Is Learning a Wonder Weapon of Endogenous Economic Growth?

Peter Mihalyi

Financial and Economic Review, 2019, vol. 18, issue 2, 117-139

Abstract: This essay attempts to refute the practicality of the main policy propositions of the book by Joseph Stiglitz and Bruce Greenwald (S&G) entitled Creating a Learning Society. More specifically, it looks at the 700-page scholarly work from the perspective of countries struggling to catch up with the advanced Western countries. In the opinion of the author, S&G use the term “learning” in such a broad sense that it becomes almost meaningless as an explanatory factor and/or an objectively verifiable indicator. Equally important, by using such a value-loaded, entirely positive term like “learning”, S&G create a misleading feeling in the readers: catching-up is easy (win-win). As history has shown, it is not easy. In the paper, the model of a lesser known Hungarian economist, Ferenc Jánossy (1914–1997), is presented as a more convincing explanation of endogenous economic growth.

Keywords: Infant industry; learning-by-doing; labour productivity; endogenous growth; Washington consensus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E61 E71 F12 I26 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://english.hitelintezetiszemle.hu/letoltes/fer-18-2-e1-mihalyi.pdf (application/pdf)

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:mnb:finrev:v:18:y:2019:i:2:p:117-139

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Financial and Economic Review from Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Morvay Endre ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).