Economia Politica. Rivista di teoria e analisi
Economia Politica. Rivista di teoria e analisi
Index 1997 Content of no.1, 1997
Employment, Technology and Growth. Searching for Macroeconomic Relationships
by Paolo Pini
The paper considers the macroeconomic relationships between employment, technology and growth, specifically the debate on the technological causes of the jobless growth and on the intensity of the well known compensation mechanisms. It is argued that the recent growth of industrialised economies, started at the beginning of eighties, does not show a rise in its employment intensity, as some authors pointed out. The evidence seems to suggest, on the contrary, a decrease in the ratio between employment growth and value added growth - both at the aggregate and sectoral level - for many European countries, in particular since the second half of the eighties. The virtuous circle between demand growth and productivity growth favourable to employment dynamics, which characterised the sixties and seventies, does not emerge anymore in the last fifteen years, when a negative relation between employment dynamics and productivity growth appears. On the basis of some empirical research, this change seems to be explained by the decreased intensity of endogenous compensation mechanisms, such as changes in the elasticity of demand for industrial products, changes in income distribution, and changes in important macroeconomic relationships between investment, consumption, and net export. Finally, the thesis which presents the service sector as new engine for a growth regime favourable to employment is considered, and also questioned.
Articles
Technical Progress, Competition and Investment Decisions: An Analysis of Long-Term Determinants of Investments (JEL: E22)
by Giovanni Bonifati
In this paper investment decisions are analysed separating the
motivations for investment from the criterion adopted for assessing
their profitability. Firstly, the motivations behind the investments are
retraced to the innovative activity of the firms and to the competition
interpreted as a process whereby firms retain their competitive position
versus existing other firms and potential newcomers. The long-term
determinants that appears important for understanding the investment
process are, on the one hand, innovations and the creation of new market
and, on the other, the expectations of demand.
A second plane of analysis concerns the relation between investments and
expected profitability, which cannot be less than the real rate of
interest plus a risk premium. After examining the possible effects on
investments of a variation, taken as permanent, of the interest rate, it
is argued that no systematic relation can be derived between variations
of the real interest rate and investments. In the theoretical context of
this analysis, indeed, while a change, taken as permanent, in the rate
of interest does not affect the basic determinants of the investment, it
does alter the condition of minimum profitability for all firms and sets
off a mechanism of competition on the market for the products, through
which the rate of profit adjusts to the real rate of interest plus
a risk premium
Non Constant Returns and Chaotic Equilibrium (JEL: O41)
by Maurizio Ciaschini
The Leontief paradigm, with its hypothesis of constant technical coefficients, dominates the multisectoral framework, while the empirical evidence shows that the production process is characterized by non constant returns.
After having shown how the hypothesis of constant technical coefficients in a dynamic multisectoral framework confines the analysis to the balanced growth path, the identification of the new equilibrium configurations - such as node, focus, saddle, centre - and of the associated paths is performed, starting from the hypothesis of non constant returns inspiring the scale dependent input requirements (SDIR) model.
The role of the final demand vector and of the initial endowement is also put in evidence as capable of compromising the stability of the model, and it is shown that even more unusual dynamic behaviors as n-cycles and aperiodic trajectories in bounded intervals may emerge.
Numerical simulation becomes the priviledged quantitative and qualitative tool since the traditional qualitative analysis fails in revealing the existence and characteristics of those equilibria
The Effects of the Public Debt when Wealth Is both a Means and an End (JEL: E62, H63)
by Vito Moramarco
Common wisdom in economics suggests that, if consump-tion is not af-fected by the rate of interest, the hypothesis of Ricardian equivalence implies neutrality of public debt concerning the struc-ture of aggregate demand. More precisely, an expansion of government expendi-ture financed through bonds is strictly equivalent to a budget balanced ex-pan-sive policy. Government bonds induce real effects on consumption only if Ricardian equivalence doesn’t hold, i.e., whenever individuals are not forward-looking or not fully altruistic concerning future gen-er-ations. In this paper I argue that the above result relies upon the idea that wealth does not enter the underlying utility function directly. Assuming the alternative point of view (i.e., both the dynamics of consump-tion and of wealth are a source of welfare) the paper shows how neutrality may not hold even when the Ricardian equiva-lence is fully operative and interest rates remain constant
Review Article
Technical Progress and Technological Systems: An Economic Analysis (JEL: O31, O33, O39)
by Nicola De Liso and Stan Metcalfe
The analysis of technological change is gaining ground within economics. This work tackles some of the basic characteristics that emerge from the new analyses concerned with technological change. After briefly recalling the way in which different schools of thought have taken into account technological change, our analysis goes on along a Schumpeterian-evolutionary path. We thus refer to concepts and Authors which belong to this school. We reconsider the original concept of scientific paradigm, and point to its applicability to technology. Then we take into account three different dimensions of technology, namely technology as knowledge, technology as skills and technology as artifacts. The recomposition of these dimensions occurs within a systemic view. Such a view is reinforced when we look at two different ways in which technology is reproduced within the system: we have in fact distinguished between the symbolic and the material form of reproduction. A series of concepts is recalled, sometimes exceeding the limits of economics to reach the engineering realm. The systemic picture is completed by the institutions, defined as intentional homeostatic mechanisms, partly rendered necessary by endogenous economic mechanisms. There emerges a final image of a technological system in which endogenous dynamics create disequilibria whose effects are far from being deleterious. Finally, the notion of a technology support system is proposed as a tool of technology policy
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