IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/8250.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Searching for Prosperity

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Kremer
  • Alexei Onatski
  • James Stock

Abstract

Quah's [1993a] transition matrix analysis of world income distribution based on annual data suggests an ergodic distribution with twin peaks at the rich and poor end of the distribution. Since the ergodic distribution is a highly non-linear function of the underlying transition matrix estimated extremely noisily. Estimates over the foreseeable future are more precise. The Markovian assumptions underlying the analysis are much better satisfied with an analysis based on five-year transitions than one-year transitions. Such an analysis yields an ergodic distribution with 72% of mass in the top income category, but a prolonged transition, during which some inequality measures increase. The rosy ergodic forecast and prolonged transition arise because countries' relative incomes move both up and down at moderate levels, but once countries reach the highest income category, they rarely leave it. This is consistent with a model in which countries search among policies until they reach an income level at which further experimentation is too costly. If countries can learn from each other's experience, the future may be much brighter than would be predicted based on projecting forward the historical transition matrix.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Kremer & Alexei Onatski & James Stock, 2001. "Searching for Prosperity," NBER Working Papers 8250, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8250
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w8250.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aart Kraay & Norman Loayza & Luis Servén & Jaume Ventura, 2005. "Country Portfolios," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(4), pages 914-945, June.
    2. Esteban, Joan & Ray, Debraj, 1994. "On the Measurement of Polarization," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(4), pages 819-851, July.
    3. Quah, Danny, 1997. "Empirics for growth and distribution," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 2138, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. L. Wade, 1988. "Review," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 99-100, July.
    5. De Long, J Bradford, 1988. "Productivity Growth, Convergence, and Welfare: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 1138-1154, December.
    6. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen R. McGrattan, 1996. "The Poverty of Nations: A Quantitative Exploration," NBER Working Papers 5414, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Thomas Piketty, 1995. "Social Mobility and Redistributive Politics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 110(3), pages 551-584.
    8. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
    9. Paapaa, Richard & van Dijk, Herman K., 1998. "Distribution and mobility of wealth of nations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(7), pages 1269-1293, July.
    10. Bianchi, Marco, 1997. "Testing for Convergence: Evidence from Non-parametric Multimodality Tests," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(4), pages 393-409, July-Aug..
    11. Quah, Danny, 1993. "Empirical cross-section dynamics in economic growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 426-434, April.
    12. Quah, Danny, 1997. "Empirics for Growth and Distribution: Stratification, Polarization, and Convergence Clubs," CEPR Discussion Papers 1586, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Charles I. Jones, 1997. "On the Evolution of the World Income Distribution," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 19-36, Summer.
    14. Quah, D., 1990. "Galton'S Fallacy And The Tests Of The Convergence Hypothesis," Working papers 552, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    15. Shorrocks, A F, 1976. "Income Mobility and the Markov Assumption," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 86(343), pages 566-578, September.
    16. Danny Quah, 1997. "Empirics for Growth and Distribution," CEP Discussion Papers dp0324, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    17. Desdoigts, A., 1995. "Changes in the World Income Distribution: a Non-Parametric Approach to Challenge the Neo-Classical Convergence Argument," SFB 373 Discussion Papers 1995,15, Humboldt University of Berlin, Interdisciplinary Research Project 373: Quantification and Simulation of Economic Processes.
    18. Quah, Danny T, 1997. "Empirics for Growth and Distribution: Stratification, Polarization, and Convergence Clubs," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 27-59, March.
    19. Quah, Danny, 1993. " Galton's Fallacy and Tests of the Convergence Hypothesis," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(4), pages 427-443, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel J. Henderson & Christopher F. Parmeter & R. Robert Russell, 2008. "Modes, weighted modes, and calibrated modes: evidence of clustering using modality tests," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(5), pages 607-638.
    2. Daniel J. Henderson, 2010. "A test for multimodality of regression derivatives with application to nonparametric growth regressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(3), pages 458-480.
    3. Steven N. Durlauf & Andros Kourtellos & Chih Ming Tan, 2008. "Empirics of Growth and Development," Chapters, in: Amitava Krishna Dutt & Jaime Ros (ed.), International Handbook of Development Economics, Volumes 1 & 2, volume 0, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Parmeter, Christopher F., 2008. "The effect of measurement error on the estimated shape of the world distribution of income," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 373-376, September.
    5. Melanie Krause, 2017. "The Millennium Peak in Club Convergence: A New Look at Distributional Changes in The Wealth of Nations," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(3), pages 621-642, April.
    6. Alfred Greiner & Jens J. Krueger, 2001. "Indeterminacy and the distribution of growth rates," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 15(6), pages 1-8.
    7. Andreas Pyka & Jens J. Kruger & Uwe Cantner, 2003. "Twin Peaks: What the Knowledge-based Approach Can Say about the Dynamics of the World Income Distribution," Chapters, in: Pier Paolo Saviotti (ed.), Applied Evolutionary Economics, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Leone Leonida & Leone Leonida & Daniel Montolio, 2003. "Public Capital, Growth and Convergence in Spain. A Counterfactual Density Estimation Approach," Working Papers 2003/3, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    9. Oleg Badunenko & Daniel J. Henderson & Valentin Zelenyuk, 2008. "Technological Change and Transition: Relative Contributions to Worldwide Growth During the 1990s," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 70(4), pages 461-492, August.
    10. Quah, Danny, 2001. "Searching for prosperity a comment," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 305-319, December.
    11. Durlauf, Steven N. & Quah, Danny T., 1999. "The new empirics of economic growth," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 235-308, Elsevier.
    12. Cem Ertur & Julie Le Gallo & Catherine Baumont, 2006. "The European Regional Convergence Process, 1980-1995: Do Spatial Regimes and Spatial Dependence Matter?," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 29(1), pages 3-34, January.
    13. Maarten Bosker & Waldo Krugell, 2008. "Regional Income Evolution In South Africa After Apartheid," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 493-523, August.
    14. Ezcurra, Roberto, 2007. "Is there cross-country convergence in carbon dioxide emissions?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 1363-1372, February.
    15. Peter Mulder & Henri Groot, 2007. "Sectoral Energy- and Labour-Productivity Convergence," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 36(1), pages 85-112, January.
    16. Epstein, Philip & Howlett, Peter & Schulze, Max-Stephan, 2003. "Distribution dynamics: stratification, polarization, and convergence among OECD economies, 1870-1992," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 78-97, January.
    17. Paul Johnson & Chris Papageorgiou, 2020. "What Remains of Cross-Country Convergence?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(1), pages 129-175, March.
    18. M. Herrerías, 2012. "Weighted convergence and regional growth in China: an alternative approach (1952–2008)," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 49(3), pages 685-718, December.
    19. Gordon Anderson & Oliver Linton & Teng Leo, 2012. "A polarization-cohesion perspective on cross-country convergence," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 49-69, March.
    20. Mahmoud A. El-Gamal & Deockhyun Ryu, 2013. "Nonstationarity and Stochastic Stability of Relative Income Clubs," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(4), pages 756-775, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8250. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.