Growth, fluctuations and technology in the U.S. post-war economy

This paper explores several issues concerning how technology affects growth and fluctuations during several U.S. postwar series. The nature of technology is divided into neutral progress and investment-specific progress. Accounting for several changes in the first and second order moments of these series (the slowdown of productivity in 1974, the moderation of 1984 and the resurgence in productivity after 1994), I find that the contribution of investment-specific progress to growth has increased over time. I also find that neutral progress is crucial in explaining the cyclical component of output (before and after 1984), contrary to results found in related literature. However, the shocks to investment-specific progress have played an increasing role in output and other macroeconomic variables. Finally, I conclude that moderation in the macroeconomic series can be associated with technology. In sum, the quality of technological processes affecting long run growth and fluctuations has changed over the past decades.Productivity growth; Investment-specific technological change; Neutral technological change

The optimal degree of exchange rate flexibility: A target zone approach

This paper presents a benchmark model that rationalizes the choice of the degree of exchange rate flexibility. We show that the monetary authority may gain efficiency by reducing volatility of both the exchange rate and the interest rate at the same time. Furthermore, the model is consistent with some known stylized facts in the empirical literature on target zones that previous models were not able to generate jointly, namely, the positive relation between the exchange rate and the interest rate differential, the degree of non-linearity of the function linking the exchage rate to fundamentals and the shape of the exchange rate stochastic distribution.Target zones, exchange rate agreements, monetary policy, time consistency.

The role of new technologies in the economic growth of Andalucia

This paper explores the contribution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on economic growth and labor productivity growth of Andalucía during 1995-2004. We find that the contribution of ICT assets to total market GVA growth is quantitatively modest. Anyway the contribution to GVA growth and employment growth within the intensive ICT sectors has experienced a considerable increase in Andalucía. Although our analysis detects that intensive ICT sectors exhibit a high productivity level with respect to that of the non intensive ones, our main conclusion is that the advantages that might emerge from the use of ICT are nor yet observable in the economic dynamics of Andalucía, at least in a similar manner to that of the most developed.Information and Communication Technologies, productivity growth, regional growth

How tight should one's hands be tied? Fear of floating and credibility of exchange regimes.

The literature on exchange regimes has recently observed that officially self-declared free floaters strongly intervene their nominal exchange rates to maintain them within some unannounced bands. In this paper, we provide an explanation for this behavior, labeled by Calvo and Reinhart (2002) as fear of floating. First, we analyze the linkages between the credibility of the exchange regime, the volatility of the exchange rate and the band width of fluctuation. Second, the model is used to understand the reduction in volatility experienced by most ERM countries after their target zones were widened on August 1993. Finally, solving the model for a subgame perfect equilibrium, fear of floating can be viewed as the credible choice of a finite non-zero bandFear of floating, target zones, exchange rate arrangements, credibility

On the Choice of an Exchange Regime: Target Zones Revisited

From the classical gold standard up to the current ERM2 arrangement of the European Union, target zones have been a widely used exchange regime in contemporary history. This paper presents a benchmark model that rationalizes the choice of target zones over the rest of regimes: the fixed rate, the free float and the managed float. It is shown that the monetary authority may gain efficiency by reducing volatility of both the exchange rate and the interest rate at the same time. Furthermore, the model is consistent with some known stylised facts in the empirical literature that previous models were not able to produce, namely, the positive relation between the exchange rate and the interest rate differential, the degree of non-linearity of the function linking the exchange rate to fundamentals and the shape of the exchange rate stochastic distribution.Infrastructures, taxes, efficiency, social welfare

Technological Resources And Export Intensity: A Microview

This article analyses the influence of technological resources on firm-export intensity. The empirical analysis is carried out on a sample of Spanish manufacturing firms using tobit models. Our findings show that R&D investments, product and process innovations and patents positively and significantly affect the export intensity of Spanish firms

Income disparities in Poland through the lens of economic geography

Second nature geography variables are very relevant in the explanation of income disparities across regions within countries and across countries. This paper uses the framework of the New Economic Geography to derive the structural equation which relates nominal wages with a distance weighted sum of incomes in the surrounding locations, the so called nominal wage equation. The estimation of this equation was carried out for 2000, 2004 and 2008 using regional data on Polish regions. The results of the analysis show that market access plays an important role in the explanation of income disparities in Poland. Moreover, the effects of market access have undergone several robustness tests to control for endogeneity issues linked to the construction of the market access variable and also to control for problems arising from shocks linked to spatially correlated but intertemporally uncorrelated omitted variables. Finally, using data for serveral years show us that the picture which emerges from the estimations is that the effect of market access on GDP per head levels is increasing over time leading to the conclusion that the core-periphery patterns in Poland have been reinforced ever since the first year of our analysis (2000)

Second Nature Geography and Regional Income Disparities in Colombia

In this paper, we derive and estimate a New Economic Geography model for the Colombian departments.2 We first derive an econometric specification relating wages to a distance weighted sum of the volumes of economic activities of the surrounding locations. Them, we test our econometric specification with data for Colombian departments in the period 1975-2000. The empirical results confirm the theoretical predictions of our model, showing that second nature geography factors (access to consumer markets) are a key variable in explaining the spatial distribution of wages in Colombia.New Economic Geography, Spatial Structure of Wages, Market Access

Regional income convergence and regional policy in the European Union

In this paper we use a generalized entropy index such as the Theil index to analyze regional inequalities in Europe. We proved that there is a synchronization between the convergence and catching-up process of objective 1 regions towards the EU15 average with the reform of the EU regional policy. During the period 1982-1988 the Theil index shows that inequalities between objective 1 regions and non-objective 1 regions have increased while from 1989 onwards the reduction in the inequalities between these two groups has been the norm. We also remark the fact that there are high disparate rates of growth among objective 1 regions both within countries and across countries but our computations show also a trend towards a more balanced growth among objective 1 regions within and across EU countries. This success of the European Union regional policy in objective 1 regions will mean a big opportunity for Central and Eastern European countries and hence the increases in competition arising from an enlarged European market combined with a suitable regional development policy should in the future boost the growth of those countries. In the last part of the paper we made a simulation for the funding envelope from 2007, based on the 2000-2006 budget. We show that the figures of the Agenda 2000 provide enough financial support for 90% of the total CEEC population and for 75% of “current” objective 1 population. Key Words: Regional Policy, European Enlargement, Central and Eastern European Countries, Strategic Planning, Regional Growth, Regional Development

Fuzzy uniform structures

[EN] The concept of fuzzy uniform structure was introduced in [7] as a fuzzy counterpart of the concept of gauge associated with a uniformity. In fact, the category of fuzzy uniform structures is isomorphic to that of uniform spaces. Here, we introduce two other concepts of fuzzy uniform structures which allow to establish two categories isomorphic to the categories of probabilistic uniform spaces and Lowen uniform spaces, respectively. This sheds light on the relationship between these fuzzy uniformities and classical uniformities. Furthermore, we obtain a factorization of Lowen's adjoint functors omega(*) and iota which establish a relationship between the categories of uniform spaces and Lowen uniform spaces.Research supported under grant MTM2015-64373-P (MINECO/FEDER, UE).Rodríguez López, J. (2017). Fuzzy uniform structures. Filomat. 31(15):4763-4779. https://doi.org/10.2298/FIL1715763R47634779311