Political Arithmetic Robert William Fogel, Enid M. Fogel, Mark Guglielmo, Nathaniel Grotte
2013
eBook
We take for granted today that the assessments, measurements, and forecasts of economists are crucial to the decision-making of governments and businesses alike. But less than a century ago that ...wasn't the case—economists simply didn't have the necessary information or statistical tools to understand the ever more complicated modern economy. With Political Arithmetic, Nobel Prize–winning economist Robert Fogel and his collaborators tell the story of economist Simon Kuznets, the founding of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the creation of the concept of GNP, which for the first time enabled us to measure the performance of entire economies. The book weaves together the many strands of political and economic thought and historical pressures that together created the demand for more detailed economic thinking—Progressive-era hopes for activist government, the production demands of World War I, Herbert Hoover's interest in business cycles as President Harding's commerce secretary, and the catastrophic economic failures of the Great Depression—and shows how, through trial and error, measurement and analysis, economists such as Kuznets rose to the occasion and in the process built a discipline whose knowledge could be put to practical use in everyday decision-making. The product of a lifetime of studying the workings of economies and skillfully employing the tools of economics, Political Arithmetic is simultaneously a history of a key period of economic thought and a testament to the power of applied ideas.
This article extends the recent findings of Liu (2005), Ang (2007), Apergis et al. (2009) and Payne (2010) by implementing recent bootstrap panel unit root tests and cointegration techniques to ...investigate the relationship between carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption, and real GDP for 12 Middle East and North African Countries (MENA) over the period 1981–2005. Our results show that in the long-run energy consumption has a positive significant impact on CO2 emissions. More interestingly, we show that real GDP exhibits a quadratic relationship with CO2 emissions for the region as a whole. However, although the estimated long-run coefficients of income and its square satisfy the EKC hypothesis in most studied countries, the turning points are very low in some cases and very high in other cases, hence providing poor evidence in support of the EKC hypothesis. CO2 emission reductions per capita have been achieved in the MENA region, even while the region exhibited economic growth over the period 1981–2005. The econometric relationships derived in this paper suggest that future reductions in CO2 emissions per capita might be achieved at the same time as GDP per capita in the MENA region continues to grow.
► We study the links between CO2 emissions, energy consumption and GDP in MENA region. ► Energy consumption has a positive correlation with CO2 emissions. ► GDP exhibits a quadratic relationship with CO2 emissions for the region as a whole. ► However, the turning points are low in some cases and high in other cases. ► Thus, not all countries need to sacrifice economic growth to decrease CO2 emissions.
This study investigates the relationship between carbon emissions, income, energy consumption, and foreign trade in Pakistan for the period 1972–2008. By employing the Johansen method of ...cointegration, the study finds that there is a quadratic long-run relationship between carbon emissions and income, confirming the existence of Environmental Kuznets Curve for Pakistan. Moreover, both energy consumption and foreign trade are found to have positive effects on emissions. The short-run results have, however, denied the existence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve. The short-run results are unique to the existing literature in the sense that none of the long-run determinants of emissions is significant. The contradictory results of short- and long-run give policy makers the opportunity to formulate different types of growth policies for the two terms taking environmental issues into consideration. In addition, the uni-directional causality from growth to energy consumption suggests that the policy makers should not only focus on forecasting future demand for energy with different growth scenarios but also on obtaining the least cost energy. Furthermore, the absence of causality from emissions to growth suggests that Pakistan can curb its carbon emissions without disturbing its economic growth.
► Environmental Kuznets Curve exists only in the long-run in Pakistan. ► Both energy consumption and trade openness also affect carbon emissions positively in the long run. ► The short-run results have, however, denied the existence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve. ► None of the explanatory variables affect emissions in short-run. ► There is uni-directional causality from growth to energy consumption. ► There is uni-directional causality from growth to emissions.
International attention is focused on finding ways to reduce emissions from deforestation because of the emerging concerns over climate change. However the causes of deforestation are rooted in ...current economic and development paradigms. The causes of deforestation also vary across different geographical regions and have implications for the forest transition. Attempts to reach an international agreement on curbing deforestation have achieved little success despite over 30years of UN negotiations. New initiatives from REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) could provide financial incentives to curb deforestation. Hence, alternative development paths for forest cover changes and forest transition are analyzed for the REDD policy within the framework of an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for deforestation. The EKC models are estimated for geographical regions of Latin America, Africa and Asia. The results based on the panel data analysis of 43 countries, covering the period 1970–1994, provides evidence that an inverted U-shaped EKC fits for Latin America and Africa, while a U-shaped EKC applies to Asia. The results also indicate that strengthening agricultural and forestry sector policies are important for curbing deforestation. The EKC models' estimates could provide guidance for decisions on financing the REDD policy as specific to each region.
The study addresses the two intertwined challenges of rural poverty and forest degradation in rural areas of Zagros, Iran. For a watershed in Zagros, a quantitative analysis based on the sustainable ...livelihood framework approach is used to identify household livelihood strategies, analyze livelihood choices, and investigate which strategies are most sustainable. The study revealed that most households (64%) follow a mixed strategy with a combination of forestry, animal husbandry, and subsistence agriculture. Households following a livelihood strategy that is highly dependent on forest extraction and livestock grazing (27%) are the poorest, whereas those that combine cultivation of commercial crops with non-farm work (9%) are able to earn higher incomes. The results also give some evidence of an Environmental Kuznets Curve: households that both adopt a mixed strategy and fall into the middle-income category are responsible for the highest overuse of forest resources and pasture. Since the end of 1980s, a number of households have shifted from a strategy based on forest and livestock to a strategy of mixed practices. An increasing share of households is adopting a strategy of non-farm and/or commercial practices, as well as outmigration to urban areas.
► Households in Zagros pursue three different livelihood strategies: Forest/Livestock, Mixed, and Non-farm/Commercial. ► The choice of livelihoods strategy is strongly influenced by location in addition to household assets. ► An Environmental Kuznets Curve was observed; households in the middle-income group have the highest overuse of resources.
Upgrading the industrial structure and improving the quality of the ecological environment are important strategic steps to realize the modernization of China. Based on the panel data of 11 provinces ...(municipalities) in China’s coastal areas from 2010 to 2019, this paper uses the spatial Dubin model and the threshold effect model to study the impact of industrial structure upgrading on eco-environmental quality. The results show that the influence of industrial structure upgrading on ecological environment quality has a positive “U”-shaped distribution. Based on the spatial econometric model, it is found that the rationalization of industrial structure and the optimization of industrial structure have spatial spillover effects on the ecological environment quality, and the influence of the rationalization of industrial structure and the optimization of industrial structure on the ecological environment quality of the surrounding area is positive “U”-shaped and inverted “U”-shaped, respectively. Based on the threshold model, it is found that industrial structure rationalization has a small effect on the ecological environment’s quality when the degree of scientific and technological innovation is low. When scientific and technological innovation reaches a certain threshold, industrial structure rationalization has a significant effect on the quality of the ecological environment. In addition, from a regional perspective, the influence of industrial structure rationalization in the East China Sea and the South China Sea and industrial optimization in the Bohai-Yellow Seas on the eco-environmental quality of the surrounding areas has a positive “U”-shaped distribution, while the influence of the optimization of industrial structure in the South China Sea on the eco-environmental quality of the surrounding areas has an inverted “U”-shaped curve on the left side.
Governance is the process by which we make decisions, and involves far more than just the government. It should be a collaborative community and societal process involving the public, private, ...nonprofit and community sectors and individuals working together for a common purpose. Public health must necessarily stand in opposition to any and all policies and practices in the public or private sector that harm health. This means not only the simple and obvious opposition to the tobacco, junk food and related industries, but the more profound need to oppose fossil fuels and other industries that threaten the stability and sustainability of the natural ecosystems that support our life and health. We must either ban or control all economic activities that harm health -- and the list is long.
Dentro del debate sobre la evolución de las economías en el largo plazo dos autores clásicos, Adam Smith y Simon Kuznets, propusieron teorías contrastantes sobre la evolución del mercado de trabajo ...en un período de crecimiento de la economía. Smith propuso que el crecimiento se produce a partir de una especialización productiva de las economías motivada por su inserción en el comercio internacional, lo que genera una transformación en el mercado. Kuznets, en cambio, plantea que los procesos prolongados de crecimiento en las economías modernas generan una diversificación estructural de los mercados de trabajo, con una intensificación de los empleos urbanos en sectores secundarios y terciarios, los cuales involucran una mayor capacitación de la mano de obra. Con estos marcos teóricos, el artículo presenta un análisis de la evolución de la estructura laboral en Argentina durante la primera globalización (1870-1914). Para ello, se realizó una clasificación por sectores y destrezas de los trabajadores utilizando las secciones de ocupaciones correspondientes a los censos nacionales de 1869, 1895 y 1914. Los principales resultados demuestran que a pesar del acelerado crecimiento de la economía durante el período 1870-1895, Argentina modificó relativamente poco su estructura laboral a nivel intersectorial. No obstante, luego de 1890 se advierten una serie de transformaciones en la economía que ocasionaron cambios en el mercado de trabajo dentro de ciertos sectores, los cuales vieron modificada su composición y la intensidad de destrezas de sus trabajadores.
Purpose
The relationship among foreign direct investment, multinationals, inequality and growth is a vexing one that has occupied considerable scholarly and practical attention for many decades. To ...date, international business scholars have not fully concerned themselves with this issue (Buckley, Doh and Benischke, 2017, for an exception). This paper aims to briefly review this literature and report some of the insights of this work. The author draws from and integrates this literature, concluding that multinationals and the foreign investment that emanate from them have a generally positive impact on growth and a generally negative impact on income and wealth equality. The author then details some of the potential contributions MNEs can make to attenuate the negative relationship of foreign direct investment (FDI) on equality, concluding that governments and their policies are the primary vehicle for addressing wealth and income inequality.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is an essay.
Findings
The relationship between inequality, growth and FDI is complex. On balance, FDI contributes to growth but may exacerbate inequality under some conditions. More research needs to be conducted, and policymakers need to carefully consider these nuanced relationships.
Originality/value
The paper provides review of the relationship of FDI, growth and inequality.
PDF
