Social Status, Human Capital Formation and the Long-run Effects of Money

This study examines the effects of monetary policy in a two-sector cash-in-advance economy of human capital accumulation. Agents concern about their social status represented by the relative physical capital and relative human capital. We find that if the desire for social status depends only on relative physical capital, money is superneutral in the growth-rate sense. However, if the desire for social status depends on relative human capital, the money growth rate will have a positive effect on the long-run economic growth rate. Furthermore, an increase in the desire to pursue human capital will raise the long-run growth rate, but an increase in the desire to pursue physical capital will lower it.Cash-in-advance economy; Endogenous growth; Social status.

The Role of Firm Size in Controlling Output Volatility during the Asian Financial Crisis

This study sets out to develop a simplified risk premium model to explain output volatility within the economies of Asia in the immediate aftermath of the Asian financial crisis. Firms are allowed to borrow from both domestic and foreign banks, with the firms� debts being loosely constrained (at high levels) prior to the crisis (lending boom) but becoming tightly constrained (at low levels) on the outbreak of the crisis (lending bust). The lending rate is a function of the debt-capital ratio; thus if firms have only limited access to the credit market, then they will accumulate less capital and become small firms. Given their lower collateral, small firms face higher risk premiums which will ultimately lead to a much greater reduction in output when a credit crunch suddenly hits. Our model predicts that small firm size will accelerate unanticipated shocks; therefore, output volatility will be greater in countries with small firms than in those with large firmsAsian financial crisis; Firm size; Credit constraints; Risk premiums

Money and Endogenous Growth in a Cash-in-Advance Model with Social Status

Motivated by the substantial increase of nominal money supply in the U.S. economy since late 2008, this paper examines the equilibrium growth effect of money/inflation within a standard one-sector AK model of endogenous growth with wealth-enhanced preferences for social status and the most generalized cash-in-advance constraint. We show that the sign for the correlation between money and output growth depends crucially on (i) the liquidity-constrained ratio of consumption to investment, and (ii) how the shadow price of physical capital responds to a change in the monetary growth rate. This money-growth correlation, as well as the growth effect of social status, turns out to be closely related to the local stability properties of the economy's balanced growth path(s).Money, Endogenous Growth, Cash-in-Advance Constraint, Social Status, In- determinacy

Migration, Social Security, and Economic Growth

This paper studies the effect of population aging on economic performance in an overlapping-generations model with international migration. Fertility is endogenized so that immigrants and natives can have different fertility rates. Fertility is an important determinant to the tax burden of social security since it affects the quantity and quality of future tax payers. We find that introducing immigrants into the economy can reduce the tax burden of social security. If life expectancy (or the replacement ratio) is high enough, the growth rate of GDP per worker for an economy with international migration will be higher than for a closed economy. Regarding migration policies, our numerical results indicate that economic growth rate of GDP per worker will first decrease then increase as the flow of immigrants increases. Increasing the quality of immigrants will enhance economic growth.Economic growth; Fertility; Migration; Social security.

THE ROLE OF FIRM SIZE IN CONTROLLING OUTPUT DECLINE DURING THE ASIAN FINANCIAL CRISIS

This study sets out to develop a simplified risk premium model to explain output decline within the economies of Asia in the immediate aftermath of the Asian financial crisis. Firms are allowed to borrow from both domestic and foreign banks, with the firms¡¯ debts being loosely constrained (at high levels) prior to the crisis (lending boom) but becoming tightly constrained (at low levels) on the outbreak of the crisis (lending bust). The lending rate is a function of the debt-capital ratio; thus if firms have only limited access to the credit market, then they will accumulate less capital and become small firms. Given their lower collateral, small firms face higher risk premiums which will ultimately lead to a much greater reduction in output when a credit crunch suddenly hits. Our model predicts that small firm size will accelerate unanticipated shocks; therefore, output decline will be greater in countries with small firms than in those with large firms.Asian Financial Crisis, Firm Size, Credit Constraints, Risk Premiums

From Isovist to Spatial Perception: Wayfinding in Historic Quarter

Based on the assumption that human behaviours are mainly affected by physical and animate environments, this empirical research takes the changeful and complex historical district in Tainan to observe wayfinding behaviours. An a priori analysis of the isovist fields is conducted to identify spatial characteristics. Three measures, the relative area, convexity, and circularity, are applied to scrutinize the possible stopping points, change of speed, and route choices. Accordingly, an experiment is carried out to observe spatial behaviours and different influences of social stimuli. Results show that social interactions afford groups and pairs to perform better than individual observers in wayfinding.© 2016. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creative commons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.Keywords: wayfinding; isovist; spatial perception and social stimuli; historic quarte

Innovation and imitation in a product-cycle model with FDI and cash-in-advance constraints

This paper analyzes the effects of monetary policy on innovation and imitation in a North-South product-cycle model with foreign direct investment (FDI) and separate cash-in-advance (CIA) constraints on innovative R&D, adaptive R&D and imitative R&D. We find that if the CIA constraint is applied to innovative R&D, then an increase in the Northern nominal interest will raise the rate of Northern innovation and the extent of FDI while reducing the rate of Southern imitation and the North-South wage gap. Regarding the effects of the Southern monetary policy, the object that is liquidity-constrained plays a significant role. If adaptive (imitative) R&D is subject to the CIA constraint, then an increase in the Southern nominal interest rate will raise (reduce) the rate of Northern innovation and the extent of FDI while reducing (raising) the rate of Southern imitation. We also examine the responses of social welfare for Northern and Southern consumers to monetary policy

Child Allowances, Educational Subsidies and Economic Growth

This paper examines the effects on economic growth attributable to government policies of child allowances and educational subsidies. We show that multiple steady states may arise under these two policies, with club convergence occurring, and the initial condition being of relevance, if the tax rate is fairly high. Under a policy of child allowances, an increase in the tax rate is found to raise the quantity of children, but lower the quality of adults; however, under a policy of educational subsidies, with an increase in the tax rate, corresponding increases are found in both the quantity of children and the quality of adults. We also find that considering the ‘threshold’ effects of technological externalities, an economy can escape the poverty trap if the threshold is sufficiently low. For developed countries, introducing child allowances may improve or hurt the welfare while introducing educational subsidies is welfare improving