Capital deepening

About: Capital deepening is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5203 publications have been published within this topic receiving 230297 citations.

Macroeconomic adjustment to capital inflows : lessons from recent Latin American and East Asian experience

Abstract: Capital inflows to some developing countries have increased sharply in recent years. Impelled by better economic prospects in those countries, lower international interest rates, and a slowdown of economic activity in the capital exporting countries, the inflows have furnished financing much needed to increase the use of existing capacity and to stimulate investment. But capital inflows can bring with them their own problems. Typical macroeconomic repercussions have been appreciation of the real exchange rate, expansion of non-tradable at the expense of tradable, larger trade deficits, and, in regimes with a fixed exchange rate, higher inflation and an accumulation of foreign reserves. Should government intervene to limit some of these side effects- and if so, how? The question is especially pressing in the wake of the Mexican crisis of December 1994. This article looks for answers in the experience of four Latin American and five East Asian countries between 1986 and 1993, examining the effects of the capital inflows on the economy and comparing the different ways in which these countries responded to the problem of too much capital.

Italy's Decline: Getting the Facts Right

Abstract: The Italian economy is often said to be on a declining path. In this paper, we document that: (i) Italy's current decline is a labor productivity problem (ii) the labor productivity slowdown stems from declining productivity growth in all industries but utilities (with manufacturing contributing for about one half of the reduction) and diminished interindustry reallocation of workers from agriculture to market services; (iii) the labor productivity slowdown has been mostly driven by declining TFP, with roughly unchanged capital deepening. The only mild decline of capital deepening is due to the rise in the value added share of capital that counteracted declining capital accumulation.

Social Capital and Economic Growth

Abstract: It is argued in order to explain large differences in the level of the development and the growth of economies cannot be adequately explained only by looking the traditional inputs of labour, capital and natural resources. The hypothesis is that also the role of social capital needs to be taken into account. First the concept of social capital is defined and discussed. Then the role of social capital in the development process is explained. Empirical test based on the cross-country data of 27 countries indicates that trust as a component of social capital is an important factor in explaining the differences in the rate of economic growth in this set of countries. This supports the idea that the role of the trust to rules of the economic behaviour has indeed an important role to play in good economic performance. On the contrary the participation index is not statistically significant. This is in contrast with some other, usually micro-based studies where participation has proved to be important in improving the performance of the development projects. The report is part of a VATT research project "Human Capital and Entrepreunership".