Early Stages Of Economic Development Research Articles

The Navajo People and Uranium Mining

The Navajo Nation covers a vast stretch of northeastern Arizona and parts of New Mexico and Utah. The area is also home to more than one thousand abandoned uranium mines and four former uranium mills, a legacy of the US nuclear program. In the early 1940s, the Navajo Nation was in the early stages of economic development, recovering from the devastating stock reduction period of 1930. Navajo men sought work away from the reservation on railroads and farm work in Phoenix and California. Then came the nuclear age and uranium was discovered on the reservation. Work became available and young Navajo men grabbed the jobs in the uranium mines. The federal government and the mining companies knew of the hazards of uranium mining; however, the miners were never informed. They had to find out about the danger on their own. When they went to western doctors, they were diagnosed with lung cancer and were simply told they were dying. A team of Navajo people and supportive whites began the Navajo Uranium Miner Oral History and Photography Project from which this book arose. That project team, based at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, recruited the speakers who told their stories, which are reproduced here. There are also narrative chapters that assess the experiences of the Navajo people from diverse perspectives (history, psychology, culture, advocacy, and policy). While the points of view taken are similar, there is a range of perspectives as to what would constitute justice.

Financial development and economic growth: Convergence or divergence?

This study tests for convergence in financial development and economic growth by incorporating the interaction between the real and financial sectors into an otherwise traditional test for convergence. The results show strong evidence for conditional convergence. Middle- and high-income countries conditionally converge to parallel growth paths not only in per-capita GDP, but also in financial development. The mutually reinforcing relationship between financial development and economic growth is stronger in the early stage of economic development, and this relationship diminishes as sustained economic growth gets under way. As such, low-income countries with a relatively well-developed financial sector are more likely to catch up to their middle- and high-income counterparts, and those with a relatively under-developed financial sector are more likely to be trapped in poverty. This finding explains the observed “great divergence” between poor and rich countries. Another finding is that, while human capital is more important to growth in the early stage of economic development, economic freedom becomes more important in the later stage.

Growth, Girls’ Education, and Female Labor: A Longitudinal Analysis

The link between economic growth and labor market participation is complex and elusive. Investments in female education are expected to increase women's productivity at home, but the relationship to labor force participation is less clear. Research has identified a U-shaped relationship where women leave the labor market at early stages of economic development and return when a white-collar sector develops (Sinha, 1967; Durand, 1975; Pampel & Tanaka, 1986; Goldin, 1995; Horton, 1996; Mammen & Paxson, 2000; Juhn & Ureta, 2003). This study replicates previous models using time-series analysis and consideration of large increases in female schooling over the past 30 years. The results suggest that investments in female education can overcome potential reductions in female participation due to increases in wealth, and policies to invest in girls' education appear to have benefits for labor markets, as well as family production.

Challenges in obesity epidemiology

This paper was commissioned by the Foresight programme of the Office of Science and Innovation, Department of Trade and Industry © 2007 Queen’s Printer and Controller of HMSO; published with permission Journal compilation © 2007 The International Association for the Study of Obesity. obesity reviews 8 (Suppl. 1) , 1–11 1 obesity reviews (2007) 8 (Suppl. 1) , 1–11 OnlineOpen: This article is available free online at www.blackwell-synergy.com Blackwell Publishing LtdOxford, UKOBRObesity Reviews1467-7881© 2007 Queen’s Printer and Controller of HMSO; published with permission; Journal compilation © 2007 The International Association for the Study of Obesity ? 20078 ••111Review Article Challenges in obesity epidemiology D. Canoy & I. Buchan

Trends in overweight by socio-economic status in Vietnam: 1992 to 2002

To explore socio-economic factors associated with rising rates of overweight among Vietnamese adults. The study was based on three national surveys of socio-economic factors and health conducted over a 10-year period. The studies were: the Vietnamese Living Standard Survey 1992-1993 (11 982 participants); the Vietnamese Living Standard Survey 1997-1998 (15 975 participants); and the Vietnamese National Health Survey 2001-2002 (94 656 participants). Male and female adults >18 years old were stratified by gender, age group, area of residence, occupation, education and relative food expenditures. Overweight was defined using body mass index (BMI) > or = 25 kg m(-2). Overweight rates in Vietnam more than doubled between 1992 and 2002 (from 2.0 to 5.7%). Significant increases were observed for men and women, in urban and rural areas, and for all age groups. In univariate analyses, both age and higher socio-economic status were associated with higher rates of overweight. Using the most recent survey, urban populations were more likely to be overweight than rural ones (odds ratio (OR) = 1.79), white-collar workers were more likely to be overweight than manual labourers (OR = 1.95) and persons in the top level of food expenditures were more likely to be overweight than persons in the bottom level (OR = 4.96) after adjustment for other factors. Education was inversely associated with overweight after adjusting for covariates. Economic growth and improved standard of living are associated with higher rates of overweight in nations in early stages of economic development. In Vietnam, higher rates of overweight were observed among the higher income and occupation groups.

On the Location and 'Lock-In' of Cities: Geography vs. Transportation Technology

We investigate where cities are located in a spatial economy and why they tend to get 'locked-in' at particular sites. Building on Fujita and Krugman (1995) we show that geography and/or transportation technology must exhibit some 'non-smoothness' for cities to possibly become 'locked-in' in location space. Our results establish that no asymmetric monocentric equilibrium can be generically sustained when space is homogenous and transportation technologies are 'smooth', whereas it can in the presence of transportation hubs and/or concave transport cost functions. This suggests that cities are drawn to transportation hubs during the early stages of economic development, whereas they can be sustained almost everywhere during later stages.

Agricultural Productivity and Economic Growth: Role of Tax Revenues and Infrastructures

To encourage economic growth in a developing economy, higher agricultural productivity has been believed to enhance the manufacturing sector's development, which provides the transition into industrialization. Although this positive linkage between agricultural productivity and economic growth has been judged to be incorrect, based upon the comparative advantage argument in a model of small‐open economies by Matsuyama (1992), this article revisits the linkage by extending Matsuyama's model by introducing the revenue‐generating effect, which is missing in his model. As agriculture is an important source of taxation in an early stage of economic development, higher agricultural productivity generates more tax revenues and facilitates spending on infrastructure. By introducing government taxation and infrastructure expenditure, we show that under proper conditions, higher agricultural productivity creates a positive growth effect via the revenue generation that dominates the negative growth effect through the comparative advantage. Moreover, introducing infrastructure expenditure may shift the manufacturing sector's original comparative disadvantage into comparative advantage, thereby enabling a trapped economy to take off and eventually industrialize. From the early stages of economic development in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, we can quantitatively assess an obvious net positive effect of agricultural productivity upon labor allocation and economic growth.

Agricultural Productivity and Economic Growth: Role of Tax Revenues and Infrastructures

1. IntroductionDevelopment economists such as Rostow (1960) and Ranis and Fei (1961) have stressed a positive linkage between agricultural productivity and industrialization. The positive link, however, has been argued to be nonexistent by Matsuyama (1992) in a two-sector endogenous growth model of small-open economies with a low elasticity of agricultural goods and the existence of learning-by-doing only in the domestic manufacturing sector.1 As a result of comparative advantage, higher agricultural productivity solicits labor inputs from the manufacturing sector in his model, leading to lower learning-by-doing and economic growth.Matsuyama's results, however, may not be consistent with what has actually happened in Japan and other East Asian economies. In Japan a land reform has been implemented, and allocation of resources to agricultural research has been increased since the Meiji Restoration. As a result of agricultural technical progress,2 agricultural productivity in Japan is much higher than before the Meiji Restoration. In particular, evidence has shown that the agricultural technical change after the Meiji Restoration tends to increase nonagricultural output by pushing resources out of the agricultural sector into the nonagricultural sector. For example, see Yamaguchi and Binswanger (1975, table 7) for the quantitative effects of the agricultural technical change in Japan on nonagricultural output (column 3) and on input reallocation (columns 5 and 7) in 1880-1965. Similarly, the agricultural technical change was higher in Korea's and Taiwan's early stages of economic development, as they have founded agricultural research institutes and farmers' associations during the Japanese colonial period3 and implemented land reforms after World War II. For evidence, see Mason et al. (1980, chapter 7) for the case of Korea and Thorbecke (1979) for the case of Taiwan. A World Bank (1982, p. 45) study reports that for the 23 developing countries whose agricultural growth rate in the 1970s exceeded 3% a year, 17 countries had a GDP growth rate above 5% a year in the same period. Finally, using cross-country data for 14 Asian developing countries in 1960-1986, Mellor (1995) finds a positive and significant relationship between growth rate of per capita agricultural and nonagricultural GDPs, in which both agricultural and nonagricultural sectors grow more rapidly than 31 sub-Saharan and 20 Latin American countries. These above observations lead to interesting questions as to what mechanism lies in the positive impact of accelerated agricultural growth on nonagricultural growth. What policies might increase the efficiency with which a productive agricultural sector moves a nonagricultural sector forward?The purpose of this study is to revisit the linkages between agricultural productivity and economic growth with a government policy. Our model is based on Matsuyama's (1992) framework, with a small twist, so that we can clearly identify the mechanism leading to a positive relationship. The departure in this article lies in introducing a government, which collects taxes and then conducts expenditures on infrastructures. An important role played by higher agricultural productivity in an early stage of economic development is the one by which it renders the government larger tax revenues, so that larger expenditure on infrastructures is facilitated.4 In a study investigating Taiwan's rice-for-fertilizer bartering system in the 1950s and 1960s, Koo (1996, table 2) finds that the resulting hidden taxes on rice alone account for 10-20% of total tax revenue in the period extending from 1950 to 1969. Along with other taxes, the agricultural sector is thus an important source of government revenue in a developing economy.5 Following Barro (1991), public expenditure on infrastructures is assumed to be productive, in that the learning-by-doing effect of the manufacturing sector becomes enhanced with public expenditure on infrastructures. …

Interaction between economic and financial development

This paper presents a model of financial and economic development which assumes the consumption of real resources by the financial sector. Financial development occurs endogenously as the economy reaches a critical threshold of economic development. Compared to financial autarky, financial intermediaries allocate savings, net of their costs of operation, to more productive investments. Whenever the technology financed by intermediaries is more capital-intensive than that operated in financial autarky, the growth effect of financial development is ambiguous. As a result, financial development may be unsustainable. However, when financial development is sustainable, the credit market becomes more competitive and more efficient over time, and this could eventually contribute to economic growth. Nonetheless, given monopolistic competition in the financial sector, the level of entry into the credit market is generally inefficient. For instance, with diminishing returns to specialisation, entrants might be too few at the early stages of economic development and too many later on.

An Empirical Test of a New Theory of Economic Growth - The Relationship Between External Debt and Economic Development

Analyses of the nature of debt relying on the theory of rational expectations conclude that the burden of public debt need not fall on future generations if the present generation anticipates the higher taxes needed in the future for debt servicing. However, there have been many instances where increases in budget deficits have been followed by a decrease in the savings propensity of the private sector. Foreign exchange earnings also have to be set aside. It appears that the main problem for countries in an early stage of economic development, is that often the borrowings have not been productively employed so that a national debt crises results. Foreign lenders become increasingly reluctant to lend further amounts to a country, which has been a net capital importer. This paper puts forward a methodology of testing a new theory of economic growth that emphasises key factors determining the success or failure of policies that change underlying economic structures, and hence would lead to an intrinsic monitoring of over-borrowing.

Wealth, Financial Intermediation and Growth

This paper presents empirical support for the existence of wealth effects in the contribution of financial intermediation to economic growth, and offers a theoretical explanation for these effects. Using GMM dynamic panel data techniques applied to study the growth-promoting effects of financial intermediation, we show that the exogenous contribution of financial development on economic growth has different effects for different levels of income per capita. We find that this contribution is generally increasing with the level of income per capita of the economy, up to a relatively high level of income. This contribution is consistently lower for poor countries; and for some low levels of income per capita it can be negative. We provide a model to account for these wealth effects. The model is a overlapping generations growth model where financial intermediaries implement liquidity risk sharing among depositors. We show that at early stages of economic development, a bank can increase welfare of its depositors only at the cost of lowering investment and growth. However, once the economy has crossed certain wealth threshold, the liquidity role of banks becomes unambiguously growth enhancing. As wealth increases, banks offer improving liquidity insurance, and higher growth; however, for high levels of wealth, growth generated by financial intermediation declines as the economy attains the optimal level of consumption risk sharing.

Rethinking the “Diseases of Affluence” Paradigm: Global Patterns of Nutritional Risks in Relation to Economic Development

BackgroundCardiovascular diseases and their nutritional risk factors—including overweight and obesity, elevated blood pressure, and cholesterol—are among the leading causes of global mortality and morbidity, and have been predicted to rise with economic development.Methods and FindingsWe examined age-standardized mean population levels of body mass index (BMI), systolic blood pressure, and total cholesterol in relation to national income, food share of household expenditure, and urbanization in a cross-country analysis. Data were from a total of over 100 countries and were obtained from systematic reviews of published literature, and from national and international health agencies.BMI and cholesterol increased rapidly in relation to national income, then flattened, and eventually declined. BMI increased most rapidly until an income of about I$5,000 (international dollars) and peaked at about I$12,500 for females and I$17,000 for males. Cholesterol's point of inflection and peak were at higher income levels than those of BMI (about I$8,000 and I$18,000, respectively). There was an inverse relationship between BMI/cholesterol and the food share of household expenditure, and a positive relationship with proportion of population in urban areas. Mean population blood pressure was not correlated or only weakly correlated with the economic factors considered, or with cholesterol and BMI.ConclusionsWhen considered together with evidence on shifts in income–risk relationships within developed countries, the results indicate that cardiovascular disease risks are expected to systematically shift to low-income and middle-income countries and, together with the persistent burden of infectious diseases, further increase global health inequalities. Preventing obesity should be a priority from early stages of economic development, accompanied by population-level and personal interventions for blood pressure and cholesterol.

Beyond Money: Toward an Economy of Well-Being.

Policy decisions at the organizational, corporate, and governmental levels should be more heavily influenced by issues related to well-being-people's evaluations and feelings about their lives. Domestic policy currently focuses heavily on economic outcomes, although economic indicators omit, and even mislead about, much of what society values. We show that economic indicators have many shortcomings, and that measures of well-being point to important conclusions that are not apparent from economic indicators alone. For example, although economic output has risen steeply over the past decades, there has been no rise in life satisfaction during this period, and there has been a substantial increase in depression and distrust. We argue that economic indicators were extremely important in the early stages of economic development, when the fulfillment of basic needs was the main issue. As societies grow wealthy, however, differences in well-being are less frequently due to income, and are more frequently due to factors such as social relationships and enjoyment at work. Important noneconomic predictors of the average levels of well-being of societies include social capital, democratic governance, and human rights. In the workplace, noneconomic factors influence work satisfaction and profitability. It is therefore important that organizations, as well as nations, monitor the well-being of workers, and take steps to improve it. Assessing the well-being of individuals with mental disorders casts light on policy problems that do not emerge from economic indicators. Mental disorders cause widespread suffering, and their impact is growing, especially in relation to the influence of medical disorders, which is declining. Although many studies now show that the suffering due to mental disorders can be alleviated by treatment, a large proportion of persons with mental disorders go untreated. Thus, a policy imperative is to offer treatment to more people with mental disorders, and more assistance to their caregivers. Supportive, positive social relationships are necessary for well-being. There are data suggesting that well-being leads to good social relationships and does not merely follow from them. In addition, experimental evidence indicates that people suffer when they are ostracized from groups or have poor relationships in groups. The fact that strong social relationships are critical to well-being has many policy implications. For instance, corporations should carefully consider relocating employees because doing so can sever friendships and therefore be detrimental to well-being. Desirable outcomes, even economic ones, are often caused by well-being rather than the other way around. People high in well-being later earn higher incomes and perform better at work than people who report low well-being. Happy workers are better organizational citizens, meaning that they help other people at work in various ways. Furthermore, people high in well-being seem to have better social relationships than people low in well-being. For example, they are more likely to get married, stay married, and have rewarding marriages. Finally, well-being is related to health and longevity, although the pathways linking these variables are far from fully understood. Thus, well-being not only is valuable because it feels good, but also is valuable because it has beneficial consequences. This fact makes national and corporate monitoring of well-being imperative. In order to facilitate the use of well-being outcomes in shaping policy, we propose creating a national well-being index that systematically assesses key well-being variables for representative samples of the population. Variables measured should include positive and negative emotions, engagement, purpose and meaning, optimism and trust, and the broad construct of life satisfaction. A major problem with using current findings on well-being to guide policy is that they derive from diverse and incommensurable measures of different concepts, in a haphazard mix of respondents. Thus, current findings provide an interesting sample of policy-related findings, but are not strong enough to serve as the basis of policy. Periodic, systematic assessment of well-being will offer policymakers a much stronger set of findings to use in making policy decisions.

Innovations in anesthesiology: New surgical procedures translate to new anesthetic challenges

We study a dynamic model where growth requires both long-term investment and the selection of talented managers. When ability is not ex-ante observable and contracts are incomplete, managerial selection imposes a cost, as managers facing the risk of being replaced choose a sub-optimally low level of long-term investment. This generates a trade-off between selection and investment that has implications for the choice of contractual relationships and institutions. Our analysis shows that rigid long-term contracts sacrificing managerial selection may prevail at early stages of economic development and when heterogeneity in ability is low. As the economy grows, however, knowledge accumulation increases the return to talent and makes it optimal to adopt flexible contractual relationships, where managerial selection is implemented even at the cost of lower investment. Measures of investor protection aimed at limiting the bargaining power of managers improve selection under short-term contracts. Given that knowledge accumulation raises the value of selection, the optimal level of investor protection increases with development.

Financial Infrastructure, Group Interests, and Capital Accumulation: Theory, Evidence, and Policy

This study presents a theory of financial infrastructure - or the set of rules, institutions, and systems within which agents carry out financial transactions. It investigates the effects of financial infrastructure development on financial architecture and real capital accumulation, taking into account financial-sector special interests. It shows that a more developed infrastructure promotes financial market growth, reduces the scope of traditional banking, and helps investors make more efficient investment decisions. The theory presented explains why traditional banking predominates in the early stages of economic development and becomes relatively less important as the economy develops, and why banks may retard financial sector development. The study provides evidence in support of its predictions.

Financial Infrastructure, Group Interests, and Capital Accumulation: Theory, Evidence, and Policy

This study presents a theory of financial infrastructure - or the set of rules, institutions, and systems within which agents carry out financial transactions. It investigates the effects of financial infrastructure development on financial architecture and real capital accumulation, taking into account financial-sector special interests. It shows that a more developed infrastructure promotes financial market growth, reduces the scope of traditional banking, and helps investors make more efficient investment decisions. The theory presented explains why traditional banking predominates in the early stages of economic development and becomes relatively less important as the economy develops, and why banks may retard financial sector development. The study provides evidence in support of its predictions.

A new decomposition approach to growth accounting: derivation of the formula and its application to prewar Japan

How can an economy grow in the early stages of economic development in the absence of total factor productivity growth, as has been allegedly the case in fast-growing East Asian economies? This paper advances the hypothesis that capital deepening associated with transformation of industrial structure can sustain growth for a long period without causing a decline in the rate of returns to capital. To examine our hypothesis, we develop a new decomposition formula for growth accounting that highlights such capital deepening. The formula is applied to data from prewar Japan, to assess the significance of industrial transformation in economic growth.

National territorial planning at the turn of the 21 st century

In the early stages of economic development in Korea, national territorial planning was used as a policy tool to guide spatial structure and to provide physical infrastructure for urban and industrial development. Such a top-down approach was inevitable because Korea maintained the centralized political and government system until the early 1990s. Circumstances, however, have changed recently since the 1990s with progress in democratization and localization. In addition, forces of globalization are making significant impacts on the parameters of national territorial planning. Reflecting these changes in both internal and external conditions, the Fourth National Territorial Plan (2000–2020) has adopted a different approach from the past three territorial plans. This paper reviews the socio-economic background that necessitated such changes in approaches to national territorial planning. A major thrust of the Fourth Plan, a focus on emergent or anticipated planning issues in Korea, is discussed. Finally, the paper examines the rationale for long-term strategic planning in the highly fluctuating situation facing Korean society in the new century.

Economic growth with subsistence consumption

Four stylized facts of economic growth in DCs are set up initially. Despite its obvious simplicity the linear growth model with subsistence consumption is able to reproduce two of them: a rise in the saving rate along with per capita income as well as β-divergence. The rate of convergence shows extraordinarily low values at early stages of economic development. Hence, the big diversity in growth rates can partly be explained to represent transitional phenomena. An extension of the basic model additionally allows an explanation of the hump-shaped pattern of growth.

Illegal I Fishing and Fisheries Law Enforcement in Small Island Developing States: The Pacific Islands Experience

AbstractThe Pacific islands provide a good case study of how small island states have responded to the challenges of enforcing their fisheries laws and regulations. The Pacific islands, all of which are geographically small and are in their early stages of economic development, viewed the LOS Convention and the exclusive economic zone regime established as providing the opportunity for generating economic wealth. The area of ocean space under the Pacific islands' jurisdiction was inordinately disproportionate to the resources available to them to assert effectively their sovereign rights. The article examines how they have responded to the challenge. The article discusses the co-operative approach adopted by the Pacific islands and the innovative arrangements developed to control better the fishing activities of fishing states. The article concludes that, while considerable progress has been made, there is scope to improve on current arrangements to make them more effective.