Suchergebnisse

The supply of human capital in the economy's production activities is a function of the quality and volume of education services provided at the secondary and tertiary levels in the education system. Hence, the allocation of resources by government to education is an important determinant of human capital formation. Depending on its level-specific variations, a given amount of human capital accumulation can have differential impacts across sectors and on economic growth. This study posits that government spending on education can be identified as an important indicator of human capital formation that propels economic growth and confirms that for the countries considered, there are level-specific effects of human capital on output in the manufacturing and service sectors, and ultimately on aggregate output. Given this information, policy makers can therefore consider opportunities for enhanced budgetary allocations aimed at building capital that has a positive impact on economic growth.

This paper empirically examines how financial sector development affects the FDI-economic growth nexus in Guyana. The novelty is that we examine the relationship in a poor, Small Island Developing State (SIDS) with an underdeveloped financial sector, and where the bulk of FDI flows to the extractive sector. Using annual data from 1981 to 2014, and, both a VECM and ARDL framework that distinguishes among long-run and short-run causal impacts, we provide new insights on why FDI may have a smaller impact on economic growth in SIDS or resource-rich countries. Specifically, we find that FDI dampens long-run growth in Guyana, which is consistent with the extractive literature, but through interaction with the financial sector, FDI has a positive offsetting effect at all levels of financial development in the period under study. While our findings have several nuanced policy implications on how to maximize the developmental potential of FDI in Guyana, they may be relevant to other SIDS or resource-rich countries.

Empirical studies outline developing countries' experience economic growth through an undervalued exchange rate and that exchange rate overvaluations have negative long term effects on economic growth. This paper examined the impact of exchange rate movements as well as exchange rate misalignments on economic growth for the Trinidad and Tobago economy over the period 1960 to 2016. We find statistically significant evidence that both exchange rate appreciation and misalignments impact negatively on economic growth in the T&T economy. Drilling deeper, we find interestingly that there exist no non-linear effects of exchange rate misalignments on growth. Specifically, we find statistically significant evidence that both overvaluations and under valuations hamper economic growth in the Trinidad and Tobago economy. We attribute this to T&T's small and underdeveloped manufacturing sector that tends to be overlooked on account of its energy resources, in addition to the fact that its manufacturing sector is highly import oriented. A major policy recommendation would be for the critical reassessment of the rules governing the Heritage and Stabilization Fund (HSF), as government expenditure was allowed to follow energy revenues due to its current limitations.

Homeownership, a primary component of household wealth, confers benefits not just in terms of the value of home equity itself, but also the tax benefits and inflation protection associated with owning property. The 1990s represented a booming time in the economy and record low interest rates which allowed homeownership to become more available to more people than ever. As a result, the US housing market experienced significant growth and home values began to soar in part due to rising incomes. However, this period of rapid expansion in the housing market was followed by a rapid decline, precipitated by the recession, as home values began to plummet and foreclosures steadily increased. This study examines the impact that recent macroeconomic fluctuations had on the likelihood of homeownership for African American women compared to their white counterparts. Using data from the American Housing Survey (1997–2009), this tenure spatial analysis used a logistic regression model to examine the odds in favor of homeownership during economic fluctuations along with taking into consideration other important determinants. The empirical results show that there are significant differences in the likelihood of homeownership between African American women and white females.

This study examined the effects of the 2007-2009 recession on the distribution of tax burdens within the District of Columbia by constructing a novel dataset via a fuzzy match between two administrative datasets. The findings revealed that homeowners with federal income less than zero experienced a lower tax burden, suggesting that the recession and its negative impact on income from capital gains contributed to a change in the tax burden. The findings also showed that in some cases, filers who reside in properties with high assessed values and who earn high wages accompanied by high capital losses experienced a lower tax liability and tax burden than filers with low wage income and zero or little income from capital gains. Overall, the tax burden shifted from filers with high wages and income from multiple sources to filers with low wages and zero income from other sources. The shift in the burden was primarily driven by a change in the individual income tax share of the total tax burden faced by filers, primarily those with low wages who faced a bigger burden.