Geography and Growth - some Empirical Evidence

Income in the world does not distribute randomly in space. There are geographic clusters of rich and poor countries. Also growth rates tend to be spatially clustered. Spatial regression analyses indicate that geographical clustering may be an inherent ingredient in growth mechanisms: Growth in one country stimulates growth in surrounding countries. A simple exogenous growth model with technology diffusion through trade in capital goods can account for some, but not all of these empirical patterns of growth and income distribution.

Knowledge Spillovers in Europe and its Consequences for Systems of Innovation

knowledge spillovers; innovation systems

The Spatial Econometrics of Elephant Population Change: A Note

While previous research found no other variable than corruption to have a negative impact on (the growth rate of) the African countries' elephant populations, we show that one further significant impact is exerted by what one might call neighbourhood effects. Elephants travel long distances, often crossing borders. Using spatial econometric tools, we find that elephant population changes in one country have a positive impact on elephants in neighbouring countries. Our results have possible policy implications, as they suggest that the spatial clustering of funds and of conservation efforts makes sense if the endangered species move across borders.Elephants; Spatial econometrics; Corruption and ecology

Regional ICT industries growth: Common prejudices and empirical evidence

Many advocates of an active regional economic policy tend to consider regional sectoral concentration as something which can be created, as a recipe rather than just a development which sometimes occurs and sometimes not. Whether such a policy can be successful implicitly depends on a number of assumptions which are empirically tested in this paper: The first assumption is that regional concentration and regional specialisation foster growth. We test this hypothesis, using data for nine ICT industries in 97 German regions. According to preliminary results, the effect of concentration is positive as expected, but small and its significance depends on specification and industry. Second, the common perception is that East Germany is still a special case. This is clearly supported for the ICT industry, which lacks behind not only with respect to level, but also with respect to growth rates for 1998 to 2002. Third, if regional sectoral agglomeration is an advantage for regions due to technological externalities, for example, then the same reasons might lead to spillover effects between neighbouring regions. With Myrdal we call this a "spread effect". However, the opposite, called "backwash effect" by Myrdal, is also well possible: If a certain sector is growing in region A, that might be due to firms moving in from the neighbouring regions. While the spread effect is the more popular hypothesis, we find evidence for both effects, using standard spatial econometrics techniques. We also discuss the possible reasons why neighbourhood effects are positive in some ICT industries and negative in others. Forth, we investigate whether regional economic policy has a positive impact. Again using spatial econometrics techniques, not so standard in this case, our preliminary results show that the 16 German Laender seem not able to do change the path which is determined for the ICT industries by spatial and other variables.

Geography and growth - some empirical evidence

Income in the world does not distribute randomly in space. There are geographic clusters of rich and poor countries. Also growth rates tend to be spatially clustered. Spatial regression analyses indicate that geographical clustering may be an inherent ingredient in growth mechanisms: Growth in one country stimulates growth in surrounding countries. A simple exogenous growth model with technology diffusion through trade in capital goods can account for some, but not all of these empirical patterns of growth and income distribution

Trade and development - a selective review

This paper reviews parts of the recent literature on trade and growth. The relationships between trade and growth have been extensively studied in recent research. Many studies indicate that trade stimulates income and growth. The literature is controversial and many studies are criticised for weaknesses in methodology. Despite the methodological controversies, most evidence gives support for the view that trade stimulates growth. It is argued that major deficiency in the literature is that it does not discriminate between the impact of market access in other countries and the impact of liberal domestic trade policies

Frihandelsavtalen mellom EU og Canada : Virkninger for Norge og norsk eksport av fisk

I 2016 er det ventet at ferdigforhandlet frihandelsavtale mellom EU og Canada vil tre i kraft. Avtalen innebærer at de fleste tollsatser mellom EU og Canada fjernes. Det tas også sikte på å redusere andre handelshindre. Den samlede utenrikshandelen til EU og Canada representerer om lag 34 prosent av den totale verdenshandelen. Handelen mellom EU og Canada er mindre og representerer 0.25 prosent av verdens totale handel. Avtalen er likevel viktig og den er ventet å øke handelen mellom EU og Canada. Avtalen får også virkninger for andre land. En virkning av frihandelsavtaler er handelsvridning. Import fra tredjeland erstattes av import fra avtalepartnerne. For Norge kan dette være av betydning siden Norge i utgangspunktet har frihandelsavtaler både med EU og Canada. Norges handelspreferanser i EU og Canada blir mindre med frihandelsavtale mellom EU og Canada.I notatet beregnes slike virkninger for Norges eksport til EU og til Canada. Virkningene på norsk eksport avhenger av handelshindrene iutgangspunktet og av markedsandelen til henholdsvis EU i canadiske markeder og Canada i europeiske markeder. De samlede virkningene av frihandelsavtalen mellom EU og Canada beregnes å være små. Men for enkelte varer og varetyper kan virkningene være betydelige

Recent Advances in Growth Theory. A Comparison of Neoclassical and Evolutionary Perspectives

Research on economic growth has experienced remarkable progress the last decade. The neoclassical perspective has benefited from development of new mathematical methods and new approaches to market structure, economics of scale and spillover effects. At the same time evolutionary theories on economic development have appeared, partly competing but also complementary to neoclassical theorising. In this paper, the development of the two perspectives on economic growth is reviewed and they are compared with each other. Despite evident differences there seems to be convergence between the two traditions. The two perspectives therefore do not belong to different paradigms in the Kuhnian sense and they can hardly be categorised as two isolated research programmes in the sense of Imre Lakatos. Evolutionary and neoclassical growth economics draw inspiration from similar sources, they are overlapping and to some extent complementary. The two traditions also interact with each other