Ritalin, Animal Spirits and the Productivity Puzzle

Tony Ward

Australian Economic Review, 2024, vol. 57, issue 2, 129-142

Abstract: This article argues the importance of animal spirits throughout the economy in improving productivity performance. It overviews the idea of animal spirits and people's level of confidence in undertaking economic activity. It then notes a gap, a missing residual, in economists' efforts to understand productivity growth. Two well‐documented measures indicating animal spirits are the levels of social trust and of corruption. Surveying the literature, the article shows both of these correlate with economic performance, and demonstrates they are correlated with each other. A case study of the impact of changes in corruption levels shows animal spirits can have significant effects.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.12541

Related works:
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:bla:ausecr:v:57:y:2024:i:2:p:129-142

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://ordering.onl ... 7-8462&ref=1467-8462

Access Statistics for this article

Australian Economic Review is currently edited by John de New, Viet Hoang Nguyen and Susan Méndez

More articles in Australian Economic Review from The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().