Empiricizam, 1. dio

Iako sam pobornik prakseologije i imam određene rezerve prema empiricizmu u ekonomiji i ekonomskom eksperimentiranju, evo jedan post o rezultatima nekih empirijskih istraživanja oko nekih čestih ekonomskih pitanja, kao što sam obećao. Većinu ovih radova zapravo nalazim u referencama u knjizi In Defense of Classical Liberalism autora Coreya Iacona i Matta Palumba.

Grupirat ću radove po temama, navesti autore i linkove (koje nađem), te ispod neki vrlo kratki zaključak rada.

Ovo je samo prvi dio, bit će ih još nekoliko.

Ekonomska sloboda i gospodarski rast:

• Ali Ulubasoglu, M., Doucouliagos, C., Economic Freedom and Economic Growth, Does Specification Make Difference? (link)

Zaključak: “The meta-analysis shows clearly that there is a positive and statistically significant association between economic freedom and economic growth. Importantly, this association is very robust. That is, regardless of the sample of countries, the measure of economic freedom and the level of aggregation, there is a solid finding of a direct positive association between economic freedom and economic growth. This association is both statistically significant and of economic importance. In addition, economic freedom has an indirect positive effect on economic growth through its positive impact on physical capital formation. It was shown also that economic freedom has a significantly greater affect on economic growth than does political freedom.”

• Hanke, S., Walters, S., Economic Freedom, Prosperity and Equality: A Survey (link)

Zaključak: “It is true that differing points of view will produce (slightly) different freedom scores. But it is also true that these differences do not alter a finding which is of crucial importance: Economic freedom and economic wealth are inextricably linked. All signs point in the same direction: those who would like people to enjoy greater prosperity must work to assure greater economic liberty.”

• Madan, A., The Relationship Between Economic Freedom and Socio-Economic Development (link)

Zaključak: “The empirical results support the hypothesis that increased economic freedom leads to an improvement in quality of life.”

• Gwartney, J., Holcombe, R., Lawson, R., Institutions and the Impact on Investment on Growth (link)

Zaključak: “The positive relationship between economic freedom and long-term economic growth is clearly not the result of growth having a positive impact on freedom.”

• Chauffor, J.-P., On the Relevance of Freedom and Entitlement in Development: New Empirical Evidence (link)

Zaključak: “The empirical findings in this paper suggest that fundamental freedoms are paramount to explain long term economic growth. For a given set of exogenous conditions, countries that favor free choice—economic freedom and civil and political liberties—over entitlement rights are likely to growth faster and achieve many of the distinctive proximate characteristics of success.”

• Justesen, M., The Effect of Economic Freedom on Growth Revisited: New Evidence on Causality from a Panel of Countries 1970-1999 (link)

Zaključak: “The main conclusion of the paper is that economic freedom does matter for economic growth, but that some freedoms matter more than others. In fact, a critical assessment of the results suggests that apart from the composite index, only two of the constituent components of economic freedom – government size and regulatory policies – have robust effects on economic growth and investment.”

• Faria, H. J., Montesinos, H. M., Does Economic Freedom Cause Prosperity? (link)

Zaključak: Ekonomska sloboda uzrokuje gospodarski rast.

• Dawson, J. W., Causality in the Freedom-Growth Relationship (link)

Zaključak: “These results emphasize the importance of economic freedom, in general, and the role of free markets and property rights, in particular, in fostering long-run economic prosperity.”

• Vega-Gordillo, M., Alvarez-Arce, J. L., Economic Growth and Freedom (link)

Zaključak: “The dynamic relationships estimated strongly suggest that economic freedom fosters economic growth. To our knowledge, this causal link appears as an empirical regularity in most of the literature addressing the subject. Market liberalization seems to be an institutional reform for countries whose concerns include economic growth.”

• Abala, J., Fabro, G., Economic Freedom, Civil Liberties, Political Rights and Growth: A Causality Analysis (link)

Zaključak: Bilateral causality between  the level of the economic freedom, the change in economic freedom, and economic growth, meaning freedom and growth cause each other.

Ekonomska sloboda i poslovni ciklusi:

• Dawson, J. W., Macroeconomic Volatility and Economic Freedom – A Preliminary Analysis (link)

Zaključak: “Freedom appears to allow economies to better adjust to those shocks that drive business cycles.”

• Lipford, J. W., Short Run Macroeconomic Performance and Economic Freedom: Can Economic Growth Rates Be Higher and More Stable? (link)

Zaključak: “This paper attempts to fill this gap by showing that economic freedom results in more stable economic performance, a finding at odds with the assessment and predictions of Marx, Engels and Bellamy.”

Ekonomska sloboda i zaposlenost:

• Feldmann, H., Economic Freedom and Unemployment around the World (link)

Zaključak: “Economic freedom substantially reduces unemployment, especially among women and young people.”

• Heller, L., Stephenson, F., Economic Freedom and Labor Market Conditions: Evidence from the States (link)

Zaključak: “Economic freedom is associated with lower unemployment and with higher labor force participation and employment-population ratios.”

Učinci slobodne međunarodne trgovine:

• Wacziarg, R., Horn Welch, K., Trade Liberalization and Growth (link)

Zaključak: “Over the period 1950-1998, countries that have liberalized their trade regimes have experienced, on average, increases in their annual rates of growth on the order of 1.5 percentage points compared to pre-liberalization times. The post-liberalization increase in investment rates was between 1.5 and 2 percentage points, confirming past findings that liberalization works to foster growth in part through its effect on physical capital accumulation.”

• Berg, A., Krueger, A., Trade, Growth, and Poverty: A Selective Survey (link)

Zaključak: “By concluding that openness tends to increase growth, we suggest that if poor countries opened more, poverty would fall.”

• OECD, ILO, World Bank, WTO, Seizing the Benefits of Trade for Employment and Growth (link)

Zaključak: “The large body of empirical work on the topic strongly supports the theoretical presumption that trade liberalization reduces poverty on average and in the long run. Moreover, there is no evidence that it leads to an increase in poverty.”

• Bergh, A., Nilsson, T., Globalization and Absolute Poverty (link)

Zaključak: “Looking closer at the factors included in the index, less trade restrictions and larger information flows are robustly associated with lower poverty levels. Our results also indicate that globalization decreases poverty more when the informal and the rural sectors are relatively bigger.”

• Estevadeordeal, A., Taylor, A. M., Is the Washington Consensus Dead? Growth, Openness, and the Great Liberalization, 1970s-2000s (link)

Zaključak: “The results run contrary to the view that trade liberalization has failed to deliver growth benefits.”

• Bhagwati, J., Srinivasan, T. N., Trade and Poverty in the Poor Countries (link)

Zaključak: “It is hard therefore to concur with the many critics of freer trade (and direct foreign investment) that see the heavy hand of such globalization casting its evil spell on the poor of the poor countries. The empirical truth seems to be exactly the opposite.”

• Winters, A. L., Trade Liberalization and Economic Performance (link)

Zaključak: “This paper has documented the strong presumption that trade liberalisation contributes positively to economic performance.”

• Cline, W., Trade Policy and Global Poverty (link)

Zaključak: Pozitivan učinak otvorene vanjske trgovine na rast, te na smanjenje siromaštva.

• ICITE, A Trade and Employment in Fast Changing World (link)

Zaključak: “We find strong evidence that liberalization of tariffs on imported capital and intermediate goods raised growth rates by about one percentage point annually in the liberalizing countries.”

• Hallaert, J.-J., A History of Empirical Literature on the Relationship Between Trade and Growth (link)

Zaključak: “Case studies as well as econometrical works point to a positive impact of trade on growth, although they have shortcomings. Case studies are difficult to generalize and methods of econometrical works can be criticized. Industry and firm-level research also show that openness contributes to growth owing to its positive impact on productivity.”

• Dollar, D., Globalization, Inequality and Poverty since 1980 (link)

Zaključak: “So far, the most recent wave of globalization starting around 1980 has been associated with more rapid growth and poverty reduction in developing economies and with a modest decline in global inequality.”

• Megginson, W., Netter, J., From State to Market: A Study of Empirical Studies on Privatization (link)

Zaključak: “In most settings, privatization ‘works’ in that the firms become more efficient, more profitable, financially healthier, and reward investors.”

• Holger, G., Globalization, Offshoring, and Jobs (link)

Zaključak: “In the long run, there appears to be positive relationship between imports and employment.”

• Luzio, E., Greenstein, S., Measuring the Performance of a Protected Infant Industry: The Case of Brazilian Microcomputers (link)

Zaključak: Državni protekcionizam infant industrije doveo do povećanja tehnološkog gapa između Brazila i ostatka svijeta.

• Stone, S., Cavazos Sepeda, R., Wage Implications of Trade Liberalisation: Evidence for Effective Policy Formation (link)

Zaključak: “The implications for policy formulation are that the trade story is not simply a matter of protecting domestic workers from ‘cheap’ overseas imports. Imports do not, out of hand, cause wages to decline. On the contrary, we present evidence that trade barriers have a larger negative impact on wages. Policymakers concerned with the potentially detrimental impacts of further liberalization on labour markets should be cautioned against focusing on negative outcomes. Taken as a whole, the evidence is that imports are good for wages.”

• Ding, S., Knight,J., Why Has China Grown So Fast? (link)

Minimalna plaća:

• Brown, C., Gilroy, C., Kohen, A., The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Employment and Unemployment (link)

Zaključak: “10% increase in the minimum wage reduces teen employment by 1-3 percentage points.”

• Neumark, D., Wascher, W., Minimum Wages and Employment (link)

Zaključak: “Indeed, in our view, the preponderance of the evidence points to disemployment effects. For example, the studies surveyed in this monograph correspond to 102 entries in our summary tables. Of these, by our reckoning nearly two-thirds give a relatively consistent (although by no means always statistically significant) indication of negative employment effects of minimum wages, while only eight give a relatively consistent indication of positive employment effects. In addition, we have highlighted in the tables 33 studies (or entries) that we view as providing the most credible evidence; 28 (85 percent) of these point to negative employment effects. Moreover, when researchers focus on the least-skilled groups most likely to be adversely affected by minimum wages, the evidence for disemployment effects seems especially strong. In contrast, we see very few—if any—cases where a study provides convincing evidence of positive employment effects of minimum wages, especially among the studies that focus on broader groups for which the competitive model predicts disemployment effects.”

• Gitis, B., How Minimum Wage Increased Unemployment and Reduced Job Creation in 2013 (link)

Zaključak: “The results indicate that when holding education constant and taking into account all 50 states, increasing the minimum wage actually has a devastating impact on job markets in the United States. Not only is there evidence that total unemployment rates increase and job creation decreases, but there is also substantial evidence that teenagers suffer the most.”

• Wessels, W., The Effect of Minimum Wages on the Labor Force Participation Rates of Teenagers (link)

Zaključak: “The findings of this paper, when combined with past studies, make a strong case that the minimum wage decreases labor participation.”

• Gorman, L., Minimum Wages (link)

Zaključak: “The problem, of course, is that pricing people out of a job does not reduce poverty. Neither does skewing compensation packages toward money wages and away from training, or encouraging employers to substitute skilled workers for unskilled workers, part-time jobs for full-time jobs, foreign labor for domestic labor, and machines for people. Minimum wage laws do all of these things and, in the process, almost surely do the disadvantaged more harm than good.”

• Sherk, J., Ligon, J., Unprecedented Minimum-Wage Hike Would Hurt Jobs and the Economy (link)

Zaključak: “The model shows that increasing the minimum wage would hurt the economy on net—real GDP would decline by $42 billion in 2017 relative to the baseline. Moreover, by 2017 the legislation would reduce employment by 287,000 jobs annually.”

• Murphy, R., I Get Empirical on Minimum Wage (link)

Zaključak: “If we look at the 19 states that have a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum, the average unemployment rate among teens is 25.2%. In contrast, if we look at the 31 states that have either no state-level minimum wage or one that equals the federal level, the average teen unemployment rate is 21.5%.”

• Neumark, D., Nizalova, O., Minimum Wage Effects in the Long Run (link)

Zaključak: “The evidence indicates that as individuals reach their late 20’s, they earn less and may also work less the longer they were exposed to a higher minimum wage as a teen and young adult.”

• Wilson, M., The Negative Effects of Minimum Wage Laws (link)

Zaključak: “Seventy years of empirical research generally finds that the higher the minimum wage increase is relative to the competitive wage level, the greater the loss in employment opportunities. A decision to increase the minimum wage is not cost-free; someone has to pay for it, and the research shows that low-skill youth pay for it by losing their jobs, while consumers may also pay for it with higher prices.”

• Gorry, A., Minimum Wages and Youth Unemployment (link)

Zaključak: “The American Enterprise Institute found that increases in minimum wage between 2007-2009 account for a 0.8 percentage point increase in total unemployment and a 2.8 percentage point increase in youth unemployment.”

• Vigdor, J., The Minimum Wage Is a Lousy Anti-Poverty Program (link)

Zaključak: “Thus if the goal of the minimum wage increase were to lift families from poverty, estimates suggest it will have a 6% success rate.  Flip that around, and you’ve got a 94% failure rate.  And this is assuming no adverse impact on employment whatsoever.”

• Williams, W., A Minority View: Higher Minimum Wage (link)

Zaključak: “University of California, Irvine economist David Neumark has examined more than 100 major academic studies on the minimum wage. He states that the White House claim ‘grossly misstates the weight of the evidence.’ About 85 percent of the studies ‘find a negative employment effect on low-skilled workers’.”

• Sowell, T., Minimum Wage Madness (link)

Zaključak: “Minorities, like young people, can also be priced out of jobs. In the United States, the last year in which the black unemployment rate was lower than the white unemployment rate – 1930 – was also the last year when there was no federal minimum wage law.”

Državne regulacije:

• Seater, J., Dawson, J., Federal Regulation and Aggregate Economic Growth (link)

Zaključak: “Regulation’s overall effect on output’s growth rate is negative and substantial. Federal regulations added over the past fifty years have reduced real output growth by about two percentage points on average over the period 1949-2005. That reduction in the growth rate has led to an accumulated reduction in GDP of about $38.8 trillion as of the end of 2011. That is, GDP at the end of 2011 would have been $53.9 trillion instead of $15.1 trillion if regulation had remained at its 1949 level.”

• Hood, J., Lower Taxes, Higher Growth (link)

Zaključak: “In more than two-thirds of the 160 peer-reviewed studies I located on the subject, higher levels of regulation were associated with lower levels of economic performance.”

• Bailey, R., Federal Regulations Have Made You 75% Poorer (link)

Zaključak: “The growth of federal regulations over the past six decades has cut U.S. economic growth by an average of 2 percentage points per year, according to a new study in the Journal of Economic Growth. As a result, the average American household receives about $277,000 less annually than it would have gotten in the absence of six decades of accumulated regulations—a median household income of $330,000 instead of the $53,000 we get now.”

Ekonomska sloboda i okoliš:

• Wood, J., Herzog, I., Economic Freedom and Air Quality (link)

Zaključak: “Our results support the proposition that economic freedom creates the incentive to abate local air pollution such as that caused by particulate matter.”

• Roberts, J., Olson, R., How Economic Freedom Promotes Better Health Care, Education and Environmental Quality (link)

Zaključak: “It is the principles of economic freedom—free markets, rule of law, protection of private property, and open trade—that boost prosperity and reduce costs so that societies can protect their environments, improve health, and broaden access to education.”

• Al-Obaidan, A., Efficiency Effect of Privatization in the Developing Countries (link)

Zaključak:  “The empirical findings suggest, ceteris paribus, that developing countries can increase the utility of their national resources by approximately 45% simply by converting to market-based economies.”