A unified theory of structural change

Chris Papageorgiou, Fidel Perez Sebastian and María Guilló

Working Papers. Serie AD from Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie)

Abstract: This paper uses dynamic general equilibrium and computational methods, inspired by the multi-sector growth model structure in Stephen Turnovsky’s previous and more recent work, to develop a theory that unifies two of the traditional explanations of structural change: sector-biased technical change and non-homothetic preferences. More specifically, we build a multisector overlapping generations growth model with endogenous technical-change and non-homothetic preferences based on an expanding-variety setup with two different R&D technologies; one for agriculture, and another for non-agriculture. Results give additional support to the biased technical-change hypothesis as an important determinant of the structural transformation. The paper also explores where this bias might come from. Our findings suggest that production-side specific factors, such as asymmetries in cross-sector knowledge spillovers could be behind it, and therefore be important to fully explain the process of structural change.

Keywords: multi-sector growth model; structural change; agriculture and non-agriculture; R&D; directed innovation; hon-homothetic preferences. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 O14 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2010-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cmp, nep-dge and nep-ino
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published by Ivie

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ivie.es/downloads/docs/wpasad/wpasad-2010-34.pdf Fisrt version / Primera version, 2010 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: A unified theory of structural change (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ivi:wpasad:2010-34

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers. Serie AD from Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Departamento de Edición ().