Does Growth Cause Financial Deregulation in China? An Instrumental Variables Approach

Following Miguel et al. (2004), we use temperature and hours of sunshine variations as instrumental variables for economic growth in 27 Chinese provinces during 1981--98. Our 2SLS (Two-stage least squares) regression finds that growth has no significant effect on financial deregulation after controlling for predetermined home-bias political variable, population size, and time and province effects. Moreover, the home-bias political variable has a significant effect on financial deregulation, which shows that political and cultural factors are important driving forces in determining the path and logic of Chinese financial deregulation. The results hold up when we use GMM (Generalized method of moments) to deal with heteroskedasticity. The results are also robust in LIML (Limited information maximum likelihood) estimation that deals with weak instruments.Financial Deregulation; Growth; Causality

Home-bias Politics, Financial Deregulation and Economic Growth: A Causal Relationship

We re-examine the finance-growth nexus using the Chinese financial deregulation experience during the reform period 1981-1998. We use lagged home-bias political variables as instruments for financial deregulation. Dealing with weak instruments by LIML (limited-information maximum likelihood) estimation, we find that financial deregulation has a significant causal effect on economic growth. The result holds up when we control for conditional convergence, other growth determinants, and time and province effects.Financial Deregulation; Home-bias Politics; Causality; Growth

Weather, fertility, and land: land curse in economic development in a unified growth theory

We consider fertility choice and weather in analyzing the effect of farmland abundance in economic development. We find that quality-adjusted agricultural land abundance may confer a type of "resource curse", in that it prolongs the tenure of an economy in the Malthusian regime. This lends new insights to Unified Growth Theory (Galor, 2011) by elucidating a particular determinant of the differential timing of the transition from Malthusian stagnation to industrialization. Moreover, opposite to the Matsuyama (1992) model, good weather is found to be a blessing for a small open economy, while it is a curse for a closed economy.Weather; Fertility; Quality-adjusted Farmland per capita; Quality-adjusted Farmland Abundance Curse

Home-bias Politics, Financial Deregulation and Economic Growth: A Causal Relationship

We re-examine the finance-growth nexus using the Chinese financial deregulation experience during the reform period 1981-1998. We use lagged home-bias political variables as instruments for financial deregulation. Dealing with weak instruments by LIML (limited-information maximum likelihood) estimation, we find that financial deregulation has a significant causal effect on economic growth. The result holds up when we control for conditional convergence, other growth determinants, and time and province effects

Health and Innovation in a Monetary Schumpeterian Growth Model

This study explores a novel channel---endogenous health investment---through which monetary policy impacts growth and welfare. We use a scale-invariant Schumpeterian growth model with a cash-in-advance (CIA) constraint on R&D investment. We find that the effect of an increase in the nominal interest rate on long-run growth crucially depends on the form of the CIA constraint. When the CIA constraint does not apply to medical expenditure, long-run growth does not depend on the nominal interest rate. The result remains robust when health capital does not need medical expenditure to produce (i.e., health capital only needs leisure to produce). By contrast, when the CIA constraint applies to medical expenditure, an increase in the nominal interest rate leads to a decrease in R&D and health investment, which in turn reduces the long-run growth rates of technology and output. Nevertheless, welfare is always a decreasing function of the nominal interest rate, and the welfare loss is larger under the CIA constraint on medical expenditure. The results hold up with the health-in-the-utility function (HIU)

Weather, fertility, and land: land curse in economic development in a unified growth theory

We consider fertility choice and weather in analyzing the effect of farmland abundance in economic development. We find that quality-adjusted agricultural land abundance may confer a type of "resource curse", in that it prolongs the tenure of an economy in the Malthusian regime. This lends new insights to Unified Growth Theory (Galor, 2011) by elucidating a particular determinant of the differential timing of the transition from Malthusian stagnation to industrialization. Moreover, opposite to the Matsuyama (1992) model, good weather is found to be a blessing for a small open economy, while it is a curse for a closed economy

Inflation and Fertility in a Schumpeterian Growth Model: Theory and Evidence

This study explores a novel channel for monetary policy to impact growth and welfare---through fertility choice. In a scale-invariant Schumpeterian growth model with endogenous fertility and a cash-in-advance constraint on consumption, we find a positive effect of an increase in the nominal interest rate on fertility. The increase in fertility decreases labor supplied to production and R&D, which in turn decreases long-run growth. Calibration shows that long-run growth increases 0.12% by reducing the nominal interest rate from 9.6% to 0%, and the welfare gain is equivalent to a permanent increase in consumption of 3.14%. As an empirical test, we build panel data for 12 advanced countries during 2000--2014. We use the degree of central bank independence and money growth as the instruments for inflation. We find that the effect of inflation on population growth is positive and significant in instrumental variables estimation. Our results remain robust to using birth rate or fertility rate as the dependent variable. An increase in annual inflation of 1 percentage point would bring an increase of 0.06 percentage point in the annual growth of the total population. Our empirical findings provide support for our theory

Dances with Chinese data: are the reform period Chinese provincial panel data reliable?

There is a debate over the reliability of the Chinese data (e.g., Young, 2003; Holz, 2003, 2006). In this paper we test the Chinese provincial panel data for the period 1978-2002 against the predictions from the technology diffusion model. We find that the estimated coefficient on initial real GDP per worker is negative and significant, showing strong evidence of conditional convergence; the estimated coefficients on secondary school human capital investment rate and labor force growth are positive and negative respectively, significant at the 5% level, in both LSDV (Least squares dummy variables) estimation and system GMM (Generalized method of moments) estimation that overcomes the endogeneity of these variables. The test accepts that the estimate coefficients on physical capital and human capital investment rates are equal, with absolute magnitudes about half of that on labor force growth in LSDV estimation. The estimated coefficient on the FDI to GDP ratio that captures technology diffusion is insignificant in LSDV estimation but becomes significant in system GMM estimation. All these are consistent with the technology diffusion model (and the augmented Solow model). Therefore, the reform period Chinese provincial panel data may be reliable for growth regressions

Weather, fertility, and land: land curse in economic development in a unified growth theory

We consider fertility choice and weather in analyzing the effect of farmland abundance in economic development. We find that quality-adjusted agricultural land abundance may confer a type of "resource curse", in that it prolongs the tenure of an economy in the Malthusian regime. This lends new insights to Unified Growth Theory (Galor, 2011) by elucidating a particular determinant of the differential timing of the transition from Malthusian stagnation to industrialization. Moreover, opposite to the Matsuyama (1992) model, good weather is found to be a blessing for a small open economy, while it is a curse for a closed economy

The COVID-19 Pandemic in a Monetary Schumpeterian Model

In this paper, we investigate how the presence of the COVID-19 pandemic---the increase in the probability of death, following Blanchard and Fischer (1989)---may affect growth and welfare in a scale-invariant R&D-based Schumpeterian model. Without money, the increase in the probability of death has no effect on long-run growth and a negative effect on welfare. By contrast, when money is introduced via the cash-in-advance constraint on consumption, the increase in the probability of death decreases long-run growth and welfare under elastic labor supply. Calibration shows that the quantitative effect of an increase in the probability of death on welfare is much larger compared to that on growth