democratization and institutional change in mexico the logic of partial insulation this article builds on previous work examining the incentives facing authoritarian elites to use central bank reform to constrain the economic policy choices of future governments it suggests that because creating an autonomous agency is costly authoritarian elites will only cede policymaking powers to an independent body commensurate with the degree of democratic threat that they face when a transition is looming insulation should be complete so as to tie the hands of successor governments to the greatest extent possible but when this risk of replacement is milder incumbent elites will be careful to design rules that continue to afford them some margin of maneuver as long as they remain in office the mexican central bank reform of 1993 is used as an illustration of the partial insulation strategy at work

economic dynamics in the malthusian era evidence from the 1609 spanish expulsion of the moriscos we investigate economic dynamics in the malthusian era using the 1609 expulsion of moriscos from spain sharp population declines in former morisco districts were accompanied by decreased output and increased per capita output while these short run results are consistent with standard malthusian predictions malthusian convergence was delayed up to 1786 in former morisco districts archival sources and historical accounts suggest extractive institutions and cultural differences may have contributed to delayed convergence in population and output per capita this historic episode provides an unusually rich setting to examine malthusian dynamics highlighting the potential for sustained differences in per capita output in the malthusian era

from physical to human capital accumulation inequality and the process of development this paper develops a growth theory that captures the replacement of physical capital accumulation by human capital accumulation as a prime engine of growth along the process of development it argues that the positive impact of inequality on the growth process was reversed in this process in early stages of the industrial revolution when physical capital accumulation was the prime source of growth inequality stimulated development by channelling resources towards individuals with a higher propensity to save as human capital emerged as a growth engine equality alleviated adverse effects of credit constraints on human capital accumulation stimulating the growth process this research develops a growth theory that captures the endogenous replacement of physical capital accumulation by human capital accumulation as a prime engine of economic growth in the transition from the industrial revolution to modern growth the proposed theory offers a unified account for the effect of income inequality on the growth process during this transition it argues that the replacement of physical capital accumulation by human capital accumulation as a prime engine of economic growth changed the qualitative impact of inequality on the process of development in the early stages of the industrial revolution when physical capital accumulation was the prime source of economic growth inequality enhanced the process of development by channelling resources towards individuals whose marginal propensity to save is higher in the later stages of the transition to modern growth as human capital emerged as a prime engine of economic growth equality alleviated the adverse effect of credit constraints on human capital accumulation and stimulated the growth process the proposed theory unifies two fundamental approaches regarding the effect of income distribution on the process of development the classical approach and the credit market imperfection approach 1 the classical approach was originated by smith 1776 and was further interpreted and developed by keynes 1920 lewis 1954 kaldor 1957 and bourguignon 1981 according to this approach saving rates are an increasing function of wealth and inequality therefore channels resources towards individuals whose marginal propensity to save 1 the socio political economy approach provides an alternative mechanism equality diminishes the tendency for socio political instability or distortionary redistribution and hence it stimulates investment and economic growth see the comprehensive survey of benabou 1996b

central bank independence a critical view from a developing country perspective abstract merely establishing an independent central bank may not bring about its professed benefits in developing countries with shallow financial markets where there is limited scope for a truly independent monetary policy the benefits of an independent central bank may be eroded by conflicts between fiscal and monetary policy and by inherent problems of central bank institutional design so that problems of dynamic inconsistency associated with monetary policy are not solved but merely transformed less developed countries wishing to establish a low inflation path should concentrate on instituting financial policy reforms that bolster opposition to inflation and institutional arrangements that force discipline on fiscal policy directly rather than indirectly through monetary policy

the gender gap fertility and growth changes in fertility have long been recognized as important correlates of economic growth with the relationship between the level of fertility and the level of income per capita being one of the strongest observable correlations in cross country data this paper examines the linkages between fertility and growth theory the structure of the model is presented in sections on production couples decision making system dynamics and steady state equilibria the first component of the model is that increases in capital per worker raise womens relative wages since capital is more complementary to womens labor input than to mens the second component is that increasing womens relative wages reduces fertility by raising the cost of children more than household income finally lower fertility raises the level of capital per worker a positive feedback loop generates demographic transition a rapid decline in fertility accompanied by accelerated output growth

political institutions and central bank independence a cross country analysis using three quantitative measures of central bank independence we apply ols and tsls regression methods to investigate the possible correlation between political liberty political instability and central bank independence for a sample of western democracies and highly democratic developing countries we show that cukierman s legal independence index is positively correlated with political freedom and regime political stability it is negatively correlated with party political stability for a sample of developing countries that excludes dictatorships we show that a special index of legal central bank autonomy is positively associated with political freedom and political stability finally we observe that for the same sample of nations the turnover index of central bank independence is not sensitive to our political variables

from malthusian stagnation to modern growth this paper investigates the historical evolution of the relationship among population growth technological change and standard of living the analysis focuses on two most important differences among the malthusian regime post malthusian regime and modern growth regime these were the behavior of income per capita and the relationship between the level of income per capita and the population growth rate the modern growth regime is characterized by steady growth in both income per capita and the level of technology in the malthusian regime technological progress and population growth was glacial by modern standards and income per capita was fairly constant in contrast to the modern growth regime the relationship between per capita income and population growth in the malthusian regime was positive post malthusian regime shared one characteristic with each of the two regimes in addition this paper developed and described an endogenous growth model consistent with the above mentioned transition process

some evolutionary economics of family partnerships the article focuses on the economics of family partnerships it states an allegory involving a prehistoric couple who split their responsibilities of gathering food and building a fire to create econometric models for family behavior in theory monogamous couples have exactly the same interest in their reproductive success hence completely shared interest in their children this is not the case in practice as a variety of marital problems divorce and remarriage adversely affect the equation the observed fact that an increase in a society s wealth tends to decrease family size runs counter to evolutionary biologic theory no one theory in economics or biology has an adequate explanation for the reduction in family size as wealth increases a variety of outside factors notably the decline in child mortality and the change from an agricultural to an urban society affect the models in both disciplines

electoral governance matters explaining the quality of elections in contemporary latin america this article provides a systematic cross national analysis of the role of electoral administration in explaining acceptable democratic presidential elections in 19 countries in latin america since the year 1980 or the first pivotal transitional election the authors provide two alternative measures of election administration one focused on the degree of partisanship or professional independence and another on formal legal institutional independence as well as on other key factors to test partial proportional odds ordered logit models predicting the probability of an acceptable flawed or failed electoral process the results show an important positive role for professional independent electoral commissions on electoral outcomes in latin america controlling for other socioeconomic and political factors formal legal independence matters when the rules of the game are likely to be respected in addition low quality elections are found disproportionately where incumbents seek reelection and where vic

failure to launch the role of land inequality in transition delays recent work in the growth literature has provided various explanations for transition delays and the great divergence this paper provides empirical support for one theory of transition delays initial land inequality our analysis is designed to elucidate the channels via which land inequality can affect long run economic performance using a new historical data set for land inequality frankema 2009 we employ duration analysis to investigate whether higher levels of land inequality lead to longer delays in the extension of primary schooling we then investigate whether such delays affect long run economic performance via their effect on contemporaneous schooling our findings suggest that land inequality is a key determinant of delays in schooling and that such delays have a significant negative impact on long run output

who chooses to inflation target abstract in this article we seek what are the factors behind a country s decision to move to inflation targeting we find that high past inflation low debt levels and the absence of a nominal exchange rate anchor increase the probability that a country will end up opting for it

viewpoint sustainability malthus revisited the sustainability debate concerns whether the world will experience stable or improving living standards for the foreseeable future or whether the current trajectory will overtax the natural environment leading to a crash in living standards this paper selec tively reviews relevant research focusing on both ecological concerns and technological progress and asks whether sustainability would be problematic without rapid population growth i suggest that continued demographic transition to lower fertility is the primary requirement for achieving sustainable development this is effectively a modern transla tion of malthus 1798 the paper also discusses the role of the malthusian cycle in human evolution jel classification q56 j10

do husbands and wives pool their resources further evidence this paper replicates results of an article showing that families with children increased expenditures on women s clothing relative to men s after implementation of a policy that shifted a child subsidy payment from the father to the mother these results were interpreted as evidence that families do not pool their income but allocate consumption based on income source however the current paper also finds an increase in relative spending on women s clothing among childless couples a sample the policy change did not impact alternative explanations are explored for observing these patterns but none can rule out either bargaining or income pooling

political influence on the central bank international evidence political influence on the central bank is measured bere by looking at the probability that a central bank governor will be replaced shortly after a political change of government the governor changes about half the time witbin six months of a nonconstitutional or other radical change of government a military coup or a restoration of democracy the governor is much less likely to change within six months following a routine change in the head of government about one fourth of the time in developing countries and one tenth in industrial countries these indicators vary across countries and correlate statistically with inflation and its variability and with real growth and real interest rates differences in the vulnerability of the central bank to political instability in political instability itself and in central bank turnover in nonpolitical periods seem to be a major part of the explanation for why developing countries have on average higher and more variable inflation than industrial countries do

population technology and fragmentation the european miracle revisited abstract the effects of political fragmentation on long run development seem to have changed over the course of human history technological leaders used to be empires but the industrial revolution started in the fragmented europe this paper sets up a model to help us think about this puzzle there are two sets of mechanisms at play a standard scale effect which benefits unified regions since technology is a non rivalrous good and several competition effects both negative like wasteful armies and positive incentives to invest in new technologies we apply the model to analyze the preindustrial divergence between china and europe

who is afraid of political instability abstract an unstable macroeconomic environment is often regarded as detrimental to economic growth among the sources contributing to such instability much of the blame has been assigned to political issues this paper empirically tests for a causal and negative long run relation between political instability and economic growth but finds no evidence of such a relationship sensitivity analysis indicates that there is a contemporaneous negative relationship but also that in the long run and ignoring institutional factors the group of african countries plays the determining role

do husbands and wives pool their resources evidence from the united kingdom child benefit common preference models of family behavior imply income pooling a restriction on family demand functions such that only the sum of husband s income and wife s income affects the allocation of goods and time testing the pooling hypothesis is difficult because most family income sources are not exogenous to the allocations being analyzed in this paper we present an alternative test based on a natural experiment a policy change in the united kingdom that transferred a substantial child allowance to wives in the late 1970s using family expenditure survey data we find strong evidence that a shift toward greater expenditures on women s clothing and children s clothing relative to men s clothing coincided with this income redistribution

the effectiveness of monetary policy anchors firm level evidence analyses of monetary policy posit that exchange rate pegs inflation targets and central bank independence can help anchor private sector inflation expec tations yet there are few direct tests of this argument we offer cross national micro level evidence on the effectiveness of monetary anchors in controlling private sector inflation concerns using firm level data from eighty one countries approximately 10 000 firms we find evidence that international anchors exchange rate commit ments correlate significantly with a substantial reduction in private sector concerns about inflation while domestic anchors inflation targeting and central bank inde pendence do not our conjecture is that private sector inflation expectations are more responsive to exchange rate anchors because they are more transparent more con straining and more costly than domestic anchoring arrangements the literature on monetary policy highlights the role of monetary institutions in stabilizing private sector inflation expectations central bank independence cbi inflation targeting it and fixed exchange rates pegs are widely viewed as insti tutions that have the capacity to mitigate private sector concerns that policymak ers will exploit them after they have locked in their price wage and investment decisions while other empirical research explores the institutional correlates of inflation and its variability yielding mixed results we use firm level data in our study to directly assess the impact of monetary anchors on private sector inflation concerns we find evidence that pegs mitigate firm owners concerns with infla tion but that domestic anchors such as it and cbi are uncorrelated with our micro indicators of inflation expectations considerable research has investigated the use of it cbi and pegs as institu tions that establish monetary policy credibility whereas these anchors are expected

financial system development in transition economies this paper provides an overview of the major issues with respect to financial system development in transition economies which were discussed at a conference in groningen the netherlands december 1997 after a brief remark on the role of financial system design during economic transition the paper focuses on the role of stock markets in the process of financial intermediation with emphasis on the role of regulations in these markets the role of deposit insurance to improve bank system stability and the importance of an independent central bank measurement issues relating to central bank independence and its impact on inflation and growth 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

human capital fertility and the industrial revolution the industrial revolution and the demographic transition are the two great forces that explain the upward march of modern incomes this paper sets out the empirical realities attempts to unify these events through theories of human capital investment have to meet the major difficulty is to form an explanation which connects them which can also reconcile the seeming differences in fertility behavior over time and in cross section in the pre industrial world the transition period and the modern world jel j1 n3 o4

how citizens participate in macroeconomic policy international experience and implications for poverty reduction summary many developing and transitioning countries have difficulty sticking to sound macroeconomic policy international donors are pushing recipient countries to forge a public consensus on macroeconomic policy as a means to enhance sustainability and impacts on the poor finance and budget officials central bank staff and economic policymakers however often assume that citizens cannot understand or contribute to macroeconomic policy yet the poor often do not trust the government to make the right decisions for them how can citizen participation help bridge this gap based on a review of international experience the paper explores this question and identifies how development administrators can employ civic participation in macroeconomic policy the discussion highlights where citizens have the greatest options for participation and notes the impacts participation can have on fostering policies and outcomes that target poverty reduction 2003 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

the political economy of monetary institutions in recent decades countries have experimented with a variety of monetary institutions including alternative exchange rate arrangements and different levels of central bank independence political economists have analyzed the choice of these institutions emphasizing their role in resolving both the time inconsistency problem and dilemmas created by an open economy this first generation work however suffers from a central limitation it studies exchange rate regimes and central bank institutions in isolation from one another without investigating how one monetary institution affects the costs and benefits of the other by contrast the contributors to this volume analyze the choice of exchange rate regime and central bank independence together and in so doing present a second generation of research on the determinants of monetary institutions the articles incorporate both economic and political factors in explaining the choice of monetary institutions investigating how political institutions democratic processes political party competition and interest group pressures affect the balance between economic and distributional policy objectives

how does fiscal decentralization affect aggregate national and subnational government size abstract beyond conducting the usual regression analysis of the relationship between fiscal decentralization and aggregate government size national and subnational combined this paper makes the first attempt to examine how different fiscal decentralization measures affect the sizes of national and subnational state and local combined governments an econometric analysis using panel data from 32 industrial and developing countries 1980 1994 finds that 1 expenditure decentralization leads to smaller national governments larger subnational governments and larger aggregate governments 2 revenue decentralization increases subnational governments by less than it reduces national governments hence leads to smaller aggregate governments and 3 vertical imbalance tends to increase the sizes of subnational national and aggregate governments

domestic capacity and the implementation gap in regional trade agreements regional trade agreements rtas all over the world share many of the same institutional features from dispute settlement mechanisms to legalized language to escape clauses and espouse many of the same goals but many of those features are unimplemented in different contexts across the world many observers have pointed to an implementation gap in rtas most of which promise much but deliver relatively little but offer no explanation for this gap i argue that this is explained by domestic capacity in countries where the rule of law is weak and infrastructure is insufficient and particularly when those elements interact it is difficult to implement trade agreements this article utilizes expert survey data to demonstrate that member states with poor infrastructure and little respect for the rule of law are unable to carry out the obligations they agree to in their trade agreements domestic capacity both physical and institutional can explain the implementation gap between what agreements promise and wh

the effect of central bank independence on inflation in developing countries abstract ismihan and ozkan ismihan m ozkan f g 2004 does central bank independence lower inflation economics letters 84 305 309 provide theoretical support for prior studies empirical findings of positive or no significant relationship between central bank independence cbi and average inflation performance the present paper argues that these findings are spurious because the studies use an econometric methodology that does not account for the measurement error in their proxies for cbi this paper employs an econometric methodology that does account for this measurement error and finds a strong negative relationship between cbi and inflation even though the sample is limited to developing countries

macro prudential governance and central banks facts and drivers abstract the great crisis has highlighted the importance of establishing macro prudential architectures to address problems of financial stability central banks are always part of macro prudential settings but their role is far from being homogeneous across countries reflecting the fact that according to economic theory there are pros and cons in extending central bank influence to macro prudential supervision the issue is then genuinely empirical are there any meaningful drivers explaining the actual choices made by policymakers about the central bank s role in macro prudential governance we identify three potential drivers micro supervision involvement monetary policy discretion overall institutional independence and test for their relevance by analysing current institutional settings in 31 advanced and emerging market economies we find that central bankers already in charge of micro supervision and less politically independent are more likely to get extended macro prudential powers the same is true if they have low monetary policy discretion being constrained by a monetary stability objective we interpret these results by using a political economy perspective

central bank reform liberalization and inflation in transition economies an international perspective this paper develops extensive new data on the legal independence of new central banks in 26 former socialist economies fse this data is constructed using the codification system for measuring legal independence developed in cukierman webb and neyapti 1992 and in chapter 19 of cukierman 1992 this makes it comparable with earlier data on central bank independence cbi in the industrial democracies and in non fse developing countries and permits experimentation with alternative indices of cbi like those reviewed in eijffinger and van keulen 1995 the new indices of independence indicate that central bank cb reform in the fse during the nineties has been quite ambitious in spite of the large price shocks induced by the transformation from plan to market reformers in those countries chose to create central banks with levels of legal independence that are substantially higher on average than those of developed economies during the eighties based on data from 1989 through 1998 the evidence in the paper suggests that cbi is unrelated to inflation during the early stages of liberalization but for sufficiently high and sustained levels of liberalization and controlling for variables like price decontrols and wars legal cbi and inflation are significantly and negatively related these findings are consistent with the view that legal cbi no matter how high cannot contain the powerful inflationary impact of wide scale liberalization of formerly controlled prices but once the process of liberalization has gathered sufficient momentum legal independence becomes effective in slowing inflation down and the cumulative liberalization index developed by de melo et al 1996 becomes relatively less important the paper also presents evidence on factors that affect the level of cbi and examines the relation between inflation and cbi within a broader sample composed of the transition and of the developed economies

divided we stand united we fall the hume north jones mechanism for the rise of europe the great divergence in incomes between europe and the rest of the world occurred relatively recently why was it that western europe once a backward outpost on the fringes of the eurasian continent able to dominate in terms of income and technology the previously successful eastern economies several mechanisms have been identi ed to account for the rise of europe this paper formalizes one important mechanism the intellectual origins of which can be traced back to hume and weber and which was fully though informally articulated by e l jones this mechanism emphasizes the contrast between the european states system and the eastern empires political competition for a mobile tax base in a states system forces rulers to expropriate less from their subjects and to supply relatively more public services by effectively limiting the exit options of the ruled an empire rewards its ruler with a captive tax base that can be subjected to relatively higher levels of expropriation without a similar rise in public services provided the states system thus encourages higher levels of capital accumulation while the empire stises it the successes of the eastern empires in their consolidation phase are due to the competition they initially faced from neighboring states since europe escaped such consolidation the process of accumulation there never faced the impediments its eastern counterparts did the paper thus also provides a structural explanation for the emergence of institutions in europe that led to relatively secure property rights

inflation and central bank independence a meta regression analysis using 59 studies we perform a meta regression analysis of studies examining the relationship between inflation and central bank independence cbi the studies considered are very different with respect to the cbi indicator used the sample of countries and time periods covered model specification estimators used and publication outlet we conclude that there is a significant publication bias however we also find a significant genuine effect of cbi on inflation differences between studies are not caused by differences in cbi indicators used

product variety and the demographic transition why does the rate of population growth decline in the face of economic growth we show that growing product variety may induce a permanent reduction in the demand for children and a continuous rise in income and consumption c 2009 elsevier b v all rights reserved

regionalism within multilateralism the wto trade policy review of canada the world trade organisation published a trade policy review of canada in 2003 in this paper we discuss the wto review and augment the discussion by presenting original data and reviewing the empirical literature the wto concludes that canada s trade regime is open and transparent but maintains barriers in a few important sectors we subject this claim to empirical scrutiny comparing canada s actual imports to a multilateral benchmark based on the gravity equation we show that canada imports about what should be expected given the size of its economy and its location in a second benchmarking exercise we show that canada s anti dumping initiations are in proportion to its imports and that canada s exports are targeted less by other countries anti dumping investigations than what might be expected based on canadian export levels like many other countries canada has pursued trade liberalisation through the world trade organisation while simultaneously signing multiple regional trade agreements our summary of the recent literature indicates that canada s regional trade agreements have generated more trade creation than trade diversion canada has also spurred imports from the least developed countries by unilaterally eliminating tariffs and quota barriers on 48 of the world s poorest countries in january 2003 we also discuss canadian progress in opening its agriculture and clothing industries overall we conclude that canada appears committed to advancing globalisation through multilateral trade liberalisation supplemented by unilateral and bilateral initiatives

income distribution non convexities and the fertility income relationship this paper presents a model of inequality income determination and fertility that is consistent with aggregated stylized facts and individual survey data on fertility and income it shows that indivisibilities in human capital investments limit the possibility of trade off between the quality and the quantity of children this generates a non monotonic relationship between income and fertility at the micro level on the aggregate the total fertility rate can increase or decrease with income depending on the income distribution of the population and on the private cost of education

inflation and central bank independence revisited abstract king and ma economics letters 72 2001 95 claim that evidence which they report for a sample of 42 countries shows that central bank independence cbi and inflation are not significantly related the present paper argues that this putative failure of cbi to affect inflation is due to king and ma s use of an econometric methodology that does not account for the inaccuracy of their proxy for cbi employing an alternative econometric methodology that tackles the measurement error problem directly this paper finds a strong negative relationship between cbi and inflation

can maternity benefits have long term effects on childbearing evidence from soviet russia this paper quantifies the effects of russia s 1981 expansion in maternity benefits on completed childbearing the program provided one year of partially paid parental leave and a small cash transfe

decentralization and inflation commitment collective action or continuity do political and fiscal decentralization make it easier or harder to control inflation statistical analysis of average annual inflation rates in a panel of 87 countries in the 1970s and 1980s found no clear relationship between decentralization and the level of inflation political decentralization however does appear to reduce change in countries relative inflation rates over time by creating additional veto players federal structure may lock in existing patterns of monetary policy whether inflationary or strict among the mostly developed countries that started with low inflation inflation tended to increase more slowly in federations than in unitary states among the mostly developing countries that started with high inflation inflation tended to increase faster in the federations there is evidence that political decentralization locks in a country s degree of practical central bank independence whether high or low and the relative hardness or softness of budget constraints on subnational governments

inflation and central bank independence conventional wisdom redux until recently there existed a broad consensus that an important institution for combating inflation is a central bank insulated from political influence this conventional wisdom has been challenged by among others campillo and miron 1997 who present evidence purporting to show that if an inflation regression equation is expanded to include not only their proxy for central bank independence cbi but other regressors as well then the negative correlation between inflation and cbi vanishes the present paper argues that allegations of the demise of this nexus should not be accepted uncritically this paper which reports the results of an analysis of covariance structures finds a strong negative relationship between inflation and cbi

does central bank independence really matter new evidence for developing countries using a new indicator abstract this paper provides a new indicator for central bank independence cbi based on the turnover rate of central bank governors for 82 developing countries over the period 1980 1989 using this new indicator it is concluded that this proxy for cbi is related to inflation only if the high inflation countries are included in the sample the view that both cbi and inflation are caused by effective opposition towards inflation is not supported using both the extreme bound analysis and sala i martin s method we do not find evidence that cbi is robustly related to economic growth

intra household resource allocation an inferential approach if household income is pooled and then allocated to maximize welfare then income under the control of mothers and fathers should have the same impact on demand with survey data on family health and nutrition in brazil the equality of parental income effects is rejected unearned income in the hands of a mother has a bigger effect on her family s health than income under the control of a father for child survival probabilities the effect is almost twenty times bigger the common preference or neoclassical model of the household is rejected if unearned income is measured with error and income is pooled then the ratio of maternal to paternal income effects should be the same equality of the ratios cannot be rejected there is also evidence for gender preference mothers prefer to devote resources to improving the nutritional status of their daughters fathers to sons

checks and balances and the supply of central bank independence abstract the paper analyzes the institutional conditions under which policymakers can credibly commit to an independent central bank and thereby mitigate the well known time consistency problem in monetary policy it is shown theoretically that granting independence via a statute is only credible for legislative systems with at least two heterogeneous decision making bodies which both have veto rights for example bicameral systems this thesis is supported by empirical evidence the legal independence of central banks is significantly higher in those oecd countries whose legislative processes are characterized by extensive checks and balances furthermore the negative relation between legal independence and inflation is larger in countries with checks and balances than in countries without checks and balances

the africa growth and opportunity act and its rules of origin generosity undermined the african growth and opportunity act agoa signed into american law on may 18 2000 is a major plank of u s initiatives toward the african continent the act aims broadly at improving economic policymaking in africa enabling countries to embrace globalization and securing durable political and economic stability as an incentive for africa to adopt the necessary policy reform agoa offers increased preferential access for african exports to the united states this paper describes the provisions of agoa and assesses its quantitative impact on african exports particularly in the apparel sector its main conclusions are 1 agoa will provide real opportunities to africa even on conservative estimates about africa s supply response africa s non oil exports could be increased by about 8 11 percent 2 however the medium term gains could have been much greater if agoa had not imposed certain conditions and not excluded certain items from its coverage the most important condition is the stringent rule of origin that is the requirement that exporters source certain inputs from within africa or the united states estimates suggest that the absence of these conditions would have magnified the impact nearly five fold resulting in an overall increase in non oil exports of us 0 54 billion compared with the us 100 us 140 million increase that is expected in the presence of these restrictions these restrictions particularly on apparel will come at a particularly inopportune time as africa will be exposed to competition from other developing countries when the quotas maintained on the latters exports under the multi fiber arrangement mfa are eliminated africa s apparel exports will be lower by over 30 percent with the dismantling of the mfa if on the other hand agoa had provided unrestricted access the negative impact of the dismantling could be nearly fully offset

population and income is there a puzzle abstract this note presents wide evidence on the relationship between population and income for 125 countries for which data was available for the period 1950 2000 the main result is that there is a weak but negative relationship between population growth and per capita gdp as income increases population expands at a slower rate this relationship appears to be stronger for african countries and for asian countries before 1970

replacing a disobedient central bank governor with a docile one a novel measure of central bank independence and its effect on inflation this paper identifies two mechanisms that empirical papers on central bank independence assume to be embedded in the yardstick measure of turnover rate of central bank governor i the removal of a governor who is perceived as a challenger by the government and ii whether his her replacement is an ally of the government we identify the first mechanism with premature exits of central bankers and the second by examining whether or not the incoming governor is drawn from the ranks of the executive branch of the government we find that only premature exits and replacements with government allies increase inflation

the empirical content of nash bargained household behavior in households whose allocation decisions can be represented as nash bargained household decisions extrahousehold environmental parameters eeps serve as pure shifters of the threat points the comparative statics of changes in demands due to changes in these eeps are given these are incorporated into a comprehensive statement of the empirical content of nash bargained household behavior including a nash generalization of barten s 1966 fundamental matrix equation of the theory of consumer demand estimation and data requirements are discussed along with nested testing of the following structure the neoclassical model is nested in the nash bargained model which in turn is nested in an unrestricted model of household demands emphasized throughout is the enriched menu of explanatory variables for demand analysis provided by the nash model as well as the model s ability to jointly analyze i household formation and ii intrahousehold allocation decisions

central bank independence and monetary control ing from details these conclusions imply that inflation is lower the higher is cbi and that given independence countries that pre announce monetary policy have even lower rates of inflation furthermore there is no evidence that cbi retards growth or investment as a matter of fact for ldcs the evidence points in the opposite direction low independence is associated with lower growth and investment some economists feel that excessive independence may interfere with the potential stabilisatory function of monetary policy since fluctuations in the growth rate of the economy are found to be unrelated to cbi this does not appear to be the case iii commitment via central bank independence and

population technology and growth from malthusian stagnation to the demographic transition and beyond this paper develops a unied growth model that captures the historical evolution of population technology and output it encompasses theendogenous transitionbetween three regimes that have characterized economic development the economy evolves from amalthusianregime wheretechnologicalprogressis slow andpopulationgrowthprevents anysustainedriseinincomepercapita intoapost malthusianregime wheretechnological progress rises and population growth absorbs only part of output growth ultimately a demographic transition reverses the positive relationship between income and population growth andtheeconomyentersamoderngrowthregimewithreducedpopulationgrowth

mobile capital domestic institutions and electorally induced monetary and fiscal policy the literature on global integration and national policy autonomy often ignores a central result from open economy macroeconomics capital mobility constrains monetary policy when the exchange rate is fixed and fiscal policy when the exchange rate is flexible similarly examinations of the electoral determinants of monetary and fiscal policy typically ignore international pressures altogether we develop a formal model to analyze the interaction between fiscal and monetary policymakers under various exchange rate regimes and the degrees of central bank independence we test the model using data from oecd countries we find evidence that preelectoral monetary expansions occur only when the exchange rate is flexible and central bank independence is low preelectoral fiscal expansions occur when the exchange rate is fixed we then explore the implications of our model for arguments that emphasize the partisan sources of macroeconomic policy and for the conduct of fiscal policy after economic and monetary union in europe

trade creation and trade diversion in the canada united states free trade agreement in this paper the changes in trade patterns introduced by the canada united states free trade agreement are examined variation in the extent of tariff liberalization under the agreement is used to identify the impact of tariff liberalization on the growth of trade both with member countries and non member countries data at the commodity level are used and the results indicate that the canada united states free trade agreement had substantial trade creation effects with little evidence of trade diversion jel classification f13 f14

the american family and family economics abstract gary becker s path breaking treatise on the family 1981 subjected individuals decisions about sex marriage childbearing and childrearing to rational choice analysis the american family has changed radically in recent decades we survey these changes as well as the ongoing effort to understand partnering parenting and care of the elderly as results of maximizing choices made by individuals first we describe the recent changes in the american family the separation of sex marriage and childbearing fewer children and smaller households converging work and education patterns for men and women class divergence in partnering and parenting strategies and the replacement of family functions and home production by government programs and market transactions second we examine recent work in family economics that attempts to explain these changes third we point out some challenging areas for further analysis and highlight issues of commitment in two primary family relationships those b

do central bank law reforms affect the term in office of central bank governors in this paper we confirm the hypothesis that central bank independence reforms reduce the likelihood that a central bank governor will be replaced however the strength of this effect depends on the rule of law and the degree of political polarization c 2009 elsevier b v all rights reserved

income and outcomes a structural model of intrahousehold allocation there is evidence from several sources that one cannot treat many person households as a single decision maker if this is the case then factors such as the relative incomes of the household members may affect the final allocation decisions made by the household we develop a method of identifying how incomes affect outcomes given conventional family expenditure data the basic assumption we make is that household decision processes lead to efficient outcomes we apply our method to a sample of canadian couples with no children we find that the final allocations of expenditures on each partner depend significantly on their relative incomes and ages and on the level of lifetime wealth

vintage human capital demographic trends and endogenous growth we study how economic growth is affected by demographics in an overlapping generations model with a realistic survival law individuals optimally chose the dates at which they leave school to enter the labor market and at which they retire endogenous growth arises thanks to the accumulation of generation specific human capital favorable shifts in the survival probabilities always induce longer schooling and later retirement but have an ambiguous effect on growth the relationship between the growth of population and per capita growth is hump shaped increases in longevity can be responsible for a switch from a no growth regime to a sustained growth regime and for a positive relationship between fertility and growth to vanish

income distribution and the process of development abstract this paper examines the evolution of the role of income distribution in the process of development it presents a unified model that encompasses the transition between distinct regimes that have characterized the relationship between income inequality and the process of development this unified modeling provides an intertemporal reconciliation for conflicting viewpoints about the effect of inequality on economic growth the classical approach which argues that inequality stimulates capital accumulation and economic growth and the modern approach which suggests in contrast that for sufficiently wealthy economies equality stimulates investment in human capital and economic growth

do wto members have more liberal trade policy abstract this paper uses 68 measures of trade policy and liberalization to ask if membership in the world trade organization wto and its predecessor the general agreement on tariffs and trade gatt is associated with more liberal trade policy almost no measures of trade policy are significantly correlated with gatt wto membership trade liberalizations when they occur usually lag gatt entry by many years and the gatt wto often admits countries that are closed and remain closed for years the exception to the rule is that wto members tend to have slightly more freedom as judged by the heritage foundation s index