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This chapter examines the link between intercity trade and long-run urban growth. It begins by introducing a Ventura-type model of the growth of isolated cities that allows for investment in physical capital and in urban transportation as ways to increase urban productive capacity. It then considers a sample of growth empirics for the United States, European, and Brazilian systems of cities with an emphasis on transportation improvements and factor accumulation. It also describes a model of economic growth in a system of cities that leads to a precise description of the law of motion in dynamic settings of either autarkic cities or specialized cities engaged in intercity trade. Finally, it explores the interrelationships between economic integration, urban specialization, and growth; the Rossi-Hansberg–Wright model of urban structure and its evolution; empirical aspects of urban structure and long-run urban growth; and sequential urban growth and decay.

This chapter explains the era and institutions of the managed economy. Emerging from the Second World War, the United States found itself almost alone with a relative abundance of the factor that mattered the most for growth, jobs, and prosperity — capital. During the era of the managed economy, it was first and foremost capital that mattered, and everything that helped it — machines, factories, and labour which would work it and organize it. With the dazzling unprecedented post-war prosperity pouring out of US factories and plants, transforming first a country overcome by economic depression following a country at war, there seemed to be plenty enough for every American to go around.

A substantial body of literature on investment in South Africa has emerged over the past decade, with diverse findings. This chapter provides an assessment of reported findings. It considers domestic private physical capital accumulation and public capital accumulation, and it reflects briefly on the likely growth consequences of the evidence reviewed. The chapter then takes stock of the evidence, placing emphasis on the broader thematic insights that emerge from the relatively diverse set of papers on investment behaviour in South Africa.

This chapter presents a special form of the growth model by assuming that physical capital and the stock of knowledge can be summarized in one variable. This gives the so-called AK model of endogenous growth. The second-best abatement share as well as the socially optimal value for the investment share and the abatement share is computed assuming a logarithmic utility function.

This chapter examines the trends in economic growth and human development in Turkey during the last two centuries. Economists have learned a great deal about modern economic growth since the end of World War II. The large and growing literature has emphasized that increases in productivity, achieved through technological progress on the one hand, and increases in per capita physical capital and education levels, on the other, were the most important factors contributing to economic growth. In addition, the labor force is much better educated than in 1820. In short, technological change and higher rates of investment in both physical and human capital are seen today as the leading proximate causes of economic growth since the Industrial Revolution.

The chapter considers the scope and significance of professional services firms by drawing from debates about the nature of professional services firms, and examining their impact within the economy and as employers. It evaluates how professional services limit their membership through closure regimes based on the traditional nature of professionals and professionalism. The main focus of the discussion is on gender challenges in the professional services context as a form of social closure through the need to have appropriate social and physical capital. However, the chapter also considers other forms of social closure, based on class and race among other factors, which also may interact with each other. Finally, the chapter draws out some implications for equality within professional services firms, suggesting that while classic barriers to entry have been overcome, some other inequalities remain, especially in the pursuit of promotion to higher levels and prestigious areas of work.

Since China launched its historic process of economic reform and opening up in the late 1970s, women have become vulnerable to the impact of economic restructuring on employment. This chapter focuses on the impact of economic transition and social transformation on women’s choices of cosmetic surgery. It explores why cosmetic surgery is widely considered as an “investment” to gain “beauty capital” among Chinese girls and women. In particular, it explores the phenomenon of Chinese high school and college students rushing to have cosmetic surgery over summer/winter holidays to get an edge in a tight job market.The obsession with female beauty in workplaces and in the marriage market is rooted in traditional Chinese gender norms, where women’s appearances are more emphasized than their ability and talents.

Ever since the 1960s, research and development (R&D) investment has been regarded as an important factor in the improvement of productivity levels. Numerous studies have attempted to estimate the marginal product of R&D capital or the rates of return on R&D investment, but they have continually failed to produce consistent results, with some even failing to determine the contribution of R&D to productivity growth. This chapter investigates productivity growth and R&D expenditure in Taiwan's manufacturing sector, focusing on the relationship between output (value added), employment, physical capital, and R&D capital using panel data for a sample of 136 firms over the period 1994–2000. It assesses the degree to which R&D influences productivity, examines the rates of return on R&D investment within manufacturing firms, and analyzes the differences in productivity growth and the rates of return on R&D investment between industries. Finally, the chapter tests the Schumpeterian hypothesis stating that the returns on R&D are an increasing function of firm size.

This chapter builds a model in which labour market regulations influence labour productivity growth through labour markets. The model decomposes labour productivity growth into components attributable to (i) changes in efficiency; (ii) technological change; (iii) physical capital deepening; (iv) human capital accumulation; (v) labour market regulations changes. The empirical analysis Penn World Tables and Economic Freedom of the World data is performed for 1970–95 and 1995–2014. Findings can be summarized as follows. First, physical capital deepening is the major driving force behind productivity growth over the period. Labour market regulation changes having contributed next to nothing during 1970–95, become the second most important force of economic growth after 1995. Second, relatively rich nations benefit more from changes to labour market regulations than do relatively poor nations. Finally, contributions from labour market regulations changes to growth is stronger for countries with less liberalized labour markets.

This chapter explores whether Hispanic entrepreneurs use digital technology differently than their non-Hispanic counterparts. It also analyzes whether the usage of such technology related to business outcomes between Hispanic- and non-Hispanic-owned small firms. The findings are mixed. One dataset indicates the presence of a digital divide between Hispanic and non-Hispanic entrepreneurs with respect to having a website and conducting e-commerce, although differences in observable characteristics explained a considerable portion of this gap. However, an alternative dataset suggests that the digital divide that existed between Hispanic- and non-Hispanic-owned small businesses in the late 1990s had vanished by the mid-2000s.

The full fruits of labour principle cannot be given literal force in the great society. Its equivalent is that producers should receive the value of their marginal product. Where returns to labour in the hierarchy of firms depart from the principle of marginal productivity, this highlights the justice of the marginal productivity principle. There is no argument from economies of scale creating the value of marginal product to the justice of redistribution among producers. Rather all producers should contribute to the maintenance of common overheads. Claims of need are to be understood as reasons for ensuring that redistribution across the life-cycle takes place. With the change in the role of the household in the great transformation, family economic responsibilities may be socialized. Capital ownership needs to be equalized in line with one interpretation of the property-owning democracy

While current economic discourse tends to focus on GDP and its growth, there is an older tradition in economics of assessing the wealth of a nation. This book builds on this tradition by defining the components of wealth (produced, natural, human, intellectual and institutional capital, and net foreign assets) and considers how the management of this portfolio can lead to increasing social welfare. Four factors have increased the salience of wealth: a financial crisis centred on the implosion of balance sheet positions, the subsequent emphasis on the distribution of wealth within societies, significant progress in the measurement of wealth, and concerns about the natural capital that is humanity’s common endowment. The chapters in this book span concepts, theory, and empirical work, including research on historic wealth creation and destruction, the economic characteristics of the components of wealth, and the means of managing wealth in order to sustain social welfare.

This chapter commences with the so-called exogenous growth models. It describes the most classic model of the domain, the Solow-Swan model, which explains principally increases in national production by factor accumulation. Also, it presents the short-run equilibrium and the dynamics of Slow-Swan model, and sets forth the exogenous technical progress. The chapter then examines the problem of convergence across different economies, and illustrates a model having two accumulated factors: physical capital and human capital.

Chapter 5 presents a systematic analysis of urban poverty by examining changes in the human-capital composition of the labour force, in the livelihoods of the respondents, and the level and composition of income for different occupational groups. It also identifies the determinants of household income with the help of a multivariate regression model, using the household-level data. Alongside, it examines the distribution of income over time, changes in the degree of inequality, and estimates the contribution of different sources of income to the income inequality with the help of the Gini decomposition analysis. It shows notable reduction in the incidence of moderate and extreme poverty in 2010. Also, it estimates changes in the incidence, intensity, and severity of poverty, identifying the correlates of poverty for Dhaka city in order to answer the question: is the poorer segment of the urban population benefitting from positive economic trends?