[{"id":530,"title":"A Comparative Historical Political Economy Approach to Tariffs and Economic Development","sha":"cc92ce29066204881dac574bf159da10","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"In his influential book, Kicking Away the Ladder (2002), Ha-Joon Chang explains that developed nations like the US used protectionist policies like high tariffs to develop. This argument is in direct contrast to the view that laissez-faire policies were key. Chang argues that developed countries are now ‘kicking away the ladder’ by encouraging developing nations to not use high tariffs to protect domestic industry. While Chang is correct that the US did have high tariff rates in the 19th century, it is also true that they had an extremely small government. In the US, government at all levels was less than 5% of GNP for most of the nineteenth century. An alternative hypothesis for the high tariffs in the US is that tariffs were the most efficient way to raise revenue given poor property records and the lack of market income for many citizens. The reason why the US grew was not because of protective tariffs, but because government was small and using the most efficient tax available to raise revenue. These competing hypotheses could be evaluated by analyzing the growth trajectories of a number of currently developed countries in a case study format like Hall and Leeson (2007). ","created_at":"2018-10-27T15:12:54.862Z","updated_at":"2019-02-09T14:08:44.301Z","zenodo_id":1476308,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1476308","subject":null,"tags":["tariffs","economic development","growth","infant industries","protectionism"],"vote_count":1,"view_count":1,"score":1.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":1011,"title":"Index of the Value of Labor over Capital (LoCI)","sha":"ba923a41e890d36eac4890677f3f4d6d","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"I present a simple index to gauge the relative valuation of labor over capital in a country (LoCI). This index should correlate positively with the wealth and HDI of the country, and negatively with the precariousness of life of basic service providers at the bottom of the pyramid in that country. Because of that, it should also correlate strongly with labor migration from countries with low LoCI to higher LoCI. \r\nThe formula is:\r\n\r\nLoCI_i=10^(-4) (w_i/r_i  f_(i,us))\r\n\r\nWhere w represents the monthly minimum wage for country i; r represents the monthly risk-free interest rate for country i; and f represents the foreign exchange rate between the currency of country i and the US dollar. \r\nThis equation gives the amount of dollars necessary for a person in country i to receive the equivalent of a minimum wage salary as passive income incurring minimum financial risks (real risk-free rates can be used by subtracting the inflation rate of country i from r). Values are scaled by 10,000 to facilitate comparison. \r\n\r\nAs per October 2022, some LoCI scores are: Brazil 2.13; South Africa 2.15; Mexico 3.29; Malaysia 9.10; United States 40.04; England 110.18; Germany 292.06.\r\n\r\nMore sophisticated models with other variables regarding r (e.g. real risk free rates) and w (e.g. median salary, or salary at the ith percentile) can also be used without altering the basic insight.\r\n\r\n","created_at":"2022-10-03T21:50:55.565Z","updated_at":"2023-01-31T13:25:54.511Z","zenodo_id":7232624,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7232624","subject":null,"tags":["economic development","jobs","migration","human capital","economic policy","human development","labor","efficiency","international markets","institutions","labor economics"],"vote_count":1,"view_count":1,"score":1.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":"LoCI.png","attachment_content_type":"image/png","attachment_file_size":91156,"attachment_updated_at":"2022-10-03T21:50:55.511Z"}]