Voracity and Growth Reconsidered

Konferenzbeitrag

This article investigates economic performance when enforceable property rights are missing and subsistence needs matter. It shows that if per capita income is sufficiently high, a windfall gain in productivity triggers behavior that leads to higher growth (the normal reaction). The same shock can produce voracious behavior and lower growth when faced by poor economic agents, in particular when their productivity is low and their society is largely fractionalized. This leads to a re-assessment of the voracity effect. Economic and social performance depends no longer on character traits (the assumed curvature of the utility function) as assumed in the earlier literature. Instead, the initial degree of development, the state of technology, and the make up of society are decisive. An extension towards a two-sector economy shows that conditions for an active informal sector of low productivity are much less restrictive than originally thought.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Frankfurt a.M. 2009 ; No. 36

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development ; Economic Development: Agriculture; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Other Primary Products ; Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions ; Other Economic Systems: Political Economy; Legal Institutions; Property Rights; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Regional Studies
• Subject: economic growth ; property rights ; common pool resources ; voracity ; fractionalization

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Strulik, Holger
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Verein für Socialpolitik, Ausschuss für Entwicklungsländer
• (where): Göttingen
• (when): 2009

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/39930
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET