Political Equilibrium and Economic Growth

9414253克鲁塞尔从最近有关经济增长的文献中得出的一个启示是，经济政策，特别是影响物质资本和人力资本积累的税收，可能对经济增长和福利产生重要影响。政治经济学的新文献提供了一个关于如何选择政策的理论，其中突出了政治和经济之间的相互作用，并用来解决关于经济学和政策选择之间相互作用的一系列问题。更具体地说，本项目涉及增长的政治经济学的四个方面：(1)政治经济机构如何解释关于收入和财富分配、资本积累和税率的时间序列数据；(2)东欧正在发生的经济和政治转型的政治经济学；(3)政治不确定性对经济增长的影响；(4)为政治经济均衡理论开发新的概念和计算工具。这一研究对于我们理解前社会主义国家的经济转型和转型政治具有重要意义。这个项目开发了一个动态模型，正式确定了经济和政治转型的重要属性。初步结果表明，由于政策决心的动因，向民主的简单转变除了造成最初的衰退外，还将导致相对较差的长期表现。在什么条件下，反对经济快速扩张的既得利益会积聚起来，并在时间和世代之间持续下去？这项研究的重点是采用新的生产技术和昂贵的人力资本投资的政治经济学。

9414253 Krusell One of the implications from the recent literature on economic growth is that economic policy, and particularly taxes which affect the accumulation of physical and human capital, may have important effects on economic growth and welfare. The new literature on political economy offers a theory of how policies are chosen in which the interaction between politics and economics is brought to the fore and used to address a series of questions regarding the interaction between economics and policy choice. More specifically, this project addresses four aspects of the political economy of growth: (1) how politico-economic institutions explain time series data on the income and wealth distributions, capital accumulation, and tax rates; (2) the political economy of the economic and political transition taking place in Eastern Europe; (3) the effects of political uncertainty on economic growth; and (4) the development of new conceptual and computational tools for politico-economic equilibrium theory. This research could make important contributions to our understanding of economic transition and transitional politics in the former socialist countries. This project develops a dynamic model that formalizes the important properties of economic and political transitions. Preliminary results suggest that a simple move to democracy will, besides creating an initial recession, lead to relatively poor long-run performance due to the dynamics of policy determination. Under what conditions will vested interests against rapid economic expansion build up and persist over time and across generations? The research focuses on the political economy of adoption of new production techniques and costly investment in human capital.