Angel de la Fuente

The empirics of growth and convergence: A selective review

Recent empirical studies tend to confirm the importance of investment in human and technological capital as determinants of growth. Extensions of the neoclassical model that incorporate these factors explain rather well the long-run growth experience of a large sample of countries, and are consistent with the observed level of international inequality and its upward trend. These models do not explain very well the variation of growth rates over time, however, and the lack of robustness of the estimated coefficients to sample selection, specification, and other factors suggests that we are still far from having precise estimates of structural parameters such as the coefficients of the aggregate production function. Finally, the methodology employed in these studies does not allow us to reach clear conclusions regarding the likely evolution of the international income distribution of income, or the policies which may have an impact on growth.

Continuity of the constraint correspondence in parameterized Kuhn-Tucker problems with concave constraints

Abstract We establish the continuity of the constraint correspondence in Kuhn–Tucker problems with concave constraints under mild additional assumptions

Infrastructure Investment, Growth, and Regional Convergence in Spain

This chapter presents estimates of the contribution of infrastructure investment to the growth of output and employment in Spain and its regions and analyzes the impact of this factor on the process of regional convergence. These estimates are obtained using a simple supply-side model estimated with a panel of Spanish regional data. The model has two key ingredients. The first one is an aggregate production function that relates regional output to the level of employment and the stocks of productive factors (infrastructure, other non-residential physical capital and the average level of schooling of the adult population). The second one is an employment equation that describes the evolution of this variable as a function of observed changes in factor stocks and in wage levels, allowing for the inertia that arises from the existence of adjustment costs. The remainder of the chapter is divided into five sections. Section 2 briefly describes the evolution of aggregate investment in productive infrastructure and its distribution by region. Section 3 sketches an econometric model of growth that is used in Sects. 4 and 5 to quantify the impact of infrastructure investment on regional and national growth and its contribution to convergence in income per capita. Section 6 concludes this chapter.