An Integrated Cumulative Growth Model: Empirical Evidence for Nine OECD Countries, 1960-1990

none1This paper is an empirical analysis of the interaction between the dynamics of demand, productivity and employment in nine industrial countries, viz. the United States, Canada, Japan, West Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Belgium, from 1960-1990. Its theoretical framework derives from the Kaldorian approach to cumulative growth in both its external and internal causation versions. The model we adopt is of an integrated kind, in which foreign demand is determined endogenously and domestic demand is divided up into its various component parts: exogenous for the public sector and endogenous for the private. More specifically, this is carried out by describing the way the dynamics of private consumption and private investments depend on economic variables located in the spheres of distribution and of technology, so that we can consider the operations of income compensation effects induced by technological change - via changes in income and its social distribution - as well as price compensation effects - the higher competitiveness of national products in foreign markets - mediated through the dynamics of exports.openP. PINIPini, Paol

Employment and Productivity Growth in Europe and North America: The Impact of Labor Market Institutions

In this paper, we examine long-run employment and productivity growth in the major economies of North America and Europe from 1960 to the early 1990s. We develop a model in which output growth is determined by the growth of aggregate demand, and the relative contributions of employment and productivity growth to the growth of output depend on country specific labor market institutions. We find that institutions that promote collective bargaining, employment security and social protection have roughly equal and opposite effects on employment growth (negative) and productivity growth (positive), giving rise to an inverse relationship between these variables. The welfare implications of this finding are that labor market deregulation could result in more work and greater inequality and insecurity for workers, without significantly increasing the rate of economic growth.

Productivity growth in Korea: efficiency improvement or technical progress?

This paper shows that the productivity gains in Korean manufacturing are mostly from efficiency improvement rather than from technical progress. These findings are contrary to those of previous sectoral studies of Korean and Taiwanese manufacturing, but are consistent with those of cross-country studies. Regression results show that both domestic and foreign R&D played an important role in increasing efficiency and technical progress in Korean manufacturing. However, domestic R&D has more effect on technical progress, while foreign R&D has played a relatively stronger role in efficiency improvement.