Trade Reforms and Current Account Imbalances: When Does the General Equilibrium Effect Overturn a Partial Equilibrium Intuition?

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.3386/w18653 ◽

2012 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Jiandong Ju ◽

Kang Shi ◽

Shang-Jin Wei

Keyword(s):

General Equilibrium ◽

Current Account ◽

Partial Equilibrium ◽

Trade Reforms ◽

Current Account Imbalances ◽

General Equilibrium Effect ◽

Equilibrium Effect ◽

Account Imbalances

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The Case Against Patents

The Journal of Economic Perspectives ◽

10.1257/jep.27.1.3 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

pp. 3-22 ◽

Cited By ~ 162

Author(s):

Michele Boldrin ◽

David K Levine

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

General Equilibrium ◽

Empirical Evidence ◽

Policy Change ◽

Rent Seeking ◽

Partial Equilibrium ◽

The Political ◽

General Equilibrium Effect ◽

Equilibrium Effect ◽

Over Time

The case against patents can be summarized briefly: there is no empirical evidence that they serve to increase innovation and productivity, unless productivity is identified with the number of patents awarded—which, as evidence shows, has no correlation with measured productivity. Both theory and evidence suggest that while patents can have a partial equilibrium effect of improving incentives to invent, the general equilibrium effect on innovation can be negative. A properly designed patent system might serve to increase innovation at a certain time and place. Unfortunately, the political economy of government-operated patent systems indicates that such systems are susceptible to pressures that cause the ill effects of patents to grow over time. Our preferred policy solution is to abolish patents entirely and to find other legislative instruments, less open to lobbying and rent seeking, to foster innovation when there is clear evidence that laissez-faire undersupplies it. However, if that policy change seems too large to swallow, we discuss in the conclusion a set of partial reforms that could be implemented

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Macro/Micro Modelling and Gini Multi-Decomposition: An Application to the Philippines

Journal of Income Distribution ◽

10.25071/1874-6322.17482 ◽

2010 ◽

Author(s):

Stéphane Mussard ◽

Luc Savard

Keyword(s):

General Equilibrium ◽

The Philippines ◽

Equilibrium Analysis ◽

Partial Equilibrium ◽

Economic Modelling ◽

Policy Reforms ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Partial Equilibrium Analysis ◽

General Equilibrium Effect ◽

Equilibrium Effect

Macro/micro-economic modelling has emerged as a rigorous instrument to link policy reforms with changes in income distribution. Indeed, this approach enables one to capture directly the general equilibrium effect of policy reforms upon changes in household welfare. These endogenous distributions combined with the Gini multi-decomposition provide powerful and detailed information for policy-makers interested in the trade-off between inequality and the efficient impact of reforms. Our results show that including the general equilibrium effect can yield results that differ from those of partial equilibrium analysis.

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