{"title":"Long-term analysis of Kaldor's law applied to Brazil (1909-2020)","authors":"Natalia I. Doré , Eliane Araújo","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.03.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.03.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Nicholas Kaldor asserts that the industry is a crucial factor in promoting economic growth, suggesting that the sector's increasing returns to scale significantly impact the overall productivity of the economy. This paper assesses the relevance of Kaldor's laws for the Brazilian economy, offering new insights into their applicability through a novel methodological approach. The study contributes to the literature by employing Markov Regime-Switching (MS) models to capture nonlinear dynamics in output, productivity, and employment growth in the manufacturing sector, over a very long-term period (1909–2020). By distinguishing between lower and higher growth regimes, the analysis demonstrates that Kaldor's laws remain valid in the Brazilian context. The findings underscore the industrial sector's critical role in promoting economic growth and enhancing productivity and employment, while revealing significant non-linearities in these relationships.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"74 ","pages":"Pages 147-157"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143637431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Baobao Liu , Kuishuang Feng , Laixiang Sun , Giovanni Baiocchi , Daoping Wang , Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm
{"title":"Assessing virtual water trade and inequalities in household water footprints across California’s counties","authors":"Baobao Liu , Kuishuang Feng , Laixiang Sun , Giovanni Baiocchi , Daoping Wang , Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.02.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.02.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The concept of virtual water trade suggests water flows from water-rich to water-scarce regions, but local disparities are often overlooked. This study uses a multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model to assess virtual water transfers among California’s 58 counties and the rest of the conterminous U.S. in 2017. Results show the Central Valley exported large volumes of virtual water via water-intensive crops (e.g., fruits and vegetables) but imported water embodied in industrial, mining, and thermoelectric processes. These imports eased water stress in the Central and South Coast but left Central Valley scarcity unresolved. Linking household consumption with MRIO reveals the highest-income group (over US$200k) had per capita water footprints 1.8 times larger than the lowest-income group (below US$15k). Although household size and consumption patterns mitigated this gap, Central Valley’s high water intensity fueled excessive footprints. The study underscores the need for targeted, equitable water management policies, promoting more effective water conservation strategies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"74 ","pages":"Pages 175-185"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143685200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Structural breaks, institutional quality and productivity growth in Sub-Saharan Africa","authors":"Eunice Adu-Darko , Kefei You","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.03.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.03.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines the effect of institutional quality on total factor productivity (TFP) growth in 31 Sub-Saharan African economies during 1986–2019. Institutional quality, based on Rodrik's (2000) concept of market-supporting institutions aligned with the African Union's Agenda 2063, influences TFP growth alongside exogenous technological progress. We account for multiple structural breaks adopting the Karavias et al. (2022) method. Incorporating the three significant structural breaks identified in 1993, 2002, and 2007, institutional quality consistently contributed to TFP growth during 1986–1993, 1994–2002, and 2003–2007. It had no impact during 2008–2019. Despite institutional quality's support, regional TFP declined during 1986–1993 due to negative technological progress. It grew slowly in 1994–2002 and accelerated its pace during 2003–2007, both powered entirely by enhancements in institutional quality. In 2008–2019, driven by the final ignition of positive technological progress, TFP continued to grow but at a slower rate due to the absence of contribution from institutional quality.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"74 ","pages":"Pages 40-60"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143580266","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Visible prices and their influence on inflation expectations of Russian households","authors":"Vadim Grishchenko , Diana Gasanova , Egor Fomin","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.02.015","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.02.015","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Currently, the Russian economy is undergoing a structural transformation followed by rising inflation and inflation expectations. In these circumstances, the mechanisms of inflation expectations formation is of utmost relevance. A multitude of recent research shows that the inflation expectations of households are far from rational. In making inflation forecasts, people tend to focus on the prices of particular goods and services, which they can observe every day – ‘visible prices’. In this paper, we propose a new method for the identification of such items. Our novel ‘brute force’ algorithm automatically sorts through the full array of prices of goods and services given by Rosstat and constructs consumer baskets. It then selects the best baskets based on their ability to forecast the inflation expectations of Russian households from the FOM Survey. In the end, we get a decomposition of various metrics of inflation expectations for visible prices which also demonstrates good forecasting performance (as compared to the AR(1) process as a benchmark). To ensure robustness, we use an alternative method (optimisation with regularisation) and a variety of metrics of inflation expectations. As a result, we get lists of ‘robust visible items’ which include not only foodstuffs but mainly durable goods and services. Surprisingly enough, gasoline, which is typically labelled ‘a visible good’ in research, does not fall into this category for Russia.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"74 ","pages":"Pages 107-115"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143610021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Guilherme Spinato Morlin , Marco Stamegna , Simone D'Alessandro
{"title":"Energy prices, inflation, and distribution: A simulation model and policy analysis for Italy","authors":"Guilherme Spinato Morlin , Marco Stamegna , Simone D'Alessandro","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.03.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.03.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The surge in energy prices following the Russian-Ukrainian conflict triggered the most significant inflation in advanced economies in recent decades. Using the Eurogreen model for the Italian economy, we examine the macroeconomic and distributional impacts of rising energy prices alongside two policy measures: wage indexation and a temporary housing rent cap. We compare policy scenarios with a baseline reflecting the observed price shocks. We find that: i) energy price shocks disproportionately affect lower-income individuals due to the larger share of energy goods in their consumption baskets; ii) wage indexation results in higher average real wages compared to the baseline scenario, without triggering inflation acceleration, while temporarily boosting output and employment by supporting aggregate demand; iii) a temporary housing rent cap improves distribution in workers’ favor while reducing inflation; iv) both policies have a more substantial effect for low-skilled workers; and v) best outcomes appear when these policies are jointly implemented.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"74 ","pages":"Pages 28-39"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143579606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A path towards China's energy justice: Is government intervention absolutely necessary?","authors":"Lei Chen, Nana Jiang","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.02.018","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.02.018","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>With the accelerated pace of the global energy transition, energy justice has become a focus of international attention. However, the greatest challenge to achieving energy justice may be the absence of comprehension of energy governance in other countries. To address this gap in the literature, this paper initially uses the improved entropy method to measure and analyze the level of energy justice in 30 provinces in China from 2004 to 2017. Then, using panel OLS, the mediating effect model, and the Spatial Durbin Model, the paper examines the impact and mechanism of government intervention on energy justice in China. The findings indicate that: (1) Government intervention has a significant positive impact on energy justice. The result remains robust following the application of IV-2SLS, System GMM, and placebo tests to address endogeneity. (2) The mechanism analysis indicates that the government can indirectly promote energy justice by adjusting credit allocation. (3) Due to the inter-provincial competition effect, demonstration effect, and the externalities of energy itself, the increase in the degree of local government intervention will have a positive impact on energy justice in spatially adjacent regions. (4) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of government intervention on energy justice is more pronounced in northern regions due to differences in resource endowments and economic structures; the contribution of government intervention to energy justice is mainly reflected in improving energy accessibility. Finally, the article suggests that the government should create a comprehensive energy governance system, focus on credit allocation, and establish a regional coordination mechanism for energy governance to promote the ultimate realization of energy justice.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"74 ","pages":"Pages 92-106"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143610020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Two- and half-centuries of equilibrium economics: Adam Smith and the evisceration of the spatial dimension from the theory of production","authors":"Elias L. Khalil","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.02.016","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.02.016","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Two concepts of Smith sealed off the relevance of the mercantilist and physiocratic traditions. Both concepts involve, although in different ways, the evisceration of the spatial dimension from the theory of production. The first, the division of labor, identifies the source of productivity and wealth while disregarding temporal heterogeneity across regions. This disregard produced an equilibrium economics that is, at first approximation, ill-equipped to explain the necessity of the state to protect its region, i.e., the ubiquity of protectionism. The second concept, the productive/unproductive labor distinction, specifies the source of steady growth while disregarding the environmental degradation arising from such growth. This disregard generated an equilibrium economics that is, at first approximation, ill-equipped to explain the necessity of technological and institutional innovations, i.e., the ubiquity of entrepreneurship. To account for both phenomena—i.e., the ubiquity of protectionism and entrepreneurship—we need to incorporate the spatial dimension into production theory.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"74 ","pages":"Pages 85-91"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143601408","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tong Feng , Xiaomin Wang , Nan Wang , Jie Ma , Zhenni Chen , Qiang Tu , Qun Li
{"title":"Do low-carbon city pilots promote carbon equality? From the perspective of regional fairness","authors":"Tong Feng , Xiaomin Wang , Nan Wang , Jie Ma , Zhenni Chen , Qiang Tu , Qun Li","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.02.017","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.02.017","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Low-Carbon City Pilot (LCCP) policy is central to China's strategy for reducing carbon emissions and promoting sustainable development. This study introduces a dual-framework approach to carbon equality, distinguishing between economic and ecological dimensions. Using a difference-in-differences (DID) methodology, the analysis covers prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2019. Results indicate that the LCCP significantly enhanced economic and ecological carbon equality by 9.2 % and 8.4 %, respectively. Mechanism analysis identifies technological innovation, energy consumption, and renewable energy as key moderating factors, in line with the Porter hypothesis. Green patents and renewable energy enhance the LCCP's effects on carbon sequestration, economic growth, and emissions reduction. High energy consumption limits the policy's impact, but the LCCP improves energy efficiency, especially in energy-intensive cities. Heterogeneity analysis reveals stronger effects in economically developed cities and eastern China. This study offers valuable insights into how LCCP can promote regional fairness across economic and ecological contexts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"74 ","pages":"Pages 1-13"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143552155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cross-border R&D, absorptive capacity and innovation performance","authors":"Tingzhu Li , Debin Du","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.02.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.02.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the process of innovation, the importance of utilizing external knowledge by countries has gradually been recognized. Against the backdrop of economic globalization, accessing and absorbing external knowledge through cross-border R&D has become a significant means for both countries and enterprises to enhance innovation performance. Within the increasingly frequent global network structure formed by cross-border R&D investments, national innovation performance is jointly influenced by external network relations and absorptive capacity. Combining network theory and absorptive capacity theory, this paper portrays the global cross-border R&D investment network structure, empirically examines the relationship between network position, absorptive capacity, and innovation performance using panel data consisting of 16060 cross-border R&D investment projects spanning from 2003 to 2020. The results indicate that global cross-border R&D investments have formed a complete topological network structure characterized by a core-periphery feature, indicating heterogeneous distribution of countries’ positions in the network. Countries in different positions exhibit varying impacts of cross-border R&D on innovation performance. Countries with higher node strength and richer structural holes tend to have higher innovation output. Additionally, absorptive capacity plays a positive moderating role between network position and innovation performance, although this role varies heterogeneously between developed and developing countries. This research serves as a valuable theoretical resource for guiding the design of cross-border R&D and innovation policies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"73 ","pages":"Pages 460-471"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143548583","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Bernhard Schütz , Oliver Reiter , Michael Landesmann , Branimir Jovanović
{"title":"Structural change, income distribution and unemployment related to Covid-19: An agent-based model","authors":"Bernhard Schütz , Oliver Reiter , Michael Landesmann , Branimir Jovanović","doi":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.02.013","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.strueco.2025.02.013","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study the distributional consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic within the framework of a stock-flow consistent agent-based model that captures some of the aspects of pandemic-related lockdowns. The model distinguishes between ‘essential’ and ‘non-essential’ industries, between jobs that can be done from home and jobs that must be carried out on site. We find that the pandemic leads to a significant increase in inequality, mostly driven by market concentration and firms raising mark-ups in the aftermath of the pandemic, contributing to higher prices and a rising profit share. Government-financed short-time working schemes and loan guarantees reduce the rise in firm liquidations and income inequality (the ‘Keynesian’ result). However, we also find that the absence of government policies leads to higher levels of productivity and GDP in the aftermath of the crisis, as it means that more of the less productive firms face liquidation during lockdowns (the ‘Schumpeterian’ result).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47829,"journal":{"name":"Structural Change and Economic Dynamics","volume":"74 ","pages":"Pages 61-84"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143593478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}