IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lev/wrkpap/wp_316.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Harrod versus Thirlwall: A Reassessment of Export-Led Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Jamee K. Moudud

Abstract

This paper contrasts the different approaches to export-led growth used by Harrod and Thirlwall. It argues that, unlike Thirlwall's model, Harrod emphasized the importance of both demand- and supply-sides in his analysis of growth. The fundamental difference between the two authors lies in their differing characterizations of the long run. While both authors assume unemployment, Thirlwall's long run is presumably consistent with excess capacity, while Harrod's warranted path assumes normal capacity growth. Harrod's perspective suggests that if the warranted growth rate exceeds the natural growth rate, desired saving is excessive relative to the amount that is necessary to maintain the economy along its maximum growth path. Under these circumstances, rising exports have the beneficial effect of adjusting the warranted path to the economy's maximum growth path while, at the same time, giving a boost to the actual growth rate. If, however, the warranted growth rate is lower than the natural rate, then rising net exports have to be accompanied by appropriate fiscal and/or tax policies to raise warranted growth. In either case, the long-run growth rate is regulated by the social saving rate (other things equal). Data for a number of OECD countries tend to confirm this implication of what might be called a classical-Harrodian perspective. The Harrodian growth tradition suggests that growth in an open economy, with normal capacity utilization and persistent cycles, can be characterized as export-oriented rather than export-led since both demand- and supply-side factors are important.

Suggested Citation

  • Jamee K. Moudud, 2000. "Harrod versus Thirlwall: A Reassessment of Export-Led Growth," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_316, Levy Economics Institute.
  • Handle: RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_316
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp316.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Walter Eltis, 1993. "Classical Economics, Public Expenditure And Growth," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 162.
    2. Walter Eltis, 1998. "The Harrod-Domar Equation from Quesnay to Marx to Harrod and Domar," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Giorgio Rampa & Luciano Stella & A. P. Thirlwall (ed.), Economic Dynamics, Trade and Growth, chapter 1, pages 11-37, Palgrave Macmillan.
    3. Marc Lavoie & Wynne Godley, 2000. "Kaleckian Models of Growth in a Stock-Flow Monetary Framework: A Neo-Kaldorian Model," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_302, Levy Economics Institute.
    4. Jamee K. Moudud & Ajit Zacharias, 1999. "The Social Wage, Welfare Policy, and the Phases of Capital Accumulation," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_291, Levy Economics Institute.
    5. Taylor, Lance, 1985. "A Stagnationist Model of Economic Growth," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 9(4), pages 383-403, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maja Kadievska-Vojnovic & Danica Unevska, 2007. "Price and Income Elasticities of Export and Import and Economic Growth in the case of the Republic of Macedonia," Working Papers 2007-01, National Bank of the Republic of North Macedonia.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eckhard Hein, 2010. "Shareholder Value Orientation, Distribution And Growth—Short‐ And Medium‐Run Effects In A Kaleckian Model," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 302-332, May.
    2. Yann Guy, 2010. "Industrial Major Firms Investments in a Financialized Context," Working Papers hal-00402021, HAL.
    3. Peter Skott, 2012. "Theoretical And Empirical Shortcomings Of The Kaleckian Investment Function," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(1), pages 109-138, February.
    4. Jamee K. Moudud, 2000. "Finance in a Classical and Harrodian Cyclical Growth Model," Macroeconomics 0004036, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Ryoo, Soon, 2010. "Long waves and short cycles in a model of endogenous financial fragility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 163-186, June.
    6. Peter Skott, 2010. "Growth, Instability and Cycles: Harrodian and Kaleckian Models of Accumulation and Income Distribution," Chapters, in: Mark Setterfield (ed.), Handbook of Alternative Theories of Economic Growth, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Eckhard Hein, 2006. "Interest, Debt and Capital Accumulation—A Kaleckian Approach," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 337-352.
    8. Jamee K. Moudud, 2000. "Harrod versus Thirlwall: A Reassessment of Export-Led Growth," Macroeconomics 0012002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Hein, Eckhard, 2010. "The rate of interest as a macroeconomic distribution parameter: Horizontalism and Post-Keynesian models of distribution of growth," IPE Working Papers 07/2010, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).
    10. Jamee K. Moudud, 2010. "Strategic Competition, Dynamics, and the Role of the State," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 4241.
    11. Eckhard Hein & Till van Treeck, 2007. "'Financialisation' in Kaleckian/Post-Kaleckian models of distribution and growth," IMK Working Paper 07-2007, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    12. Jamee K. Moudud, 2000. "Crowding In or Crowding Out? A Classical-Harrodian Perspective," Macroeconomics 0012001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Christian Schoder, 2012. "Effective demand, exogenous normal utilization and endogenous capacity in the long run. Evidence from a CVAR analysis for the US," IMK Working Paper 103-2012, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    14. Eckhard Hein & Christian Schoder, 2011. "Interest rates, distribution and capital accumulation -- A post-Kaleckian perspective on the US and Germany," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(6), pages 693-723, November.
    15. Gahn, Santiago José, 2021. "On the adjustment of capacity utilisation to aggregate demand: Revisiting an old Sraffian critique to the Neo-Kaleckian model," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 325-360.
    16. Eric Kemp‐Benedict, 2020. "Convergence of actual, warranted, and natural growth rates in a Kaleckian–Harrodian‐classical model," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(4), pages 851-881, November.
    17. Corrado Di Guilmi & Laura Carvalho, 2015. "The dynamics of leverage in a Minskyan model with heterogenous firms," Working Paper Series 28, Economics Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    18. Nakatani, Takeshi & Skott, Peter, 2007. "Japanese growth and stagnation: A Keynesian perspective," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 306-332, September.
    19. Pintu Parui, 2024. "Fiscal expansion, government debt and economic growth: a post-Keynesian perspective," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(1), pages 117-154, January.
    20. Lucrezia Fanti & Luca Zamparelli, 2021. "The paradox of thrift in a two‐sector Kaleckian growth model," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(3), pages 526-538, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_316. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Elizabeth Dunn (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.levyinstitute.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.