Consumption And Growth

The world is poised on the threshold of economic changes that will reduce the income gap between the rich and poor on a global scale while reshaping patterns of consumption. Rapid economic growth in emerging-market economies is projected to enable consumers worldwide to spend proportionately less on food and more on transportation, goods, and services, which will in turn strain the global infrastructure and accelerate climate change. The largest gains will be made in poorer parts of the world, chiefly sub-Saharan Africa and India, followed by China and the advanced economies. In this new study, Tomas Hellebrandt and Paulo Mauro detail how this important moment in world history will unfold and serve as a warning to policymakers to prepare for the profound effects on the world economy and the planet.

The past decade has witnessed a decline in saving throughout the developed world—the United States has the dubious distinction of leading the way. The consequences can be serious. For individuals, their own economic security and that of their families is jeopardized. For society, inadequate rates of saving have been blamed for a variety of ills—decreasing the competitive abilities of American industry, slowing capital accumulation, increasing our trade deficit, and forcing the sale of capital stock to foreign investors at bargain prices. Restoring acceptable rates of saving in the United States poses a major challenge to those who formulate national economic policy, especially since economists and policymakers alike still understand little about what motivates people to save. In National Saving and Economic Performance, edited by B. Douglas Bernheim and John B. Shoven, that task is addressed by offering the results of new research, with recommendations for policies aimed to improve saving. Leading experts in diverse fields of economics debate the need for more accurate measurement of official saving data; examine how corporate decisions to retain or distribute earnings affect household-level consumption and saving; and investigate the effects of taxation on saving behavior, correlations between national saving and international investment over time, and the influence of economic growth on saving. Presenting the most comprehensive and up-to-date research on saving, this volume will benefit both academic and government economists.

The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration finds that the long-term impact of immigration on the wages and employment of native-born workers overall is very small, and that any negative impacts are most likely to be found for prior immigrants or native-born high school dropouts. First-generation immigrants are more costly to governments than are the native-born, but the second generation are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S. This report concludes that immigration has an overall positive impact on long-run economic growth in the U.S. More than 40 million people living in the United States were born in other countries, and almost an equal number have at least one foreign-born parent. Together, the first generation (foreign-born) and second generation (children of the foreign-born) comprise almost one in four Americans. It comes as little surprise, then, that many U.S. residents view immigration as a major policy issue facing the nation. Not only does immigration affect the environment in which everyone lives, learns, and works, but it also interacts with nearly every policy area of concern, from jobs and the economy, education, and health care, to federal, state, and local government budgets. The changing patterns of immigration and the evolving consequences for American society, institutions, and the economy continue to fuel public policy debate that plays out at the national, state, and local levels. The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration assesses the impact of dynamic immigration processes on economic and fiscal outcomes for the United States, a major destination of world population movements. This report will be a fundamental resource for policy makers and law makers at the federal, state, and local levels but extends to the general public, nongovernmental organizations, the business community, educational institutions, and the research community.

The theme of this book is the frequently overlooked relationship between consumption and growth. Taking Schumpeter's view on economic development as a starting point, the author proposes an original framework for the analysis of consumption patterns as an element of growth in advanced market economies.

This book investigates the relationships between economies of scale in food consumption and a number of socio-economic and demographic characteristics of households and household behavioural choices since food is the major share of household expenditure for poor households. The characteristics considered comprise household size, location, income, and gender of the head of household while the behavioural choices considered comprise the decision to consume home-grown food and the decision to adopt domestic technology to aid food preparation and consumption. The book proposes two theoretical models to rationalize the role of the consumption of home-grown food and the adoption of domestic technology in enhancing economies of scale in food consumption. Econometric models are also used to empirically test the validity of the two theoretical models while adjusted poverty estimations are derived numerically using the estimated equivalence scales. Although data used in applying these techniques are based on four Household Income and Expenditure Surveys conducted by the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) in Sri Lanka, the methodology can be used for similar analysis in relation to any other country.

These essays show that industrialisation and fast economic growth have changed not only the broad material environment, but have also had a very important impact on basic food consumption. The introductory chapter takes a theoretical view and tries to establish the interrelationship between economic forces and social habits. The other contributors analyse how the experience of Europe, Japan and North America fit this general explanation and they demonstrate how cultural and regional differences have shaped the development of consumer behaviour and patterns of consumption over the last two centuries.