Publications
1/2022 Sources of economic growth in models with non-renewable resourceS
(with Richard M.H. Suen)
Abstract: This paper re-examines the conditions under which endogenous economic growth can emerge in neoclassical models with non-renewable resources. Our analysis is based on a general production function which encompasses the Cobb–Douglas specification. We show that endogenous growth is possible only when the elasticity of substitution between effective labour input and effective resource input is constant and equal to one. If this does not hold (as some empirical studies suggested), then economic growth is solely driven by an exogenous technological factor. We also show that the assumption on this elasticity will affect the model’s policy implications in regard to resource taxation.
Permanent Link: doi.org/10.1016/j.jmacro.2022.103416
1/2023 The Structural Transformation of Thailand: The Role of Policy Distortion
(with Navarat Temsumrit )
Abstract: Thailand and the Republic of Korea were developing at a similar pace during the 1960s. However, the Republic of Korea’s economic development rapidly expanded from the 1970s onward, leaving Thailand lagging far behind. This paper investigates the labor productivity slowdown in Thailand using a ninesector, structural transformation model setting with policy distortions. Our findings suggest that the economic underdevelopment of Thailand, when compared with the Republic of Korea, lies in a tendency toward relative labor productivity slowdowns resulting from both direct and indirect policy distortions in the agriculture sector. The agriculture sector has consistently been overlooked by the government in favor of the infant industrial sector for many decades. Moreover, as the agriculture sector accounts for a relatively considerable share of employment, the magnitude of the negative impact from policy distortions is amplified, inducing a delay in Thailand’s structural transformation.
Published in: Asian Development Review Volume 40, No 1, March 2023
Permanent Link: https://doi.org/10.1142/S0116110523500087