Economics

This paper studies human capital and environment dynamics accounting for the interactions between health, education, environment and public policy. We conclude that taxes and public environment spending do not affect welfare significantly, but they have ...

Νίκος Μπένος & Στέλιος Καραγιάννης ΠΕΡΙΛΗΨΗ Κατά τα τελευταία χρόνια, ένα από τα σημαντικότερα ζητήματα στα εμπειρικά οικονομικά είναι η υπόθεση της σύγκλισης. Ο σκοπός αυτής της εργασίας είναι η διερεύνηση της περιφερειακής σύγκλισης και διαπεριφερειακών ανισοτήτων σε όρους κατά κεφαλή εισοδήματος στην Ελλάδα.

The objective of this paper is to empirically examine the relation between growth and human capital for the Greek regions (NUTS III), for the period 1981-2003. We use the enrolment rates at lower and upper secondary education and the respective student/teacher ratios. Moreover, taking a broader view of human capital, we include two health care indicators (the number of medical doctors and hospital beds). We find that student enrolment rates at both levels of secondary education have a positive impact on growth, while a higher student-teacher ratio inhibits growth. Also, the number of medical doctors seems to boost growth. Besides, there are important human capital externalities across neighbouring regions. We define two regional groups (high and low income) and there is strong evidence of heterogeneity in rates of return to human capital. The above results are more robust for high income regions. Overall, this study incorporates the differences in rates of return to education between regional clubs. We believe that our findings have important policy implications and Greek authorities should take them into account in designing growth promoting policies at the national and regional level.

The objective of this paper is to empirically examine the growth experience of the Greek regions, in the period towards and following the adoption of the Euro. We focus on the role that investment and employment play in regional growth and analyse how the spatial dynamics and patterns of industry affect the design of growth-promoting policies. After applying three different model specifications, our results indicate that investment in the service sector (hotels and restaurants) and business activities (real estate) enhance growth.

This note shows that the assumptions about the abatement technology modify the impact of the environmental taxation on the long-run growth driven by human capital accumulation � la Lucas (1988), when lifetime is finite. Whereas no impact of the environmental policy on long-run growth is found when pollution originates from final output and abatement is an activity requiring final output to reduce net emissions, this note demonstrates that a tighter environmental tax enhances human capital accumulation when it is assumed that abatement services are produced with physical capital.

The objective of this paper is to empirically examine the relation between education, health and economic growth for the Greek regions (NUTS III), for 1981-2003. We employ education indicators including the enrolment rates in lower and upper secondary education and the respective student/teacher ratios. Moreover, we include two healthcare indicatorsthe number of medical doctors and hospital beds. Our estimations show that student enrolment rates at both levels of secondary education have a positive impact on growth, while a higher student-teacher ratio inhibits growth. Also, medical doctors seem to boost growth. We define two regional groups (high and low income) and there is strong evidence of differential rates of return to education and healthcare. Besides these, there are strong human capital externalities across neighbouring regions. Thus, the evidence implies the need for larger public spending on education and healthcare in all regions as a growthpromoting policy. We believe that policy makers in Greece should take this into account in designing policies at the national and regional levels.

The objective of this paper is to empirically examine the growth experience of the Greek regions, in the period towards and following the adoption of the Euro. We focus on the role that investment and employment play in regional growth and analyse how the spatial dynamics and patterns of industry affect the design of growth-promoting policies. After applying three different model specifications, our results indicate that investment in the service sector (hotels and restaurants) and business activities (real estate) enhance growth.

The objective of this paper is to empirically examine the relation between growth and human capital for the Greek regions (NUTS III), for the period 1981-2003. We use the enrolment rates at lower and upper secondary education and the respective student/teacher ratios. Moreover, taking a broader view of human capital, we include two health care indicators (the number of medical doctors and hospital beds). We find that student enrolment rates at both levels of secondary education have a positive impact on growth, while a higher student-teacher ratio inhibits growth. Also, the number of medical doctors seems to boost growth. Besides, there are important human capital externalities across neighbouring regions. We define two regional groups (high and low income) and there is strong evidence of heterogeneity in rates of return to human capital. The above results are more robust for high income regions. Overall, this study incorporates the differences in rates of return to education between regional clubs. We believe that our findings have important policy implications and Greek authorities should take them into account in designing growth promoting policies at the national and regional level.

This paper decomposes public spending and revenues into various subcategories and estimates the impact of each of them on economic growth. The results provide some support for theoretical models of endogenous growth. Specifically, the main findings are: a) public expenditures on infrastructure (economic affairs and general public services) exert a positive impact on growth; b) government outlays on property rights protection (defense, public order-safety) have a positive effect on per capita growth; c) distortionary taxation depresses growth; d) government expenditures on human capital enhancing activities (education, health, housing-community amenities, environment protection, recreation-culture-religion) and social protection do not have a significant effect on per capita growth. These findings are robust to changes in specification and estimation methodology.

This paper decomposes public spending and revenues into various sub-categories and estimates the impact of each of them on economic growth. The results provide some support for theoretical models of endogenous growth. Specifically, the main findings are: a) public expenditures on infrastructure (economic affairs and general public services) exert a positive impact on growth; b) government outlays on property rights protection (defense, public order-safety) have a positive effect on per capita growth; c) distortionary taxation depresses growth; d) government expenditures on human capital enhancing activities (education, health, housing-community amenities, environment protection, recreation-culture-religion) and social protection do not have a significant effect on per capita growth. These findings are robust to changes in specification and estimation methodology.

The purpose of this paper is to test the convergence,hypothesis arising from the neoclassical growth model and to investigate the interregional disparities in Greece in terms of per capita income. The novelty of our study lies in the use of a disaggregated dataset at two regional levels (NUTS II & NUTS III) and for an extended,time period (1971-2003). Our

Abstract: This paper decomposes public spending and tax revenue into various sub-categories and estimates the impact of each of them on economic growth. The results provide some support for theoretical models of endogenous growth. Specifically, the main findings are: a) government spending on education, health and fuel-energy display a hump-shaped relationship with per capita growth; b) public expenditures on housing-community amenities, social security-social assistance and transport-communication are characterized by a U-shaped relation with growth; c) the effect of public spending on education and social expenditures on growth is stronger the poorer a country is, while the opposite is true for expenditures on health; d) there is a non-linear impact of distortionary taxation on growth, but the form on non-linearity is sensitive to changes in estimation method, since sometimes we find a hump-shaped and sometimes a U-shaped relationship; e) budget surplus has a positive effect on gr...

This study examines the role of proximity in regional growth using a multi-dimensional framework, for seven EU countries during 1990-2005. We incorporate geographical as well as economic and technological effects in two seminal growth models in order to test for the existence and magnitude of interregional externalities. Our findings show that spillovers are important for European regional growth, regardless of the measure of proximity; thus regions surrounded by dynamic entities are likely to growth faster than otherwise. Moreover, our results underline the need for coordinated EU policies aiming at higher physical and human capital accumulation, taking into account regional synergies.

This paper estimates production functions for Greek regions over 1981-2003, using a novel human capital dataset. We construct rich human capital series, where data for employees are decomposed according to their education level. Our empirics include recent non-stationary panel techniques, allowing for cross-section dependence and parameter heterogeneity in production technology, along with fixed effects and dynamic panel estimators. We show that ignoring cross-section dependence and parameter heterogeneity has a serious distorting impact on the estimated results, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Our evidence shows that tertiary education has a strong positive association with labor productivity growth, while secondary education exhibits a negative relationship. Primary education, public capital and net agglomeration do not display any relation with growth. Overall, findings suggest that policy makers should account for spillovers alongside technology heterogeneity and direct their efforts towards the expansion of tertiary education in poor regions in order to promote convergence.

We investigate the relationship between economic growth and top income inequality under the influence of human and physical capital accumulation, using an annual panel of U.S. state-level data. Our analysis is based upon the "unified" framework offered by Galor and Moav (2004) while the empirics account for cross-section dependence, parameter heterogeneity, and endogeneity, in nonstationary series. We conclude that changes in inequality do not influence growth, neither in the short run nor in the long run in the United States as a whole in the 1929-2013 period. Our findings are robust to the inclusion of overall income inequality measures. These findings provide support for the theoretical prediction of the unified theory of inequality and growth, according to which the growth effect of inequality becomes insignificant in the latest stages of economic development that the United States experiences during our period of investigation. Therefore, future policies aiming at moderating the concentration at the upper end of income distribution are not likely to have adverse growth consequences in developed countries such as the United States. (JEL I21, O47, C23) * The opinions expressed are those of the authors only and should not be considered as representative of the European Commission's official position. The authors thank especially the Editors and three anonymous referees for their very constructive remarks and suggestions. The paper has also benefited greatly from comments received by conference par

The purpose of this paper is to test regional convergence and investigate interregional disparities in terms of per capita income in Greece. The novelty of our study lies in the use of a disaggregated dataset for an extended time period (1971-2003) at two regional levels (NUTS II & NUTS III). Our results indicate that there is β convergence between prefectures, but not among regions, while no evidence of σ convergence was found at both regional levels. Also, the GDP geographic concentration and population density have a negative impact on growth, which outweighs the positive growth effect of population geographic concentration and GDP spatial inequality. Thus, policies aiming at the decentralization of economic activity in Greece would enhance growth and regional equality simultaneously. Finally, we do not find economic dualism across geographic areas; however rich prefectures seem to converge faster than poor ones.

In this paper we use country panel data to explore the effect of innovation on top income inequality. We construct a novel dataset of patents by combining patents from USPTO and EPO to test the effect of innovation on income inequality. We demonstrate that innovation has a strong positive correlation with top income shares. Also, we find weak evidence that innovation has a negative effect on overall income inequality. We support our findings by using instrumental variables to tackle endogeneity. In addition our IV analysis shows that the effect of innovation on top income shares remains significant for 3 years. Finally, we show that innovation has a less strong effect on top income inequality when we include defensive patents in the analysis.