A NOTE ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CORRUPTION AND GOVERNMENT REVENUE

This paper empirically traces out the impacts of corruption on government revenue. The total amount of government revenue decreases as corruption reduces tax revenues if it contributes to tax evasion, improper tax exemptions or weak tax administration. In addition, corruption may distort the composition of government revenue: that is, a country with a higher level of corruption increases the proportion of international tax revenue rather than domestic tax one as the source of government revenue. Using cross-national evidence, it is identified that several corruption indices are positively and significantly associated with the taxes on international trade over current government revenue. Moreover, corruption is negatively and significantly related to the domestic tax revenue as well as total amount of government revenue over GDP.Corruption, Government Revenue, Tax Revenue, International Tax

The Evolution of Income and Fertility Inequalities over the Course of Economic Development: A Human Capital Perspective

Using an endogenous-growth, overlapping-generations framework where human capital is the engine of growth, we trace the dynamic evolution of income and fertility distributions and their interdependencies over three endogenous phases of economic development. In our model, heterogeneous families determine fertility and children’s human capital, and generations are linked via parental altruism and social interactions. We derive and test discriminating propositions concerning the dynamic behavior of inequalities in fertility, educational attainments, and three endogenous income inequality measures -- family-income inequality, income-group inequality, and the Gini coefficient. In this context, we also reexamine the "Kuznets hypothesis" concerning the relation between income growth and inequality.

Social Security, Demographic Trends, and Economic Growth: Theory and Evidence from the International Experience

The worldwide problem with pay-as-you-go (PAYG) social security systems isn't just financial. This study indicates that these systems may have exerted adverse effects on key demographic factors, private savings, and long-term growth rates. Through a comprehensive endogenous-growth model where human capital is the engine of growth, family choices affect human capital formation, and family formation itself is a choice variable, we show that social security taxes and benefits can create adverse incentive effects on family formation and subsequent household choices, and that these effects cannot be fully neutralized by counteracting intergenerational transfers within families. We implement the model using calibrated simulations as well as panel data from 57 countries over 32 years (1960-92). We find that PAYG tax measures account for a sizeable part of the downward trends in family formation and fertility worldwide, and for a slowdown in the rates of savings and economic growth, especially in OECD countries.

How much U.S. technological innovation begins in universities?

Technological progress has been the key to improved living standards, but how and where do new ideas get their start? The answer might give us some insight into how we can support greater innovation. Some suggest universities have been an important source of innovative technology. A look at the people involved in the development of patented technologies can give an idea of how much innovation originates in universities.Technological innovations ; Universities and colleges

Research Scientist Productivity and Firm Size: Evidence from Panel Data on Inventors

It has long been recognized that worker wages and possibly productivity are higher in large firms. Moreover, at least since Schumpeter (1942) economists have been interested in the relative efficiency of large firms in the research and development enterprise. This paper uses longitudinal worker-firm-matched data to examine the relationship between the productivity of workers specifically engaged in innovation and firm size in the pharmaceutical and semiconductor industries. In both industries, we find that inventors’ productivity increases with firm size. This result holds across different specifications and even after controlling for inventors’ experience, past productivity, the quality of other inventors in the firm, and other firm characteristicsPatents; Innovation; Labor productivity; Research; Firm size

Endogenous Fertility, Mortality and Economic Growth: Can a Malthusian Framework Account for the Conflicting Historical Trends in Population?

The 19th century economist, Thomas Robert Malthus, hypothesized that the long-run supply of labor is completely elastic at a fixed wage-income level because population growth tends to outstrip real output growth. Dynamic equilibrium with constant income and population is achieved through equilibrating adjustments in "positive checks" (mortality, starvation) and "preventive checks" (marriage, fertility). Developing economies since the Industrial Revolution, and more recently especially Asian economies, have experienced steady income growth accompanied by sharply falling fertility and mortality rates. We develop a dynamic model of endogenous fertility, longevity, and human capital formation within a Malthusian framework that allows for diminishing returns to labor but also for the role of human capital as an engine of growth. Our model accounts for economic stagnation with high fertility and mortality and constant population and income, as predicted by Malthus, but also for takeoffs to a growth regime and a demographic transition toward low fertility and mortality rates, and a persistent growth in per-capita income.

LABOR MOBILITY OF SCIENTISTS, TECHNOLOGICAL DIFFUSION, AND THE FIRM’S PATENTING DECISION

We develop and test a model of the patenting and R&D decisions of an innovating firm whose scientist-employees sometime quit to join or start a rival. In our model, the innovating firm patents to protect itself from its employees. We show theoretically that the risk of a scientist's departure reduces the firm’s R&D expenditures and raises its propensity to patent an innovation. We find evidence from firm-level panel data that is consistent with this latter result. Our results suggest that scientists' turnover is associated with cross-industry patenting variation and with recent economy-wide increases in patenting. Scientists’ turnover may also partly account for why small firms have high patent-R&D ratiosLabor market for scientists and engineers, patents, research and development, job turnover, mobility of scientists, technological diffusion