Interest In Economic Growth Research Articles

Thematic representations of economy and environment in Nigerian newspapers’ reports of pipeline vandalism

ABSTRACT Nigeria’s heavy reliance on oil for national survival, the frequency of pipeline vandalism and the attendant losses make the subject of vandalism attractive to newspapers. Reports on this subject become media sites of deep struggle to separate national economy from the ecosystem relationships. Relying on insights from van Dijk’s Theory of Thematic Structure and Stibbe’s notions of salience and erasure, the study examined the reportage of pipeline vandalism and the attendant losses, with a view to exploring how economy and environment are thematically projected. Twenty reports from four newspapers published between 2015 and 2019 were purposively sampled. The thematic projections showed that, while economic loss is foregrounded using the discourse strategies of number game and topicalisation, environmental loss is erased at different levels using the discourse strategies of euphemisation and generalisation. This suggests that there is subtle interest in economic growth to the detriment of the ecological systems which sustain the economy and humanity. Unless there is a deliberate effort to clearly highlight the ecological harm occasioned by pipeline vandalism, the effects of pipeline vandalism may not be obvious to citizens and curtailing the menace may not be prioritised.

The Social Cost of Cheap Food: Labour and the Political Economy of Food Distribution in Britain 1830–1914

The Social Cost of Cheap Food: Labour and the Political Economy of Food Distribution in Britain 1830–1914

Review of Cryogenic Carbon Capture Innovations and Their Potential Applications

Our ever-increasing interest in economic growth is leading the way to the decline of natural resources, the detriment of air quality, and is fostering climate change. One potential solution to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from industrial emitters is the exploitation of carbon capture and storage (CCS). Among the various CO2 separation technologies, cryogenic carbon capture (CCC) could emerge by offering high CO2 recovery rates and purity levels. This review covers the different CCC methods that are being developed, their benefits, and the current challenges deterring their commercialisation. It also offers an appraisal for selected feasible small- and large-scale CCC applications, including blue hydrogen production and direct air capture. This work considers their technological readiness for CCC deployment and acknowledges competing technologies and ends by providing some insights into future directions related to the R&D for CCC systems.

Spaces of city-regionalism: Conceptualising pluralism in policymaking

City-regionalism is now established as a key spatial arena for shaping sub-national urban policy. In these spaces, economic growth interests are marshalled within a competitiveness narrative as the dominant approach for the development of governance and policy. Yet such dominance in principle does not preclude other policy approaches from emerging and re-fashioning city-regionalism. In this paper, making reference to evolving city-region arrangements in the UK, specifically Cardiff, we explore and conceptualise policy pluralism. Our core argument is that to determine the possibilities for plural approaches to emerge, researchers can productively assess the intersections of relational and territorial geographies filtered through a micro–meso–macro framework. The framework positions governing principles, institutions and practices as mediators of, or triggers for, relational and territorial policymaking processes whose interaction may open up windows through which pluralistic approaches might develop. With such a conceptual approach applied in the context of city-regionalism, the break points in competitiveness-focused policymaking may more readily come into view.

Editorial: Towards leaner and more effective value chain development

Value chain development (VCD) is a common term in today’s development lexicon1, where its use tends to conjure passionate ideas about how development programming can support smallholder participation in growing markets in the interest of economic growth, job creation, gender empowerment, and sustainable use of natural resources, among other goals. Since the early 2000s, Enterprise Development and Microfinance (EDM) has featured considerable debate on how to design market-oriented development interventions with smallholders, often based on positive experiences by a given NGO or project in a particular context. Early articles helped to put VCD on the development agenda, while advancing innovation in market-based project design and implementation. However, after more than a decade of it being firmly placed on the agenda, we still know relatively little about VCD. Apart from isolated case studies, the question of whether VCD has lived up to the expectations of smallholders, of the private sector, and of devel...

Optimum Saving and Growth: Harrod on Dynamic Welfare Economics

In the 1960s and 1970s Harrod shifted the emphasis of his research in economic dynamics from the study of oscillations of the growth rate (“instability principle”) to the investigation of the determinants of the long-run growth path. As part of that shift, he restated his concept of the natural growth rate as an optimum welfare rate. The present paper provides an examination of Harrod’s dynamic welfare economics, including his concept of optimum saving and its relation with Ramsey’s approach to capital accumulation. It is shown that, contrary to the prevailing interpretation in the secondary literature, according to Harrod the saving rate does not affect the long-run growth rate of per capita income, which is determined by technical progress only. Harrod’s interest in economic growth in the postwar period was motivated by his double concern with growth policy in mature economies and economic development in poor countries.

GARY BECKER ON HUMAN CAPITAL

Gary Becker’s work on “human capital” started around 1960. It was motivated by the rising interest in economic growth at the time. As stated in the introduction to the first edition of his book, Human Capital, “The origin of this study can be traced to the finding that a substantial growth in incomes in the US remains after the growth of physical capital and labor has been accounted for”. This unexplained residual suggested to several researchers that unmeasured features of the quality of the labor force must also be brought into consideration. While econometricians such as Edward Denison, Dale Jorgenson, and Zvi Griliches turned to seek better data that would reduce the scope of the unexplained residual, Becker constructed a detailed and original theory regarding the possible effects of a major unobserved and all inclusive factor, termed, human capital, would have on observed outcomes such as wages and education and their variation over time and among individual types. Most of the theoretical results reported in the three editions of Human Capital, 1964, 1975, and 1995 are already anticipated in a single early paper that was published in the Journal of Political Economy in 1962.

Smithian Domestic Product and the U.S. economy

This study examines Adam Smith's concept of national product (referred to as Smithian Domestic Product, or SDP) which he articulated in The Wealth of Nations. In contrast to Gross Domestic Product (which measures the production of things that have value), Smith's measure is more plutological. It measures the production of things critical for the accumulation of wealth. Given the global interest in economic growth and improvements in living standards, SDP is potentially useful as a complement to the GDP measure. As a preliminary effort to assess that potential, SDP and GDP estimates for the U.S. economy were compared for the period from 1949 to 2002. For two major macroeconomic events in the past decade (the economic boom of the 1990s and the recent recession), SDP appears to perform better than the GDP measure.

Environmental Transformation of the State: The USA, Norway, Germany and the UK

Modern states underwent two major transformations that produced first, the liberal capitalist state and second, the welfare state. Each was accompanied by the migration of a previously confrontational movement into the core of the state. In the creation of the liberal capitalist state, the bourgeoisie could harmonize with the state's emerging interest in economic growth. In the creation of the welfare state, the organized working class could harmonize with the state's emerging interest in legitimating the political economy by curbing capitalism's instability and inequality. We show that environmental conservation could now emerge as a core state interest, growing out of these established economic and legitimation imperatives. This examination is grounded in a comparative historical study of four countries: the USA, Norway, Germany, and the UK, each of which exemplifies a particular kind of interest representation. We show why the USA was an environmental pioneer around 1970, why it was then eclipsed by Norway, and why Germany now leads in addressing environmental concerns.

Rethinking Inequality Decomposition, with Evidence from Rural China

We examine inequality decompositions by income source and describe a general, regression-based approach for decomposing inequality. The approach provides an efficient and flexible way to quantify the roles of variables like education and age in a multivariate context. We illustrate the method using survey data from China. The empirical results demonstrate how sharply different conclusions can emerge for different decomposition rules. We explain how these differences reflect the treatment of equally-distributed sources of income, and we discuss implications for how results from inequality decomposition are interpreted. A renewed interest in economic growth, political economy, and the distribution of income has again placed the economics of income inequality firmly on the academic research agenda. Relatively poor performances in Latin America have been contrasted with success stories in East Asia, and recent evidence on the changing income distributions of emerging economic giants like China has

Constructing National Economic Interests

Less developed nations are plagued by significant economic coordination problems. Solutions to these problems will be developmental (in an economic sense) if national economic interests dominate government policy-making. The construction of a national economic interest in economic growth occurs as the result of the development of cross-cutting ties among groups within society and this results from the evolution of social and cultural networks and links. However, the interaction involved in intensive market exchange can indirectly create these cross-cutting social and cultural ties, thus generating a national economic interest in growth. This is most likely to have occurred in societies that have undergone significant agricultural revolutions involving the bulk of the rural population. This is exactly what has happened in much of East Asia and in the People's Republic of China. The experiences of this region are used to illustrate the main ideas of the paper.

Knowledge spill‐overs, innovation and regional development

Papers in Regional ScienceVolume 80, Issue 3 p. 249-253 Knowledge spill-overs, innovation and regional development Henri L.F. de Groot, Henri L.F. de Groot Department of Spatial Economics, Free University, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands, (e-mail: 1hgroot@econ.vu.nl; pnijkamp@econ.vu.nl)Search for more papers by this authorPeter Nijkamp, Peter Nijkamp Department of Spatial Economics, Free University, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands, (e-mail: 1hgroot@econ.vu.nl; pnijkamp@econ.vu.nl)Search for more papers by this authorZoltan Acs, Zoltan Acs Merrick School of Business, University of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD 21201-5779, USA (e-mail: zacs@ubmail.ubalt.edu)Search for more papers by this author Henri L.F. de Groot, Henri L.F. de Groot Department of Spatial Economics, Free University, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands, (e-mail: 1hgroot@econ.vu.nl; pnijkamp@econ.vu.nl)Search for more papers by this authorPeter Nijkamp, Peter Nijkamp Department of Spatial Economics, Free University, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands, (e-mail: 1hgroot@econ.vu.nl; pnijkamp@econ.vu.nl)Search for more papers by this authorZoltan Acs, Zoltan Acs Merrick School of Business, University of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD 21201-5779, USA (e-mail: zacs@ubmail.ubalt.edu)Search for more papers by this author First published: 14 January 2005 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1435-5597.2001.tb01798.xCitations: 4AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume80, Issue3July 2001Pages 249-253 RelatedInformation

Australian Universities 1939‐1999: How Different Now?

Between 1939 and 1999, when the Australian population increased from 7 to 19 million, university enrolments rose from 14,236 to 681,870. Until 1974 the most notable changes were the increases in the size of universities and of departments (which encouraged greater specialization), continued increases in research expenditures, in the percentage of postgraduate students, and a gradual decline in collegiality. In 1974 the Commonwealth Government assumed full responsibility for government grants to universities and abolished fees at just that time when growth rates in the economy fell sharply. Government influence on the universities increased, and there were some departures from the no‐fees policy for international and postgraduate course‐work masters and diploma students. Then in 1988 the Government decided to abolish the distinction between universities and colleges of advanced education, to create through amalgamations a smaller number of much larger universities and to set a specific mission for each university in the interest of economic growth. The Tertiary Education Commission was abolished and the universities dealt directly with the Minister and his Department. The Universities became distinctly more managerial, less collegial, and the range of courses and degrees was greatly expanded. There are now legitimate doubts about the quality of some degrees. Student fees came back, but in a way that reduced the financial burden on the government without giving the universities greater freedom. The government sponsored collective bargaining for university staff but as universities were not given the capacity to earn much additional income, increases in salaries increased student/staff ratios and induced a decline in morale.

National poverty and the ‘vampire state’ in Ghana: A review article

The appearance of the first two syntheses of the literature on the economic failure of ‘statist’ policies in post-colonial Ghana, to 1983, and the subsequent economic liberalization, is an opportune moment at which to consider the state of the debate about the political economy of the country since independence. This has focused on the nature of the socially optimum combination of administrative and market methods of resource allocation in this ‘test-case’ economy, and about the political conditions which largely determine the extent to which it is achieved. Explicitly or implicitly, both Frimpong-Ansah's (1991) and Rimmer's (1992) books combine the twin traditions of rational choice thought that have been dominant in recent years in the literature on African economic development, market economics and ‘new’ institutionalist political economy. The paper considers, in turn, the economics and politics of Ghana's economic decline and partial revival. It suggests that, while there is a consensus that ‘state failure’ was the main cause of Ghana's decline in relation to similarly endowed countries, 1950–83, the question of how far and in what respects the state should retreat from administrative control of resource allocation remains relatively open. For example, while the inconvertibility of the currency seems to have been irredeemably disastrous, the much criticized marketing board system may yet prove worthy of reform rather than abolition. There is also a consensus that the prolongation of what, for the economy as a whole, were disastrously counterproductive policies was to a great extent the result of the subordination of the public interest in economic growth to the sectional and personal interests of governments and their members. However, the paper argues that it is necessary to revise such explanations to take account of two surprisingly neglected points: (a) that economic growth in itself is a major political asset to governments in Africa as elsewhere and (b) that economic decline (as in Ghana 1975–83) requires more explanation than economic stagnation (as in Ghana 1950–75).

Bureaucratic tenure and economic performance in centrally planned economies

Murrell and Olson (1991) set forth the hypothesis that in centrally planned economies economic interests over time become fragmented as bureaus become more autonomous and form into narrowly-based distributional coalitions. As a consequence, the national leader's encompassing interest in economic growth becomes compromised and growth begins to slow. This paper provides the first direct test of the hypothesis that growing bureaucratic autonomy results in declining economic growth in centrally planned economies.

Soviet Industrial Growth—The Early Plan Period

The economic historian's concern with the changing institutions and processes of economic activity currently takes on added relevance in connection with world-wide interest in economic growth. Plans and programs for rapid industrialization abound, especially in economically underdeveloped areas. In this context, the example of Soviet industrialization, mysterious in its contours and awesome in its results, has attracted increasing scholarly attention.