Constantine Alexandrakis

Assistant Professor  

Office: Group I, Room 386     Office hours: Mon. & Wed. 9:00-10:00 & 1:30-2:30 or by appointment

Phone: (508) 910-6436     Email: calexandraki@umassd.edu

Teaching responsibilities (Fall 2007): Principles of Macroeconomics (sections 1 & 2), Economic Growth

Research Interests: Macroeconomics, Economic Growth, Economic Development, Public Economics, Monetary Economics

Journal Publications:

"Research Subsidies, Population Control Policies, and Growth," Review of Development Economics (forthcoming, 2007).

Abstract: Many R&D-based growth models without scale effects claim that subsidies to R&D are not conductive for economic growth whereas a faster growing population is. Yet in an effort to maintain high growth rates most OECD countries subsidize R&D, while several developing countries are trying to control the size of their population. Are these countries misguided? This study introduces an R&D-based growth model that is free of scale effects and consistent with the afore-mentioned policies. By applying the model to US data the study suggests a possible explanation for the productivity slowdown.

Peer-Reviewed Volume chapters:

"Secession and Exit: An Analysis of Two Competing Hypotheses," in The Elgar Companion to Public Economics: Empirical Public Economics, eds. Attiat F. Ott and Richard J. Cebula. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing (2006), 388-401. (With Robert T. Jones)

Abstract: We consider a region that pays taxes to a central government, but receives a fraction of the central government’s transfers that is smaller than the region’s relative tax contribution. The residents of the fiscally exploited region have three choices: continue to subsidize the other regions, move to a different region, or secede. Which of the three alternatives will the residents of the exploited region choose? How is their course of action affected if the regions differ in their per capita incomes and their ethnolinguistic characteristics? In the present study we address these questions.

Completed Papers:

"R&D Intensity and the Real Interest Rate in the US"

Abstract: The study shows that between 1963 and 2003 the share of labor devoted to R&D in the US is positively correlated with the rate of investment in capital equipment, and with the real rates of return to the S&P 500 and to Treasury Bills. The coefficients from regressing the two rates on the number of patent applications are positive, after controlling for the effects of monetary and fiscal policy. These findings imply that by determining the rate of technological progress, over the past four decades R&D intensity may have been a determinant of the real interest rate.

 

"Technological change and economic growth: A test of current theories."

Abstract: Three competing theories that attribute economic growth to R&D effort are consistent with the absence of the scale-effect from the data. I present the theories as variations of a simple model, and test their predictions. I find that from 1963 to 2003 inventive activity in the US, as measured by the number of patent applications, is positively related to the share of labor in R&D, and negatively related to the rate at which the number of researchers is growing. These findings are consistent with models in which the rise in the difficulty of innovation is offset by human capital deepening.

 

 Last Updated On: 10/18/07