Growth Miracle Research Articles

The plant‐level view of Korea's growth miracle and slowdown

AbstractWe analyze the evolution of the plant size distribution, static allocative efficiency and business dynamism of the Korean manufacturing sector during its growth miracle (1967–2000) and the subsequent slowdown since 2000. The average plant size has an inverse‐U pattern over time, with a peak in the late 1970s. The measure of static misallocation decreases modestly until 1983 but increases substantially afterwards. These results are at odds with what one may extrapolate from the existing cross‐country evidence on the positive relationship between plant size and economic development or the negative one between static misallocation and development. We also find that the growth rate of manufacturing productivity is not systematically correlated with either the level or the rate of change of the average plant size or static misallocation. On the other hand, business dynamism, measured by either churning or responsiveness to shocks, diminished significantly since 2000, coinciding with the decline in the growth rate of manufacturing productivity. Our findings call for more systematic research on how economic performance correlates with establishment/firm size distribution and with static and dynamic allocative efficiency.

How does technological innovation affect the fiscal decentralization of local governments? Evidence from China

Technological innovation is a pivotal driver of high-quality economic development, and China's distinctive fiscal decentralization model stands out as a crucial institutional factor behind the country's economic growth miracle. Despite its significant academic and practical implications, there is a noticeable scarcity of literature on examining government fiscal decentralization through the lens of technological innovation. This paper addresses fundamental research questions regarding the relationship between technological innovation and fiscal decentralization. Leveraging balanced panel data from 30 provinces in China spanning 2005 to 2020, our findings indicate that technological innovation positively impacts the fiscal decentralization of local governments. Specifically, for each standard deviation increase in technological innovation, there is a corresponding 0.1508 standard deviation in fiscal decentralization. The mechanism driving this relationship lies in technological innovation's ability to enhance enterprise profit levels, increasing tax and non-tax revenues for local governments. Importantly, when non-tax revenue at the central government level surpasses tax revenue, the resulting augmentation in local government revenue contributes to an elevated level of fiscal decentralization. In conclusion, this paper offers valuable insights into the government's endeavors to promote scientific and technological innovation while enhancing local fiscal decentralization. These insights contribute to an improved quality of economic development.

Superstars or Supervillains? Large Firms in the South Korean Growth Miracle

Superstars or Supervillains? Large Firms in the South Korean Growth Miracle

When tolstoy meets leontief: luck, policies, and learning from miracles

We show evidence that development “miracles,” such as the Asian Miracles, may not be that rare as the distribution of cross-country long-term growth follows a Power Law. We propose a growth theory, disantangling the role of policies from luck, which is consistent with this stylized fact and predicts that high growth depends on maintaining the best possible policies while not being too unlucky. We argue that miracles are all alike and every failure is a failure in its own way, suggesting that the few growth miracles hold more clues about good policies than the vast number of growth failures. We infer important implications for the study of economic development.

Government land control approach, industrial agglomeration, and urban air quality: Analysis based on spatial spillovers and threshold effects

Local government intervention in industrial land concessions has contributed significantly to the country's miraculous growth during the past four decades, but there are concerns about its environmental impact. Assessing the model's impact on the Air Quality Index (AQI) is critical for China as it focuses, now, on sustainable development. We examine the spatiotemporal effects and pathways of land use regulation by local governments in China on air quality index. The data used are real-time air quality data and land transaction micro data of 282 cities from 2015 to 2020. The results demonstrate that local government use controls have a favorable impact on the AQI in the city and its surrounding areas. Land intervention attracted capital from low-tech and high-polluting industries to their more aggressive locations, triggering “bottom-up competition” in the industrial structure through the industrial aggregation effect. The study also found structural breakpoints in the model's industrial agglomeration effect. There are two structural breakpoints in the national region; the model's impact on AQI increases significantly after exceeding each structural breakpoint. At the sub-regional level, there are two structural breakpoints in the industrial agglomeration effect of the eastern and western cities; both weaken after exceeding the second structural breakpoint. There is one structural breakpoint in the central cities; after exceeding it, the model's impact on AQI increases.

The People’s Republic of China’s 40-Year Demographic Dividend and Labor Supply: The Quantity Myth

During the past 40 years, the economy of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has achieved miraculous growth, a significant part of which many have attributed to its favorable labor supply resulting from the country’s “demographic dividend”–that is, a relatively large share of the working-age population in the total population (WAPS). Currently, this dividend is slipping away, and many in the PRC are very concerned. Against this background, I set out to examine the contributions of various dimensions of the PRC’s changing WAPS and its impact on economic growth. I show that between 1982 and 2015 the increase in WAPS was offset by a decline in the labor force participation rate, resulting in a very limited increase in the quantity of the labor supply. I then estimate the association between regional variations in economic growth and changes in factors such as population size, WAPS, migration, and education. The results lend little support to the view that an expanding WAPS played a major role in the PRC’s economic growth over this period.

Joy Takes Root by Gwendolyn Wallace

Reviewed by: Joy Takes Root by Gwendolyn Wallace Kate Quealy-Gainer, Editor Wallace, Gwendolyn Joy Takes Root; illus. by Ashleigh Corrin. Kokila/Penguin, 2023 [32p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780593406786 $18.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R 6-9 yrs This summer at Grammy’s home in South Carolina is particularly special for Joy: the little girl will be helping her grandmother as she works in her beautiful garden. Plants, Grammy says, are “our friends and our family,” and they must be tended with care and intention—there is more to the art of gardening than just soil and seeds. Grammy begins the planting process with deep breaths and thoughts of gratitude to her Black ancestors who worked the land for generations; she touches her heart and the ground, listening to the “Earth’s rhythm.” Finally, she breathes hope into the soil, just before dropping seeds into the neatly made rows. When it’s time for Joy to leave, she worries she won’t be able to grow the seeds Grammy gave to her, but by patiently following Grammy’s guidance, she helps them sprout. This is a beautiful ode to both the natural world and intergenerational cultural wisdom that imbues the sequential steps of planting a garden with a deeply felt spirituality. Grammy’s reverence for the garden is grounded in both her labor over the land and [End Page 343] the miracle of growth that comes from it. The mixed media art captures that balance with an exquisitely joyful style, sometimes integrating Grammy and Joy into a world of flourishing vegetation, and other times focusing on their interactions with nature. Textures are richly varied with watercolor-like dappling, stamp-like outlines, and rich saturation; hues are appropriately verdant with radiant pops of color throughout. While the text is a bit heavy for a storytime, this could easily be incorporated as preparation for a classroom or community gardening project. Copyright © 2023 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

To green or to work: the labor demand reduction effect of green finance

China's economic growth miracle of the past decades has been accompanied by a massive increase in fossil fuel consumption and severe environmental pollution. To control air pollution, China is implementing some green finance policies. Although they have improved the air quality, it is little known whether and how green finance affects the firm labor demand. Taking the 2012 Chinese green credit policy (GCP) as an exogenous setting, this paper adopts the difference-in-difference (DID) method to investigate the effect of green finance on firm labor demand based on A-share listed firms covering 2007-2017. We find that green finance had a significant negative impact on firm labor demand. Specifically, the high-polluting firms with stricter green finance constraints would reduce firm employment by 4.8%. This effect is especially prominent when firms are state-owned enterprises (SOEs) or workers are low-skilled employees. Further evidence indicates that there are the Compliance Cost Hypothesis and Porter Hypothesis in China. In these two effects, the effect of CCH dominates, so the overall effect of green finance is detrimental to corporate performance, which in turn leads to lower corporate employment. Our paper provides the real effect of green finance from the firm labor market. And this paper has strong policy recommendations that the government should reconcile the relationship between air pollution control and employment.

The Logic and Principles behind the "China Miracle" and China's Economic Transformation and Upgrading

This paper analyzes the logic and reasons behind China's economic growth miracle and economic transformation and upgrading from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, which is helpful for understanding the factors of China's economic development. It is found that China's economic development has the characteristics of extensive and market-oriented, accompanied by some problems, such as the lack of quality and innovation, possibly caused by fiscal decentralization and competitive tournaments. By using data to analyze the trend of China's economic transformation, we find that it is constantly improving.

Problematizing state capacity: the Rwandan case

AbstractWe argue that the effectiveness of Rwandan governments, both at implementing the 1994 genocide and inducing the current growth miracle, illustrates that the state has high capacity. Yet this capacity is not captured by conventional Weberian concepts, with their focus on taxation and formal bureaucracy. Rather, the capacity of Rwanda's state relies on its ability to leverage dense social networks which connect it to society. The origins of these networks lie in the construction of the historical state which expanded by merging with local lineages and kinship groups. Using data on the historical expansion of the Rwandan state as a proxy for the strength of state–society social networks we show they are uncorrelated with measures of Weberian state capacity. In a fieldwork exercise, we show that rule compliance today is positively correlated with our proxy, but uncorrelated with Weberian state capacity.

Does domestic migration adversely affect food security? Evidence from Vietnam

With a population of more than 100 million as of December 2022, food security remains a persistent challenge in Vietnam despite achieving a miracle of economic growth and social transformation in recent decades. Vietnam has also experienced a significant migration from rural areas into urban cities such as Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Ba Ria - Vung Tau. The effects of domestic migration on food security have largely been neglected in the existing literature, particularly in Vietnam. This study investigates the impacts of domestic migration on food security using data from the Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys. Food security is proxied by three dimensions: food expenditure, calorie consumption, and food diversity. The difference-in-difference and instrumental variable estimation techniques are used in this study to address endogeneity and selection bias. The empirical results reveal that domestic migration in Vietnam increases food expenditure and calorie consumption. We also find significant effects of wage, land and family characteristics such as education level and the number of family members on food security when different food groups are considered. Regional income, household headship and the number of children in a family mediate the relationship between domestic migration and food security in Vietnam.

The Plant-Level View of Korea's Growth Miracle and Slowdown

The Plant-Level View of Korea's Growth Miracle and Slowdown

Understanding local government debt in China: A regional competition perspective

The GDP tournament among local governments plays a crucial role in supporting China’s growth miracle. Investment-driven economic growth has led to a surge in local government debt in the past decade. Using a comprehensive dataset of prefectural-level government debt, we find that regional GDP competition has an asymmetric impact on the local government debt. With GDP growth falling behind its competitors, a local government tends to issue debt more aggressively. In contrast, the effect is insignificant for the regions with GDP growth ahead of their competitors. Furthermore, we find that the regulatory policy implemented in 2015 effectively dampens the impact of regional competition on local government debt. However, debt limit constraints are time-variant and present spatial heterogeneity. In regions with loose borrowing constraints, regional GDP competition still matters for local government debt expansion even if debt quota management is put in place.

The Śrāvastī Miracles: Some Relationships Between their Literary Sources and Visual Representations in Dvāravatī

The Śrāvastī miracles are among the Buddha’s principal miracles and could even be considered the prototypical Buddhist miracle stories. The narrative of these miracles is preserved in a variety of languages in different versions and is represented in the visual art of ancient India, Central Asia, as well as Southeast Asia. The objective of this study is to reexamine the visual representations of the Śrāvastī miracles found in the period of Dvāravatī, which spanned from the seventh to the eleventh centuries CE, via a comparative study of textual sources and their possible relationships to the 24 artefacts (9 types) found in the central, northeastern and southern parts of present-day Thailand. This study reveals that these artefacts illustrate important narrative elements from various Buddhist traditions, such as: (1) the demonstration of miracles (the miraculous growth of a tree and the multiplication of the Buddha, which comprises the Twin Miracle, the Great Miracle, the creation of the duplicate Buddha, and the performance of a miracle akin to the one experienced in the fourth absorption), (2) the depictions of the (six) defeated non-Buddhist ascetics, (3) of King Prasenajit, and (4) of Brahmā and Indra, bodhisattvas, and unspecified deities. The rich corpus of Dvāravatī artefacts illustrating these miracles implies that the artists might have clearly drawn their inspiration from various textual sources based mostly on the Theravādin and Mūlasarvāstivādin records. It is also possible that they were made based on known scriptures of that time, which in turn were the resultsof mixed interpretations of the Theravādin, Mūlasarvāstivādin, and other unknown texts. Alternatively, it is also possible that the visual representations do not reflect any connection to textual sources, as these artefacts cannot be attached to any particular Buddhist tradition and even less so to a specific “school.” These findings demonstrate how the key elements of a narrative from the literary sources have been transformed through visual representations, evidenced by these Dvāravatī artefacts showing their local formulation as well.

The Driving Forces Behind the Phenomenal Rise of the Digital Economy in China

ABSTRACTThis research commentary responds to Jiang and Murmann (2022), by offering further explanations for the miraculous growth of the digital economy in China from both the demand and supply perspectives. To complement their views, we identify several additional important factors, and classify them in three categories in an explanatory model. We believe that factors on the demand side played a primary role, along with innovative and entrepreneurial e-commerce service providers on the supply side. Infrastructures and government policies provided the foundation and a facilitating environment. We conclude that digital transformation of traditional industries will become the next wave of digital economy, stronger than the previous wave of e-commerce. Implications for research and practices are also discussed. In addition, we highlight emerging trends and turbulences. In conclusion, despite short-term turbulences, we expect that the digital economy in China will make big-stride progress in the long term, with strong potential to continue its growth.

Industrial agglomeration and haze pollution: Evidence from China

The rapid industrialization has contributed to the miracle of economic growth in China, while also caused a series of environmental problems. As one of the most concerning urban disease in China, the aggravation of haze pollution is closely related to the accelerating urbanization and industrialization process in recent years, and the strong spatial diffusion makes the negative externality of haze pollution more harmful. This characteristic of haze pollution is closely related to the spatial structure of industrial sectors, especially the agglomeration of industrial sectors. This paper established a spatial economic framework to investigate the spillover effect of industrial agglomeration on haze pollution based on satellite raster map data of PM2.5 and location entropy index, and further discuss the question that whether industrial agglomeration can achieve a balanced development for both economic growth and environmental quality. The results indicated that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between industrial agglomeration and haze pollution, and the indirect effect from spatial spillover dominated this impact. Industrial agglomeration has a single threshold effect on the knowledge spillover and the utilization of pollution disposal infrastructure of industrial sectors. Only when the agglomeration level reaches the threshold value, the scale effect can be realized to promote the air quality. The resource allocation efficiency and knowledge spillovers of industrial agglomeration need to be promoted in order to reach the inflection point and realize the win-win situation.

The propellant role of the mega-grid in regional economic growth: Evidence from China base on the panel smooth transition regression model

One of the secrets for China's economic growth miracle is continuous investment in infrastructure, and the role of power infrastructure is irreplaceable. However, previous studies mostly focused on generation-side indicators rather than grid-side indicators, ignoring the importance of the mega-grid established in China. As a result, this paper is committed to exploring the economic growth pulling effect of power grids with different voltage levels in the nonlinear framework. On the premise of determining the robustness of estimation parameters by instrumental variable method, the panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) model is used to capture panel heterogeneity. To be exact, the regional economic growth driven by extra-high voltage (EHV) and ultra-high voltage (UHV) power grids presents a regime transition accompanied by the growth of regional power generation and electricity consumption per capita. This means that the mega-grid is more conducive to the economic growth of energy bases and load centers. To further build and improve the state-leveled mega-grid into a nationwide basic platform for trans-regional renewable energy transmission and distribution is a key measure to enhance China's sustainable economic growth under the constraints of carbon peak and carbon neutrality targets.

A Comprehensive Review On Earthworms’ Vermicompost: A Strategy For Sustainable Waste Management

‘Vermicompost’, an organic fertilizer rich in NPK, micronutrients, and beneficial soil microbes (nitrogen fixing and phosphate solubilizing bacteria and actinomycetes), is a sustainable alternative to chemical fertilizers, which is an excellent growth promoter and protector for crop plants. Today ‘vermicompost’ is an important component of organic farming systems, because it is easy to prepare, has excellent properties, and is harmless to plants. Researches show that vermicompost further stimulates plant growth even when plants are already receiving ‘optimal nutrition.’ Vermicompost is rich in NKP (nitrogen 2-3%, potassium 1.85-2.25%, and phosphorus 1.55-2.25%), micronutrients, and beneficial soil microbes and also composed of ‘plant growth hormones & enzymes.’ It is scientifically proving as ‘miracle growth promoter and also plant protector’ from pests and diseases. Vermicompost retains nutrients for a long time, while the conventional compost fails to deliver the required amount of macro and micronutrients, including the vital NKP to plants in shorter time. In this comprehensive review, we summarize the current status of Vermicomposting as a pathway of sustainable waste management in India as well as worldwide.

Economic Growth: Factor Marketization Efficiency and the Premium in Land and Housing Assetization - An Explanation of China’s Growth Miracle from the Perspective of Dual-System Reform

Economic Growth: Factor Marketization Efficiency and the Premium in Land and Housing Assetization - An Explanation of China’s Growth Miracle from the Perspective of Dual-System Reform

Human Capital, Culture, Institution, and the Historical Root of ''Needham Puzzle'' and Chinese Growth Miracle

Human Capital, Culture, Institution, and the Historical Root of ''Needham Puzzle'' and Chinese Growth Miracle