovative research, acclaimed political economist Lorenzo Fioramonti lays bare society’s perverse obsession with economic growth by showing its many flaws, paradoxes and inconsistencies. He argues that the pursuit of growth often results in more losses than gains and in damage, inequalities and conflicts. By breaking free from the growth mantra, we can build a better society that puts the wellbeing of all at its centre. A wellbeing economy would have tremendous impact on everything we do, boosting small businesses and empowering citizens as the collective leaders of tomorrow. Wellbeing Economy is a manifesto for radical change in South Africa and beyond.
Governments fail to provide the public goods needed for development when its leaders knowingly and deliberately ignore sound technical advice or are unable to follow it, despite the best of intentions, because of political constraints. This report focuses on two forces—citizen engagement and transparency—that hold the key to solving government failures by shaping how political markets function. Citizens are not only queueing at voting booths, but are also taking to the streets and using diverse media to pressure, sanction and select the leaders who wield power within government, including by entering as contenders for leadership. This political engagement can function in highly nuanced ways within the same formal institutional context and across the political spectrum, from autocracies to democracies. Unhealthy political engagement, when leaders are selected and sanctioned on the basis of their provision of private benefits rather than public goods, gives rise to government failures. The solutions to these failures lie in fostering healthy political engagement within any institutional context, and not in circumventing or suppressing it. Transparency, which is citizen access to publicly available information about the actions of those in government, and the consequences of these actions, can play a crucial role by nourishing political engagement.
