11-13 Flashcards
Why do we care about growth?
It is indicative of standard of living which is reflected in the variable output per person
Why might it be difficult to compare standard of living across countries?
They have different currencies and then the prices for basic goods also differs. It isnt as simple as just using the exchange rates as they fluctuate.
What do we use to enable us to compare standard of living across countries?
Purchasing power parity. Constructed using a common set of prices for all countries
Malthusian trap
whereby a country is unable to increase its output per person
Emerging economies
Economics with high growth rates but low output per person
Aggregate production function
a specification of the relation between aggregate output and the inputs in production
What does K represent in the aggregate production function?
the sum of all the machines, plants and office buildings in the economy
What does N represent in the aggregate production function?
labour - the number of workers in the economy
What determines how much of each input is used?
state of technology
Returns to sale assumption of the production function
when the scale of operations in doubled (for example) the output will also double
What happen if only one of the inputs is increased?
The output will increase but by not as much as what the input was increased by keeping the other constant.
decreasing returns to capital
or
decreasing returns to labour
How do we tune turn the production function into one stating the output per worker?
Dividing it by N
Therefore
Y/N = F(K/N, 1)
What does the output of per worker state
the amount of output per worker is depends on the amount of capital per worker.
Relation between output per worker and capital per worker is represented by an upwards sloping curve with Y/N on the y axis and K/N on the x
What does the increase in the state of technology cause the output per worker curve?
Causes it to shift upwards
What are two sources of growth?
capital accumulation and technological progress
Why can capital accumulation not sustain an economy by itself
due to decreasing returns to capital, sustaining a steady increase in output per worker will require larger and larger increases in the level of capital per worker. At some point the economy will be unwilling or unable to save and invest enough to further increase capital so output per worker will stop growing.
savings rate
proportion of income that is saved
A higher savings rate can…
sustain a higher level of output
Two relations, at the centre of determination of output in the long run, between capital and output
the amount of capital determines the amount of ouptut being produced
the amount of output determines the amount of saving and, in turn, the amount of capital accumulated over time..
What assumptions do we initially make when considering the relation between capital per worker and output per worker?
- The size of the population, the participation rate and the unemployment rate are all constant therefore implying N is constant
- There is no technological progress
With these two assumptions the relation of output and capital per work from the production side can be written as:
Yt/N = f(Kt/n)
Known as production side
In a closed economy what is investment equal to?
Saving - the sum of the private and public saving But initially will be assumed that public saving is = 0.
What do we get when we combine the two relations of investment and saving and saving and income?
It = sYt
Investment is proportional to output: higher output implies higher saving and thus higher investment
What assumption do we make about capital
it depreciates year on year at rate δ. That is from one year to the next a proportion δ of the capital stock breaks down and becomes useless. The proportion of (1-δ) remains intact for the following year.
What is the evolution of the capital stock given by?
Kt+1 = (1-δ)Kt +It
What is the relation we can then obtain from the initial capital stock relation?
Replace investment with I=sYt and diving through by N
Kt+1/N = (1-δ)K/N +SYt/N
What is the second relation we can form between output and capital per worker?
Kt+1/N - Kt/N = sYt/N - δKt/N
The change in the capital stock per worker is equal to the saving per worker minu depreciation
Known as the saving side