| Session 30-- | Modern Economic Growth and Distribution in Asia, Latin America and the European Periphery: A Historical National Accounts Approach |
| Title: Modern Economic Growth and Distribution in Asia, Latin America and the European Periphery: A Historical National Accounts Approach Contact Information: Prof. Luis Bértola, Economic and Social History Programme, Faculty of Social Sciences, Universidad de la República, Box 7045, Correo Central, Montevideo, Uruguay. Ph: (5982) 4088560/61. Fax: (5982) 4000871. Email: lbertola@fcsum.edu.uy Other Organizers: Prof. Konosuke Odaka (Hosei University, Japan); Dr. Bart van Ark (Dept. of Economic and Social History, Faculty of Economics, University of Groningen, The Netherlands) Description: The phenomenon of modern economic growth as described by Kuznets goes together with an increasing complexity in patterns of income and expenditure distribution. Firstly, there are important changes in personal income distribution. In this respect the "inverse U hypothesis", which outlines the rise in income inequality in early phases of modern economic growth followed by a subsequent decline, has been widely tested and debated. Secondly, economic growth changes the expenditure pattern as expenditures on food decline in favour of expenditures on durable goods and investment goods. Thirdly, economic growth is accompanied by important structural changes, as resources move from low to high productivity sectors under the influence of technological change and difference in output and input growth between sectors. Fourthly, the share of labour and capital compensation in value added changes under the influence of growth. Most studies on the relationship between growth and distribution have concentrated on a limited number of advanced countries, and the small number of studies which include low income countries either lack a historical dimension, or measure the relation between growth and inequality along only one of the lines outlined above. This session is proposed to assess the progress on Historical National Accounts reconstruction in Asia, Latin America, the European periphery and other developing regions. Contributors are specifically invited to link growth and distributional issues in the mentioned regions, even though comparisons with advanced countries are encouraged. Participants: Call for Papers:
The Central Theme:
The phenomenon of modern economic growth as described by Kuznets goes
together with an increasing complexity in patterns of distribution.
Firstly, economic growth is accompanied by important structural
changes, as resources move from low to high productivity sectors
under the influence of technological change and difference in output
and input growth between sectors. Secondly, the share of labour and
capital compensation in value added changes under the influence of
growth. Thirdly, economic growth changes the expenditure pattern as
expenditures on food decline in favour of expenditures on durable
goods and investment goods. And fourthly there are important changes
in personal income distribution. In this respect the ?inverse
U-hypothesis?, which outlines the rise in income inequality in early
phases of modern economic growth followed by a subsequent decline,
has been widely tested and debated.
Background:
Most studies on the relationship between growth and distribution have
concentrated on a limited number of advanced countries, and the small
number of studies which include low income countries either lack a
historical dimension, or measure the relation between growth and
inequality along only one of the lines outlined above. What is still
missing in most developing countries is an integrated historical
national accounts framework, which allows comprehensive comparisons
of distributional and growth issues simultaneously from the income,
expenditure and output perspectives. Fortunately, partly under the
influence of recent leaps forward in historical national accounting
in Europe, North America and Japan, some progress is now being made
in reconstructing historical national accounts in Asia, Latin America
and the European periphery.
This session is a follow-up on sessions held at the two previous IEHA
conferences. During the 11th Congress in Milan (1994), a session was
held on ?Economic growth and structural change? (Maddison and van der
Wee, 1994). This included few papers on low income countries. The
same was true of the follow-up session at the 12th Congress in Madrid
(1998) on ?Historical Benchmark Studies of Income and Productivity?
(Buyst, van Ark and van Zanden, 1998). In contrast, this session
concentrates on papers from countries and regions in Asia, Latin
America, the European periphery and other developing regions, even
though comparisons with advanced countries are encouraged.
Commentators from Europe, North America and Japan are invited as
experts.
In a pre-conference of this session recently held in Tokyo (March
2001), 14 papers covering the three regions were discussed (8 on
Asia, 3 on Latin America and 3 on Europe). These papers showed the
significant advances achieved in HNA in medium and low income
countries in the recent years, as well as the limits that still exist
for such an approach to the discussion of growth and distributional
issues (the papers are downloadable from the following website:
http://www.eco.rug.nl/GGDC/tokyohna2.html.)
Thus, following the
criteria defined for this pre-conference, many papers presented
advances on limited aspects of the HNA approach and the discussion of
the relation between growth, structural change and distributional
issues was only preliminary.
Towards the Buenos Aires Session:
At the end of the pre-conference some criteria were agreed, which
were to guide the works and the presentation of proposals towards the
Buenos Aires session:
1. Papers are encouraged to be comparative in character. Even if
based on long-run national studies, where institutional aspects play
a decisive role, the session searches for debate and analysis which
may enlighten general development issues. If concentrated on one
country, the papers might include comparative aspects in the
conclusions. Cooperation between researchers working on or coming
from different countries is strongly encouraged in order to write
comparative papers. The Organisers:
Prof. Luis Bértola | |
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