Vintage-Capital, Distortions and Development

复古资本、扭曲与发展

• 批准号: 0136922
• 负责人: Rafael Rob
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Pennsylvania
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-07-01 至 2006-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0136922&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Vintage; Capital; Distortions; Development

This project improves our understanding of how economic factors affect income differences across countries. The focus of the research will be on the adoption of new technology in a "vintage capital" context. Vintage capital is a scenario whereby new technology can be implemented only if new machines that embody it are brought on line. This is different from the scenario of homogeneous capital, where technological progress can be exploited without the purchase of new machines. Vintage capital is quite a bit harder to deal with, which is the reason that many analyses have focused on homogenous capital. The thesis of this research is that models of vintage capital can be made manageable and empirically operational, and that they perform much better than models of homogenous capital. In particular they can explain income gaps and the particular mechanisms that lead to such gaps much better. Of late there have been suggestions in the economic literature that cultural and other non-economic factors explain a great deal of income differences across countries. The thesis of this project is that a carefully crafted economic model will do quite well without having to resort to such non-economic explanations.More specifically, this project analyzes models of embodied technological progress and vintage capital. The objective is to determine the extent to which distortions to the adoption of new technology can block economic growth. Distortions are broadly understood: They could be taxes and tariffs on the purchase of machines, bureaucratic impediments to the construction of structures and production facilities, delays, corruption, red tape, etc. The project constructs a quantitative model, capable of delivering numerical results concerning the effects of such distortions: To what extent distortions stifle investments, the capital stock of a country, the adoption decisions of manufacturers, wages of workers, and the GDP of a country. The project pursues a three-pronged approach. First, a theoretical model of the adoption of new technology by individual firms is constructed. Considering many such firms the model will then be aggregated to yield the theoretical counterparts of National Income statistics. Second, the model's parameters are calabrated using U.S. National Income data. The investigator also estimates econometrically the model's production function, using international data. These two steps provide a quantitative model, which is designed to predict the extent to which distortions can stifle the growth of an economy. Third, the project considers different countries as having different distortions and then determine what the model predicts will happen to their GDP. The investigator performs development decomposition exercises, determining how distortions, educational levels and efficiencies account for GDP differences across countries.

该项目提高了我们对经济因素如何影响各国收入差异的理解。研究的重点将是在“老式资本”背景下采用新技术。传统资本是这样一种情景，即新技术只有在体现它的新机器上线时才能实施。这与同质资本的情况不同，在同质资本的情况下，技术进步可以在不购买新机器的情况下被利用。老式资本更难处理，这就是许多分析都集中在同质资本上的原因。 本研究的论点是，老式资本模型可以管理和经验操作，他们表现得比同质资本模型好得多。特别是，它们可以更好地解释收入差距和导致这种差距的特定机制。最近，经济学文献中有人提出，文化和其他非经济因素可以解释各国收入的巨大差异。 本课题的论点是，在不诉诸非经济学解释的情况下，精心构建的经济模型也能很好地发挥作用。更具体地说，本课题分析了具体的技术进步和陈年资本的模型。其目的是确定采用新技术的扭曲会在多大程度上阻碍经济增长。扭曲被广泛理解：它们可能是购买机器的税收和关税，建筑结构和生产设施的官僚障碍，延误，腐败，繁文缛节等。该项目构建了一个定量模型，能够提供有关此类扭曲影响的数值结果：扭曲在多大程度上抑制了投资、一个国家的资本存量、制造商的采用决定、工人的工资和一个国家的GDP。 该项目采取三管齐下的办法。首先，构建了单个企业采用新技术的理论模型。考虑到许多这样的公司，模型将被汇总，以产生国民收入统计的理论对应物。其次，模型的参数是使用美国国民收入数据计算的。 研究人员还估计计量经济模型的生产函数，使用国际数据。这两个步骤提供了一个定量模型，旨在预测扭曲会在多大程度上扼杀经济增长。 第三，该项目认为不同的国家有不同的扭曲，然后确定模型预测会发生什么，他们的GDP。 调查员进行发展分解练习，确定扭曲，教育水平和效率如何解释各国的GDP差异。