Institutional foundations of export diversification patterns in oil-producing countries

While it is well known that resource exporting countries have higher export concentration, it is lesser known that there is substantial variance in export concentration fortunes within resource-based countries. Using several estimation techniques and other sensitivity checks, this paper offers a new explanation for success and failure in export diversification patterns in oil countries, an explanation which has an institutional and political background. In measuring the number of years between the beginning of oil production and the attainment of political independence in oil developing countries, we found that the greater the number of years, the higher the degree of export diversification ceteris paribus. Our interpretation of this result is grounded in an analysis of political constraints to diversification in resource-based countries. Institutions, unfavorable to diversification, which arose from the pre-independence period, were blocked in their positive evolution by national political elites in the post-independence period. This result contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics of institutions in resource-based countries.     

UNIONS AND EMPLOYMENT GROWTH IN BRITISH WORKPLACES DURING THE 1990S: A PANEL ANALYSIS

This paper uses the 1990–1998 Workplace Industrial Relations Survey Panel to analyse the impact of unions on employment growth among private sector workplaces in Britain. The growth rate among unionised workplaces was roughly 3–4% per annum lower than among non‐unionised workplaces, ceteris paribus. The effect is not accounted for by the age of unionised workplaces, union concentration in declining industries, or organisational or technical change at workplace level. The effect remains once we account for the impact of unions on workplace survival. However, effects are only apparent where unions do not negotiate over employment and where unions have some degree of bargaining strength.     

东北亚国家出口多样化与经济增长的关系——基于动态面板数据的系统GMM估计

利用1996—2010年东北亚国家的贸易数据,验证了出口多样化与人均GDP之间的关系,并采用系统广义矩方法建立动态面板数据模型,估计了出口多样化对经济增长的贡献。结果表明:就东北亚单个国家而言,出口多样化与人均GDP之间呈U型变动关系,但就东北亚整体而言,这种U型关系并不明显;从东北亚国家的经验来看,出口多样化对经济增长具有积极作用;目前我国出口正处于从多样化向集中化转变的上升阶段,尚未达到U型曲线的拐点。     

Gross job flows in Ukraine

This paper documents and analyses gross job flows and their determinants in Ukraine using a dataset of more than 2200 Ukrainian firms operating in manufacturing and non‐manufacturing for the years 1998–2000. Job destruction dominates job creation in both 1999 and 2000. Another clear‐cut result of our analysis is the strong positive effect of new private firms on net employment growth. We also find an inverse relationship between job reallocation and size for both manufacturing and non‐manufacturing, while only in the latter sector is employment growth inversely related with size. The main focus of the paper is the effect of trade flows on employment adjustment in manufacturing. Our results show that both employment growth and job reallocation at the firm and two‐digit sector level are affected by strong exposure to import competition and product market competition in export markets. These effects are more pronounced when we consider trade flows to the world at large and to the EU than when the analysis is based on trade flows to the CIS. JEL Classifications: E24, F14, J63, P23.     

FDI,Industry Heterogeneity and Employment Elasticity in China

We investigate the different impacts of foreign direct investment (FDI) on employment elasticity with China's firm level data from 1998 to 2007. Our analysis shows that the inclusion of FDI does significantly affect firms' employment elasticity when facing wage, capital and output shocks. These effects vary dramatically across industries with different factor intensities and export status. Specifically, we find that non‐exporters with FDI tend to increase employment elasticity more than exporters when wage, capital input or output changes. However, FDI firms that are engaging in labor‐intensive production tend to have larger output and capital input elasticity of employment while smaller wage elasticity of employment. Our findings help to explain the contradicting results in existing literature and provide important references for China's policy makers to design proper industry policies towards FDI.     

EXPORTS AND JOBS: THE CASE OF JAPAN, 1975–2006

This paper asks how much employment is created by increasing goods and services exports and how the export dependence of employment has changed over time. Using the newly developed Japanese input‐output table for 1975–2006, this paper estimates the effect of exports on an industry's employment (i.e., direct effect) and the effect on other industries' employment (i.e., indirect effect). One of our major findings is that the magnitude of the indirect effect exceeded that of the direct effect over almost the entire period. This implies that more than half of the effects of exports appeared through intraindustry linkages. We also found the indirect effect of goods exports is not limited to goods industries. As a result, the increases in the export dependence of employment are not limited to major Japanese export‐oriented industries such as electrical machinery, motor vehicles, and general machinery. In identifying the potential risks of negative external shocks, it is important for policy makers to estimate how much employment is indirectly as well as directly dependent on exports. (JEL F16, F14)     

Kicking a crude habit: diversifying away from oil and gas in the twenty-first century

Abstract

This article investigates the correlates of diversification away from oil and natural gas dependence in the context of the twenty-first century resource boom (and bust). In a sample of 40 oil- and gas-dependent economies, the majority showed significant sectoral diversification of GDP, but exports remained highly concentrated in fuel exports. Regression analysis indicates that countries that began the boom with higher levels of oil and gas dependence, poorer countries, and those with significantly larger- or smaller-than-average populations were more successful in diversifying their GDP during the commodities boom. Governance matters – more effective, capable bureaucratic structures are associated with greater GDP diversification away from oil and gas – though the effects are not uniformly positive. For any given level of government effectiveness, stronger rule of law is associated with less GDP diversification. Education appears to affect GDP and export diversification differentially. Consistent with endogenous growth theory, countries with more educated populations saw greater growth in their nonresource sectors than countries with less educated populations, though education is associated with greater export concentration. Internal economic diversification in the twenty-first century has been less a matter of policy formation and implementation, and more a matter of factors that shape the policy-making environment.     

Learning‐by‐Exporting Revisited: The Role of Intensity and Persistence*

Two non‐mutually exclusive hypotheses can explain the empirically established export premium: self‐selection of more productive firms into export markets and learning‐by‐exporting. This paper focuses on how the temporal dimension of firms' exporting activities and the intensity of exports influence the scope of learning effects. Using a panel of Swedish firms and dynamic generalized method of moments estimation, we find a learning effect among persistent exporters with high export intensity, but not among temporary exporters or persistent exporters with low export intensity. For small firms, exports boost productivity among persistent exporters with both high and low export intensity, but the effect is stronger for persistent export‐intensive small firms.     

Trade openness reduces growth volatility when countries are well diversified

This paper addresses the mechanisms by which trade openness affects growth volatility. Using a diverse set of export concentration measures, we present strong evidence pointing to an important role for export diversification in conditioning the effect of trade openness on growth volatility. Indeed, the effect of openness on volatility is shown to be negative for a significant proportion of countries with relatively diversified export baskets.     

Does Intelligence Affect Economic Diversification?

This paper extends the growing literature on knowledge economy by investigating the effect of intelligence on economic diversification. Using a battery of estimation techniques that are robust to endogeneity, we find that human capital has positive correlations with export diversification, manufactured added value and export manufactures. This empirical evidence is based on a world sample of 170 countries for the year 2010. The findings have significant implications for the fight against the Dutch disease. In essence, investing in human capital could bring economic diversity and therefore dampen negative external shocks related to resource‐dependence. Other knowledge‐economy implications are discussed.     

Do Scarring Effects of Low‐Wage Employment and Non‐Employment Differ BETWEEN Levels of Qualification?

This study investigates how the effects of low‐wage employment and non‐employment on wage prospects vary depending on qualification. Based on theories on signalling effects, human capital and job search, we discuss why there may be heterogeneity in state dependence in both labour market states. We find that episodes of low‐wage employment incur a significantly lower risk of future non‐employment than episodes of non‐employment for low‐qualified workers. In contrast, for workers with a middle or high level of qualification the risk of non‐employment is not significantly different when being low‐paid instead of not employed.     

OUTPUT–EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP ACROSS SECTORS: A LONG‐ VERSUS SHORT‐RUN PERSPECTIVE

This paper investigates the nature of the output–employment relationship by using the Turkish quarterly data for the period 1988–2008. Even if we fail to find a long‐run relationship between aggregate output and total employment, there are long‐run relationships for the aggregate output with non‐agricultural employment and sectoral employment levels for seven of nine sectors that we consider. However, a further investigation for the output and employment relationship within a short‐run perspective does not reveal statistically significant relationships for either total employment or non‐agriculture employment, or eight of the nine sectors that we consider. Although there are various long‐run relationships between output and employment, the short‐run links between demand and employment are weak. The various implications of this for the economy and the labour market are discussed. As a result, maintaining high levels of output in the long‐run creating demand is essential for employment generation.     

POLITICAL SELECTION OF FIRMS INTO PRIVATIZATION PROGRAMS. EVIDENCE FROM ROMANIAN COMPREHENSIVE DATA

Exploiting a unique institutional feature of early Romanian privatization, when a group of firms was explicitly barred from privatization and another was partially privatized by management–employee buyouts, we test how politicians select firms into privatization programs. Using comprehensive firm data, we estimate the relation between preprivatization firm characteristics – the information known to politicians at the time of decision‐making – and the effect of privatization on employment, efficiency, and wages. With the estimated coefficients we simulate the effect of privatization on non‐privatizable and privatizable firms. We find that politicians expected privatization to increase employment in the privatizable group by 7%–10%, while to decrease it in the non‐privatizable group by 10%–30%, depending on the first‐stage estimation method, ordinary least squares with or without matching. We do not find such discrepancies in the expected change in firm efficiency; the simulated efficiency effect of privatization is large and positive for both groups of firms, and it is 52%–65% for non‐privatizable and 41%–43% for privatizable firms. The analysis does not support the hypothesis that wages played an important role in privatization decisions. Our study suggests that employment concerns played the key role in selecting firms for privatization, even if efficiency gains had to be sacrificed.     

The distributive impact of terms of trade shocks: The case of the oil price changes in Russia

The halving of oil prices, during a short period between 2014 and 2015, has generated major terms of trade losses for oil exporting countries. This terms of trade shock has economy‐wide effects and significant distributive impacts. This paper, using a macro‐micro simulation model, describes and quantifies the channels of transmission from the drop of oil prices, to changes in welfare distribution at the household level for the case of the Russian Federation. The oil price reduction generates a reverse Dutch disease impacting sectoral employment, factor returns and consumption prices. It causes a contraction of employment and wages in more skill‐intensive (non‐tradable) sectors, and a reduction in consumption prices that is more pronounced for non‐food than for food goods. When these shifts are mapped to changes in incomes at the micro level, all households are affected. Poverty rates increase by 1 to 4 percentage points, depending on the poverty line used. At the US$ 10 a day threshold, 4.1 million additional people fall into poverty. Along the consumption distribution, richer people are affected more than those in the bottom 40%. However, this minor progressive impact may be reversed due to increases in unemployment and cuts in social programmes.     

THE IMPACT OF INSURANCE SUBSIDIES ON SELF‐EMPLOYMENT: DO STATE NON‐GROUP HEALTH INSURANCE REGULATIONS MATTER?

This paper tests whether the effect of tax‐based subsidies for self‐employed health insurance on the level of self‐employment differs with the type of non‐group insurance regulatory regime at the state level. Using a panel of tax returns from 1999 to 2004, we estimate fixed effects instrumental variable regressions for the probability of being self‐employed, allowing the effect of the after‐tax price of self‐employed health insurance to differ by regulatory regime. Our results suggest that states with community rating and guaranteed issue regulations had significantly smaller increases in the fraction of taxpayers reporting some amount of self‐employment income as a result of a decrease in the after‐tax price of self‐employed health insurance. However, there is suggestive evidence that heavily regulated states experienced a larger increase in exclusive self‐employment, particularly among older taxpayers. (JEL J24, H24, I18)     

中国出口、FDI与就业关系的区域差异分析——基于东部、中部和西部地区面板数据的检验

文章利用中国28个省份1985-2004年的面板数据,考察了出口和外商直接投资对中国就业的影响,以及这种影响在各个地区之间的差异.实证结果显示,出口和外商直接投资对国内就业都具有显著的正向影响,并且出口和外商直接投资的就业弹性都呈现出从东部往西部递增的趋势.长期以来中国处于国际收支双顺差的失衡状态,因此不能依靠进一步扩大出口和外商直接投资的规模来带动就业,而应该通过优化出口和外商直接投资的结构来达到这一目的.     

Immigrants,occupations and firm export performance

This paper investigates the export‐enhancing effect of immigrant workers and how this effect varies across occupations. We use a dataset made of French manufacturing firms from 1997 to 2009 and address the problem of endogenous employment choice using an instrumental variable‐two‐stage least squares (IV‐2SLS) strategy and a doubly robust estimator. Our results show that immigrants in both low‐ and high‐skilled occupations foster exports at both the intensive and the extensive margins. In addition, we show that this effect is spread across all export destinations.     

服务贸易的就业效应分析——基于状态空间模型的再检验

基于1992—2012年的时间序列数据,运用状态空间模型实证检验我国服务贸易进出口对第三产业就业的影响。结果显示：服务贸易出口能促进第三产业就业显著增加,而服务贸易进口由于替代效应对就业产生负面影响,但由于我国服务贸易的结构等原因表现并不显著。因此,我国可以通过发展第三产业、优化服务贸易结构和发展生产性服务贸易,更好的挖掘和发挥服务贸易的就业效应。     

Flexible Labor Regulations and Informality in Egypt

Do more flexible labor market regulations reduce informal employment in formal firms? This paper examines the effects of changes in labor regulations on the incidence of formal employment. Using the case of Egypt, we study the effects of the introduction of more flexible labor regulations in 2003 on the probability that non‐contractual workers will be granted a formal employment contract. To identify the effect of the law and control for potential confounding factors, we use a difference‐in‐difference estimator that measures the difference in the pre‐ and post‐law probability of obtaining a formal contract across a treatment group of non‐contractual workers initially employed in formal firms and a comparison group of non‐contractual workers initially employed in informal firms. The latter serve as a useful comparison group since informal firms are unlikely to formalize as a result of the law, so that the only way their workers can become formal is to move to another firm. Our findings show that the passage of the new labor law did in fact increase the probability of transitioning to formal employment for non‐contractual workers employed in formal firms by about 3–3.5 percentage points, or the equivalent of at least a fifth of informal workers in formal firms.     

The Dynamics of Poverty and the Promotion of Transition from Non‐Regular to Regular Employment in Japan: Economic Effects of Minimum Wage Revision and Job Training Support

Comparison between Japan and other advanced countries shows that the relative poverty rate is high in Japan, and that many of the poor households are those with a non‐regular worker. As for mobility between income classes, the proportion of households remaining in the poor class for a long period of time in Japan is close to the average for EU countries. The panel estimation of its effect on wages shows that the raising of the minimum wage is statistically significantly associated with an increase in wages of non‐regular workers, in particular, female, but does not seem to decrease employment. The result shows that for male non‐regular workers, firm‐provided training promotes their transition to regular employment, and that for female non‐regular workers, occupational training promotes their transition to regular employment at different firms.