A multi-sectoral balance-of-payments-constrained growth model with sectoral heterogeneity

• I build a multi-sectoral balance-of-payments constrained growth model that incorporates structural heterogeneity.
• I analyze how different shocks on them affect the economic growth.
• The industrial structure plays an important role for determining the impacts of these shocks on the economic growth.
• My model reproduces the implications of the representative existing models.
• It also shows an example that there are differences between industrial and macroeconomic phenomena.

This study builds a multi-sectoral balance-of-payments-constrained growth model that incorporates structural heterogeneity between sectors and countries, such as differences in labor productivity, price competition, shares of exports and imports, and the quality of commodities. The model in the current paper generates more comprehensive results than those presented by Thirlwall (1979), Blecker (1998), and Araujo and Lima (2007), even though it contains their properties and reproduces their implications. Furthermore, compared with these existing works, the current model sheds more light on the relationship between the trade structure, international competition, productivity dynamics, and economic growth. It also shows the differences between industrial and macroeconomic phenomena, by presenting an example that illustrates how changes in nominal wages, the Kaldor–Verdoorn effect, and the degree of market competition in both countries affect economic growth in the home country.