scholarly journals Country Diversification, Product Ubiquity, and Economic Divergence

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo Hausmann ◽  
Cesar Hidalgo
Keyword(s):  
Economic Divergence ◽  
Country Diversification

Searching for new Sources of growth. Are the Developing Countries Catching up with the Developed ones?

2015 ◽  
pp. 30-53
Author(s):  
V. Popov
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Gdp Per Capita ◽  
The West ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Economic Divergence ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Relative Standing

This paper examines the trajectory of growth in the Global South. Before the 1500s all countries were roughly at the same level of development, but from the 1500s Western countries started to grow faster than the rest of the world and PPP GDP per capita by 1950 in the US, the richest Western nation, was nearly 5 times higher than the world average and 2 times higher than in Western Europe. Since 1950 this ratio stabilized - not only Western Europe and Japan improved their relative standing in per capita income versus the US, but also East Asia, South Asia and some developing countries in other regions started to bridge the gap with the West. After nearly half of the millennium of growing economic divergence, the world seems to have entered the era of convergence. The factors behind these trends are analyzed; implications for the future and possible scenarios are considered.

scholarly journals The European Union’s Recovery Plan: A Critical Evaluation

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-102
Author(s):  
Gregory T. Papanikos
Keyword(s):  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Economic Convergence ◽  
Capita Gross Domestic Product ◽  
Member States ◽  
Recovery Plan ◽  
Economic Divergence ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Health Situation ◽  
Economic Growth Rates

This article reviews the European Union’s Recovery Plan to cope with COVID-19 by examining two of its main hypotheses. I primarily use Greece as a case study of those who benefit from receiving funds, and in some cases Germany, because it played, and still plays, an instrumental role in promoting this unfounded idea of transferring European taxpayers’ money to the hands of national politicians. First, it was alleged that the health situation is improving. Second, the pandemic increases economic divergence between member states. The stylized facts so far do not seem to support either hypothesis. Since the July Summit of the European Council, the epidemiological situation has worsened as measured by deaths and cases. Data on per capita Gross Domestic Product released by the European Commission on 6 May 2020 show an unprecedented for peace years decline in economic growth rates for all 27 member states in 2020. The data estimations also assume a V-shaped recovery for 2021. However, the alleged hypothesis of economic divergence in 2020 and economic convergence in 2021 is not supported by the data themselves. The main conclusion of this study is that the economic impact cannot be fully ascertained if the pandemic is not permanently over and therefore the titanic EU spending of 750 billion euro cannot be based on the stylized economic and epidemiological facts. Keywords: European Union, pandemic, Covid-19, health, growth, public pending, recovery plan, Germany, Greece.

Determinants of Economic Divergence Among Accelerating Societies

2013 ◽  
pp. 85-162
Author(s):  
Tai-Yoo Kim ◽  
Seunghyun Kim ◽  
Jongsu Lee
Keyword(s):  
Economic Divergence

scholarly journals The Return of “Patrimonial Capitalism”: A Review of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century

2014 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 519-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Branko Milanovic
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
First Century ◽  
Data Series ◽  
Unified Theory ◽  
Income Distributions ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Economic Divergence ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Thomas Piketty

Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty provides a unified theory of the functioning of the capitalist economy by linking theories of economic growth and functional and personal income distributions. It argues, based on the long-run historical data series, that the forces of economic divergence (including rising income inequality) tend to dominate in capitalism. It regards the twentieth century as an exception to this rule and proposes policies that would make capitalism sustainable in the twenty-first century. (JEL D31, D33, E25, N10, N30, P16)

Early Globalization and the Economic Development of the United States and Brazil. By John DeWitt. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. Pp. 178.

2003 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 305-306
Author(s):  
Zephyr Frank
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Statistical Tests ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Weak State ◽  
Factor Endowments ◽  
Economic Divergence

The author of this ambitious volume tackles the question: why is the United States rich and Brazil poor? Given the importance of the question and the promising comparative approach, readers of this JOURNAL will be tempted to look into John DeWitt's book. Unfortunately, they are likely to be disappointed. The author claims that internal and external factors combined to generate growth in the United States and to breed underdevelopment in Brazil. The external factors hinge on the purported unfairness of the international system. Brazil, according to DeWitt, was “a weak state that could be treated like a palooka and pummeled with impunity” (p. 113). The internal factors of growth or backwardness adduced in the book are based on a series of case studies of regions or industries, such as coastal towns or whaling, along with generalizations about plantation economics. Although there are many useful insights sprinkled throughout the book, the methodology and bibliography are confused and outdated: there are no time series or statistical tests employed in the text; quantitative data are few and almost entirely descriptive; and no mention is made of recent publications emphasizing institutions and factor endowments as sources of economic divergence between the United States and Latin America. In particular, it is troubling that no mention is made in the text or bibliography to Stephen Haber's edited volume, How Latin America Fell Behind (Stanford, CT: Stanford University Press, 1997). This omission prevents DeWitt from addressing the standard text in the literature and severely detracts from the volume's credibility.

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