Early progress on the "problem of economic development"

This study describes recent attempts to solve what Lucas has called the "problem of economic development"—the problem of accounting for the great disparity in per-capita output across countries. The study examines a number of economic development theories, including the neoclassical theory of growth, which relies on cross-country differences in physical capital per person to explain the disparity, and newer theories, which stress cross-country differences in human capital, or education. It is argued that these models cannot account for observed per-capita output diversity. More promising theories are those that stress differences in incentives for entrepreneurs to create businesses (i.e., business capital) and adopt new technologies.Economic development

Maintenance and repair: too big to ignore

Most models of aggregate economic activity, like the standard neoclassical growth model, ignore the fact that equipment and structures are maintained and repaired. Once physical capital is purchased in these models, there are typically no more decisions made regarding its use. The theme of this article is that there is evidence to suggest that incorporating expenditures on the maintenance and repair of physical capital into models of aggregate economic activity will change the quantitative answers to some key questions that have been addressed with these models. This evidence is primarily from a little-used economywide survey in Canada. The survey shows that the activity of maintaining and repairing equipment and structures is an activity that is generally both large relative to investment and a substitute for investment to some extent—and to a large extent during some episodes.Econometric models

Resistance to new technology and trade between areas

Historically, competition, or the extension of markets, has repeatedly brought tremendous increases in wealth. However, there is still plenty of uncertainty among economists as to why that is so. This article develops a model in which competition, modeled as the movement of goods between two areas, reduces resistance to new technology and, hence, leads to increased technology adoption and wealth. Here, the extension of markets leads to wealth increases because it reduces activities that block the use of new, more productive technology.Free trade ; Technology

Competition and productivity: a review of evidence

Does competition spur productivity? And if so, how does it do so? These have long been regarded as central questions in economics. This essay reviews the literature that makes progress toward answering both questions.Competition ; Monopolies ; Productivity

Competition at work : railroads vs. monopoly in the U.S. shipping industry

This study primarily establishes two things: (1) that monopoly has been pervasive in the U.S. water transportation industry in both the 19th and 20th centuries and has led to prices above competitive levels and the adoption of inefficient technologies and (2) that the competition of railroads has greatly weakened this monopolistic tendency, leading to lower water transport prices and fewer inefficient technologies. The study establishes these points using standard economic theory and extensive historical U.S. data on the behavior of unions and shipping companies. These gains from competition have been ignored by researchers studying the contribution of railroads to U.S. economic growth. Researchers have assumed that if railroads had not been developed, the long-distance transportation industry would have been competitive. This study shows that it would not have been. The quantitative estimates of previous studies thus are likely to have significantly understated the gains from the development of railroads.Transportation ; Monopolies

Does regulation reduce productivity? Evidence from regulation of the U.S. beet-sugar manufacturing industry during the Sugar Acts, 1934-74

We study the impact of regulation on productivity and welfare in the U.S. sugar manufacturing industry. While this U.S. industry has been protected from foreign competition for nearly 150 years, it was regulated only during the Sugar Act period, 1934-74. We show that regulation significantly reduced productivity, with these productivity losses leading to large welfare losses. Our initial results indicate that the welfare losses are many times larger than those typically studied ? those arising from higher prices. We also argue that the channels through which regulation led to large productivity and welfare declines in this industry were also present in many other regulated industries, like banking and trucking.Productivity ; Regulation ; Competition ; Sugar

Competitive pressure and labor productivity: world iron ore markets in the 1980s

Does the extent of competitive pressure industries face influence their productivity? We study a natural experiment conducted in the iron ore industry as a result of the collapse in world steel production in the early 1980s. For iron ore producers, whose only market is the steel industry, this collapse was an exogenous shock. The drop in steel production differed dramatically by region: it fell by about a third in the Atlantic Basin but only very little in the Pacific Basin. Given that the cost of transporting iron ore is very high relative to its mine value, Atlantic iron ore producers faced a much greater increase in competitive pressure than did Pacific iron ore producers. In response to the crisis, most Atlantic iron ore producers doubled their labor productivity; Pacific iron ore producers experienced few productivity gains. ; This article originally appeared in the American Economic Review. (c) American Economic Association.Labor productivity ; Steel industry and trade

Latin America in the rearview mirror

Latin American countries are the only Western countries that are poor and that aren't gaining ground on the United States. This paper evaluates why Latin America has not replicated Western economic success. We find that this failure is primarily due to TFP differences. Latin America's TFP gap is not plausibly accounted for by human capital differences, but rather reflects inefficient production. We argue that competitive barriers are a promising channel for understanding low Latin TFP. We document that Latin America has many more international and domestic competitive barriers than do Western and successful East Asian countries. We also document a number of microeconomic cases in Latin America in which large reductions in competitive barriers increase productivity to Western levels.Latin America - Economic conditions

Explaining cross-country income differences

This chapter reviews the literature that tries to explain the disparity and variation of GDP per worker and GDP per capita across countries and across time. There are many potential explanations for the different patterns of development across countries, including differences in luck, raw materials, geography, preferences, and economic policies. We focus on differences in economic policies and ask to what extent can differences in policies across countries account for the observed variability in income levels and their growth rates. We review estimates for a wide range of policy variables. In many cases, the magnitude of the estimates is under debate. Estimates found by running cross-sectional growth regressions are sensitive to which variables are included as explanatory variables. Estimates found using quantitative theory depend in critical ways on values of parameters and measures of factor inputs for which there is little consensus. In this chapter, we review the ongoing debates of the literature and the progress that has been made thus far.Income