Research Paper
Undergraduate
The Augmented Solow model and economic growth in selected countries
The issue of development and growth within a country or across countries is such that attracts that attention across board. There are screaming headlines of different economic measures taken by economists and financial analysts of countries concerned. Tracking and recording growth in any country or comparing growth amongst country necessitates using diverse measures. Many measures in the name of models have been propounded of which some are accepted without contention. Many however are still undergoing different measures of experimentation. Augmented Solow Model that was developed by Mankiw et al (1992) is extensively used in this project to measure growth across countries.
The variable of human capital has a general acceptance as a major contributor to economic development. The correlation between the variable, human capital and economic development will be calculated using time series data of 22 countries. Positive relationship that exists between the variable and time series data is further confirmed. A further sensitivity test is performed to verify the correctness and usability of the result obtained. Human capital has health and education as components and these two shall serve as proxies for human capital. Although the different models assume different states of technological advancement with regards to the sampled countries but in this write-up, the emphasis was placed on using different growth rates for the technological advancements as different countries have distinctive growth rates. This tends to give a better regression results in support of the Solowian concept. The final result obtained lay credence to the concept that all sampled countries move from being poor to a steady state which does not contradict the augmented Solowian theory. Effort was also made in using stock performance record to tract the various per capita incomes which also assisted in the final regression results.
Stimulus Bill Political Communication Political Communication During
In times of economic uncertainly and national emergency, the government has the capacity to make decisions that it believes will aid the country in its time of need. Such a time of need occurred in 2009 when the country continued to face an existence of dire economic circumstances involving national cash-flow and jobs. In order to set economic recovery into motion, President Obama called for the passing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), otherwise regarded as the stimulus bill. While such a bill was considered pivotal by many government officials in order to get the country back on its feet, crucial differences in policy and bill structure could be viewed in assessing the opinions Democrats and Republicans brought to the floor in terms of the bill's passing. While Democrats, led by President Obama, favored Keynesian economic theory tactics to turn the country around, Republicans in opposition called for a basis in Reaganomics, as noted by Senator John McCain.