Thomas Ziesemer

Worker Remittances and Growth: The Physical and Human Capital Channels

Summary Remittances may have an impact on economic growth through channels to physical and human capital. We estimate an open economy model of these two channels consisting of seven equations using the general method of moments with heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation correction (GMM-HAC) with pooled data for four different samples of countries receiving remittances in 2003. The countries with per capita income below

Balancing Renewable Electricity. Energy Storage, Demand Side Management and Network Extension from an Interdisciplinary Perspective

1200 benefit most from remittances in the long run because they have the largest impact of remittances on savings. Their changes in remittances account for about 2%of the steady-state level of GDP per capita when compared to the counterfactual of having no changes of remittances. Their ratio of the steady-state growth rates with and without changes of remittances is 1.39. Transitional gains are higher than the steady-state gains only for the human capital variables of this sample. As savings react much more strongly than investment an important benefit of remittances is that less debt is incurred and less debt service is paid than without remittances. All effects are much weaker for the richer countries.

Economic Analysis and Policy

Current images of our future energy system include the assumption that a high proportion of renewable energies will be used. Relevant scenarios assume that by 2050 anywhere from 80 to even 100 percent of our electricity will be generated from renewable energy sources. In addition to power generating systems, the necessary ingredients for a working system with a high proportion of renewable energy sources include climate-friendly technologies for balancing the supply and demand of electricity. This is of particular importance with regard to wind turbines and photovoltaic systems whose supply often plummets due to adverse weather conditions. The Europaische Akademie has now published an interdisciplinary study entitled “Balancing Renewable Electricity. Energy Storage, Demand Side Management and Network Extension from an Interdisciplinary Perspective”. It provides a comprehensive overview of the use of energy storage systems, demand side management and extended networks for balancing supply and demand within systems which have a high proportion of renewable energy sources. Based on the results of a threeyear research project at the Europaische Akademie, researchers from the fields of power engineering, technology assessment, political science, economics and law are making recommendations in a joint effort for the development and implementation of climate-friendly strategies for balancing supply and demand within the electricity system. It will prove challenging to provide power according to different time scales – since it must be available within fractions of a second and continue to be available for several hours or days. Because of the challenge this task represents, the authors predict that a mixture of suitable technologies will eventually prevail. They have also come to the conclusion that significant development needs exist regarding energy storage, demand side management as well as electrical transmission and distribution networks. Promoting innovation in these areas requires, amongst others, a concept aimed at removing obstacles which arise from existing financial support of other energy technologies. So as to create a better basis for political measures, systems studies and scientific policy advisory work should also be expanded. Moreover, the authors perceive a need for amendments to be made in the legal field. Some important keywords in this context include: legal assignments of storage applications to the level of the generator or network, planning processes, how to deal with the large amounts of regularly generated sensitive data and the regulation of the manifold new business relationships which arise.

Optimal public investment, growth, and consumption: Evidence from African countries

Having discussed technical requirements, potentials and costs for balancing technologies in the previous sections, this chapter investigates problems in a market economy with electricity supply that changes with weather conditions and incentives to balance supply and demand (see Sect. 7.1). This is followed by an analysis of the reasons and potentials for politically manipulating economic framework conditions (see Sect. 7.2). The results are finally summarised and concluded in Sect. 7.3.

Simultaneous Estimation of Income and Price Elasticities of Export Demand, Scale Economies and Total Factor Productivity Growth for Brazil

How much does public capital matter for economic growth? How large should it be? This paper attempts to answer these questions, taking the case of SSA countries. It develops and estimates a model that posits a nonlinear relationship between public investment and growth, to determine the growth-maximizing public investment GDP share. It empirically also accounts for the crowding-in and crowding-out effects between public and private investment, with equations estimated separately and simultaneously, using System GMM. The paper further runs simulation and examines the public investment GDP share that maximizes consumption. This is estimated to be between 8.4 percent and 11.0 percent. The results from estimating the growth model are in the middle of this range, which is larger than the observed value of 7.2 percent at the end of the sample period. These outcomes suggest that, on average, there has been public under-investment in Africa, contrary to previous findings.

Immigration and growth in an ageing economy

This article focuses on a growth model in which (unlike other models) low (high) export demand elasticities and the fact that developing countries are importers of capital goods help explaining the slow (high) growth of these countries in the transition and in the steady state. The question arises whether export demand elasticities are low or high. For answering this question, export demand elasticities for the case of Brazil are obtained by estimation of the model. As a by-product of estimating the model, we obtain estimates for total-factor productivity growth and for scale economies. Based on the results from estimation we calculate steady-state growth rates, engine and handmaiden effects of growth as well as dynamic steady-state gains from trade. The model and the results are discussed in regard to several strands of literature.

Growth with endogenous migration hump and the multiple, dynamically interacting effects of aid in poor developing countries

This paper argues that immigration can help to alleviate the burden aging presents for the welfare states of most Western Economies. We develop a macroeconomic framework which deals with the impact of both aging and immigration on economic growth. This is combined with a detailed model of the labor market, to include the interaction with low-skilled unemployment. The empirical relevance of some crucial model assumptions is shown to hold for the Netherlands, 1973–2007. The conclusions are that immigration will help to alleviate the aging problem, as long as the immigrants will be able to participate in the labor force at least as much as the native population. Moreover, the better educated the immigrants are or become, the higher their contribution to growth will be.

Immigration can alleviate the ageing problem

We show empirically that aid given to poor developing countries enhances growth and reduces emigration, once several dynamically interacting effects of aid are taken into account in a system of equations. We estimate equations for net immigration flows as a share of the labour force and Gross Domestic Product Per Capita (GDPPC) growth and also for all their regressors including remittances and official development aid. We use dynamic panel data methods for a sample of poor countries with GDPPC below

A permanent effect of temporary immigration on economic growth

1200 (2000), for which aid is about 9.5% of GDP. The partial effects in these regressions are working against each other. Therefore, we integrate all equations into a dynamic system and run a simulation. One result is an endogenous migration hump with several peaks. In a counterfactual simulation, we double aid with the consequence that for more than a 100 years migration is reduced and the GDPPC is enhanced, because the positive effects of aid on investment and education dominate the negative direct effects of aid on growth and the unfavourable effects on savings, tax revenues and labour force growth.

Developing Countries’ Net-migration: The Impact of Economic Opportunities, Disasters, Conflicts, and Political Instability

This paper analyses the way immigration can help to alleviate the burden aging presents for the welfare states of most Western Economies. We develop a macroeconomic framework which deals with the impact of both aging and immigration on economic growth. This is combined with a detailed model of the labor market, to include the interaction with unemployment, while distinguishing between low- and high-skilled labor. The empirical relevance of some crucial model assumptions are shown to hold for the Netherlands, 1973-2005. The conclusions are that immigration will help to alleviate the aging problem, as long as the immigrants will be able to find work. Moreover, the better educated the immigrants are or become, the higher their contribution to growth will be.