Showing papers on "Real gross domestic product published in 1982"

Market Reaction to the Filing of Antitrust Suits: An Aggregate and Cross-Sectional Analysis

Abstract: The data were obtained from the February 1982 International Financial Statistics. The IFS code is given in parentheses. The exchange rate was end-of-period exchange rate (AE). Real income was real GDP (U.K., Sweden, 99 B.P) and real GNP (Germany, Canada, U.S., 99 A.R). Interest rates were a Treasury bill rate (U.K., Canada, U.S., 60C), call money rate (Germany, 60B) and government bond yield (Sweden, 61). Money was (34). Prices were the consumer price index (64). REFERENCES

Towards an Explanation of National Price Levels

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to call attention to the need for a theory of comparative national price levels and to explore some of the elements that seem to belong to such a theory. Most theoretical discussions have maintained that national price levels tend towards equality and focus on presumably temporary divergences from equality. Yet strong evidence has been accumulating that there are large and long-standing differences inprice levels, the highest of which are more than twice those of countries with the lowest prices. Long-run price level differences are most clearly related to levels of real per capita output, with richer countries having higher price levels.These differences have been explained as resulting from greater advantages in productivity for the wealthier countries in goods production, mostly tradable, than in services production, mostly nontradable. The differences in relative productivity may be in total factor productivity or only in labor productivity, reflecting the greater capital intensity of goods production and possibly a higher elasticity of substitution between capital and labor in goods production.We find in the empirical analysis that a large part of the differences in price levels can be explained by structural factors such as real GDP per capita, the degree of openness of the economy, and the share of nontradable goods in output. The only non-structural factor emerging from a preliminary analysis of several of these was the rate of growth of the quantity of money.

Structure and Development Strategies of the Manufacturing Industries in Singapore and Hong Kong: A Comparative Study

Abstract: IN THE PAST two to three decades, both Singapore and Hong Kong have achieved impressive rates of economic growth matched by few developing nations. As a result they have been dubbed, respectively, the "Singapore Model" and the "Hong Kong Model." In both cases manufacturing growth has played a major role in the process together with an expansion of manufactured exports. Manufacturing contributed 22.4% to Singapore's Gross Domestic Product in 1979 and 24% to Hong Kong's GDP in 1977; in 1978, employment in manufacturing accounted for 28.7% of the total employed labor force of Singapore and 39.7% in Hong Kong. High growth rates of manufacturing output and real GDP together with very low unemployment rates are also characteristic of the two expanding economies. It has been claimed that objective conditions that is, the lack of natural resources except for strategic locations, excellent ports, and industrious labor forces forced the two city-states to orient their manufacturing industries toward export markets. Furthermore, the domestic market in each instance is not large enough to serve as the initial base for industrialization. There is some truth in these arguments, but they are by no means the only conditions that set the stage for growth. For example, when Hong Kong began industrializing in 1950, it had a population of two million and a relatively high per capita income derived from trade. Similar conditions prevailed in Singapore when it launched its industrialization program in the 1960s, although its population was smaller. Measured by purchasing power, these domestic markets were larger than those of many developing nations that had embarked on pro

Government-controlled Food Grain Markets, External Trade in Food Grains and Agricultural Development: the Case of Four Countries in East Africa

Abstract: Governments pursue two major kinds of policies that affect agricultural production and incomes. First, they control the domestic prices of agricultural commodities, which cause movements along agricultural supply curves. Second, they invest in agricultural research, education, and transportation systems, which shift agricultural supply curves over time. The first will be called 'commodity' policies and the second, 'development' policies. Positive policies of either type can increase agricultural production and, given input prices, agricultural incomes, but the means of achieving such increases, as Ricardo ( 1970 [ 1821 ], p. 79) pointed out more than 160 years ago, greatly affect the overall rate of economic development in less developed countries. This paper examines these two types of policies in the case of four countries in East Africa. Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia are all former British colonies that became independent between 1961 and 1964. Owing to their common geographical and historical legacy, they have similar economic and institutional structures, including their governments' interventions in domestic food grain markets. All have been blessed with stable government since independence and considerable continuity in economic policy. The four countries are an economic laboratory for studying the impact of agricultural commodity and development policies. Between 1964 and 1978which excludes the effects of the most recent drought to hit the region, beginning in 1979real GDP grew faster in Kenya and Malawi than in Tanzania and Zambia (see Table 1.) Real GDP per caput also grew faster in Kenya and Malawi. But a more striking difference between the two groups of countries is that while real private consumption per caput grew in Kenya and Malawi, it actually declined in Tanzania and Zambia. Not only did real GDP per caput grow more slowly in Tanzania and Zambia, but also government consumption grew more quickly than in Kenya and Malawi. In all four countries, real growth in GDP has been associated with a declining share of agricultural production (see Table 2). But in Kenya and