On the transition to sustained growth: The importance of recent agricultural employment
Review of Economic Dynamics · 2025 · B. Ravikumar、Guillaume Vandenbroucke
中文摘要
我们研究这样一个模型:单一产品既可以用收益递减技术(马尔萨斯)生产,也可以用收益不变技术(索洛)生产。我们将前者对应于农业,并表明在经济转型期间农业就业份额以恒定速率下降,且关于该份额的近期观测数据足以估计转型的起点。我们的模型意味着:(i) 转型开始之后,产出增长更高且不断上升;(ii) 在转型期间,产出增长服从一阶自回归过程;(iii) 农业就业份额的下降速率是自回归系数的充分统计量。我们的定量结果与这些含义相一致:对发达经济体而言,尽管产出的部门构成发生了变化,该结论在一个多世纪中均成立;对当今处于不同发展与结构转型阶段的发展中经济体,该结论同样成立。
Abstract
We study a model where a single good can be produced using a diminishing-returns technology (Malthus) and a constant-returns technology (Solow). We map the former to agriculture and show that the share of agricultural employment declines at a constant rate during the economic transition and that recent observations on the share are sufficient to estimate the onset of transition. Our model implies that (i) output growth is higher and increasing after the onset of transition, (ii) during the transition, it is a first-order autoregressive process, and (iii) the rate of decline in the share of agricultural employment is a sufficient statistic for the autoregressive coefficient. Our quantitative results are consistent with these implications for developed economies over more than a century despite the changes in the sectoral composition of output and for today's developing economies in various stages of development and structural transformation.