An Assessment of the Impact of a COMESA Customs Union

Abstract: The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) launched its free trade area (FTA) on 31 October 2000 and is in the process of forming a custom union. A Common External Tariff (CET) with respect to all goods imported into the member states from third countries shall be established and maintained. The purpose of this study is three‐fold. The first purpose is to assess the impact of the CET. Here we lowered only external tariffs to all regions leaving tariffs within COMESA as they are now to reflect the real situation. In this scenario, we take into consideration sensitive products which COMESA members might want to exclude from the CET to protect their markets. The second purpose is to implement the COMESA FTA fully. That is, to remove tariff on trade within COMESA states totally. This part of the study will give us an idea on whether countries within COMESA are losing by not implementing the FTA and if so, by how much. The third purpose is to assess the impact of the CET in a fully operational COMESA FTA. The methodology used for this analysis is a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) — more specifically the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) framework is used. Two standard GTAP closures have been modified to more realistically represent the African economies, namely the employment closure and the trade balance closure.     

Trade Creation and Trade Diversion Effects in the Economic Community of Central African States

This paper analyzes trade creation and trade diversion effects in the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) between 2007 and 2016 using the Gravity Model. The results show that variables like GDP, population, bilateral distance, political stability and corruption are crucial for the determination of bilateral trade flow. More importantly, the study finds that there is neither trade creation nor trade diversion in the ECCAS region. Thus, the FTA in ECCAS did not lead either to reinforce intra‐trade or to emphasize trade with non‐member countries. Yet, the Economic Community of Central African States (CEMAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the East African Community (EAC) have been trade creating during the aforementioned period. Therefore, the paper recommends policy makers to promote more regional integration within ECCAS notably through the construction of intra‐zone communication means and the effective establishment of the free movement of people and goods within the region.     

The impact of the Second World War on US productivity growth1

This paper considers the productivity impact on the US economy of the period of war mobilization and demobilization lasting from 1941 to 1948. Optimists have pointed to learning by doing in military production and spin‐offs from military R & D as the basis for asserting a substantial positive effect of military conflict on potential output. Productivity data for the private non‐farm economy are not consistent with this view, as they show slower total factor productivity (TFP) growth between 1941 and 1948 than before or after. The paper argues for adopting a less rosy perspective on the supply side effects of the war.     

PRODUCTIVITY IMPACT OF THE MODERN VARIETIES OF RICE IN INDIA

The present paper analyzed the long‐term yield growth and total factor productivity (TFP) growth by applying Tornqvist‐Theil index method for two periods, namely, 1970–85 (early Green Revolution) and 1986–2000 (late Green Revolution), for major rice‐growing states of India. The yield data shows an increasing long‐term growth trend throughout the Green Revolution period in irrigated states where modern variety (MV) adoption was nearly complete. However, yield advances started to slow down for intensive irrigated rice systems in the 1990s, whereas rainfed ecosystems have increased during the late Green Revolution period. The domestic spillovers of MV from irrigated to rainfed states is likely to be one of the contributing factors to increased TFP growth in ranifed areas after the 1980s. This implies that the MV of rice developed for irrigated ecosystems have also benefited substantially the rainfed‐dominant eastern Indian states in the long run where partial irrigation facilities such as shallow tube wells were created after the mid‐1980s.     

Total Factor Productivity Convergence in Developing Countries: Role of Technology Diffusion

In recent years, though total factor productivity (TFP) convergence phenomenon has gained tremendous importance yet further deliberations for identification of catalytic factors that can help developing countries to achieve their steady developmental paths, are under way. Against this backdrop, present study investigates the principal determinants of TFP convergence by employing data of 91 developing countries over the period 1960–2015 and with USA being the frontier country. In concordance with the existing literature, main focus remains on technology diffusion for the catch‐up process and is measured by means of trade openness (TO) and foreign direct investment (FDI) with introduction of their interaction terms. However, TFP is computed by incorporating the Growth Accounting Model while empirical results are drawn from the 2‐step GMM estimation technique. It is surfaced that though high degree of openness benefits TFP growth and convergence but FDI has a dominating role. Therefore, governments can play a competent role via unflagging efforts in ensuring that the right kind of policies are enacted, promoting trading activities and FDI flows.     

产业集聚、贸易开放与全要素生产率：来自中国省际的证据

文章基于Melitz理论模型,通过引入产业集聚变量,分析了贸易开放与贸易封闭条件下产业集聚对均衡生产率的影响,并使用非线性的门槛回归方法对不同贸易开放条件下产业集聚与全要素生产率的关系以及产业集聚促进全要素生产率提高的具体渠道（技术进步、技术效率）进行了实证检验。结果发现,产业集聚水平的提高对要素生产率的贡献与一国所处的外部经济环境有关。在我国产业集聚促进全要素生产率增长的过程中,有贸易开放的门槛效应的存在,只有在贸易开放水平达到一定阶段之后,产业集聚才会推动全要素生产率的显著提高。在不同省际间,不但产业集聚促进全要素生产率提高的效应大小有所差异,其具体作用渠道也有所不同。在贸易开放水平较高的省份,虽然产业集聚在推动技术进步上的作用十分明显,但其却限制了技术效率的提高,产业集聚对全要素生产率提高的影响主要是通过推动技术进步来实现的。     

Productivity growth in Indonesian agriculture, 1961–2000

This paper uses an index number approach to measure total factor productivity (TFP) growth in Indonesian crop and livestock agriculture from 1961 to 2000. Tornqvist-Theil chain-weighted indices of output, input and TFP are developed to minimise biases that may result from relative changes in input and output price aggregation weights. The results indicate that agricultural TFP growth accelerated in the 1970s and 1980s but stagnated in the 1990s. Without new efforts to increase productivity in agriculture, Indonesia's goal of using agricultural growth to generate broad-based rural development and further reduce poverty may be undermined.     

Measuring Green Productivity Growth for China's Manufacturing Sectors: 1991–2000*

Over the past two decades, China has sustained rapid economic growth of 8–10 percent, part of which is attributed to the positive total factor productivity (TFP) growth. However, this extraordinary economic performance has been accompanied by severe environmental pollution and associated health damage. The conventional TFP method is biased in interpreting the progress of technology change because it does not consider non‐marketable residues, such as environmental pollution, and, hence, efficiency improvements in terms of pollution abatement technology and environmentally friendly management are ignored. This bias might direct our attention to less efficient use of environmental friendly abatement technologies or send wrong signals to policy‐makers. To address this issue, the present paper applies a modified welfare‐based green TFP approach, treating environmental damage as non‐desirable (negative) residual output. Therefore, environmental efficiency is taken into account to accurately interpret technological progress from a social welfare point of view. Based on a national time‐series input–output table, historical capital and labor input data for China and sectoral level air pollution emission data from 1991 to 2000, the empirical results suggest that with increasingly stringent environmental regulations, many pollution intensive sectors, such as electricity, primary metal and chemical industries, improved their environmental efficiency in the late 1990s. However, because of the weak environmental regulations in construction and transportation, and in sectors primarily composed of small private or township and village industrial enterprises, firms within these industries contributed to increasing environmental degradation.     

An Application of the Extended Glass and McKillop Procedure for Computing TFP Growth to the Malaysian Rice Sector

The objective of the present study is three-fold: to employ an aggregated data to investigate the total factor productivity (TFP) growth of the Malaysian rice sector; to investigate the sources of the TFP growth; and, to examine and extend the Glass and McKillop procedure for computing TFP growth. To this end, we establish several procedures which make it possible for us to: (i) link the TFP analysis with the theory of production; (ii) disentangle the sources of TFP growth into scale and technological change effects; and (iii) apply, compute, examine and extend the Glass and McKillop procedure for computing TFP growth.The finding of the study is as follows. (i) Using the standard procedure forcomputing TFP growth it was found that the average TFP growth for Malaysian rice farming was 1.37%, of which the scale effect contributed 0.29% and the remaining 1.08% was due to the technological change effect. (ii) Using the extended Glass and McKillop procedure, however, it was found that the average TFP growth, the technological change effect and the scale effect were 3.48%, 3.19% and 0.29%, respectively. (iii) Comparing these two results, derived from two different procedures, we concluded that the difference in magnitude of the TFP growth was due to the two distinct procedures for computing the technological change effect per se.     

Call For Papers: The Eighth International Convention of the East Asian Economic Association

This paper provides empirical estimates of total factor productivity (TFP) trends in a sample of 17 APEC countries over the period 1975 to 1996. TFP growth is an important measure of an economy's performance and if measured correctly it can provide valuable guidance on issues related to the assessment of sustainable growth trends. We use the Malmquist index to measure TFP growth and decompose it into an efficiency change and a technical change component. This decomposition provides extra insight on assessing sustainable growth trends. The measurement technique itself is regarded as a significant improvement over previous conventional measures of TFP growth. The results are very interesting. Japan, Thailand and primarily Indonesia and Malaysia are identified as countries exhibiting on average negative TFP growth rates in the 1975-1990 period. In all these countries as well as in South Korea and Taiwan the main cause of low TFP growth is a poor (negative) efficiency record. The average TFP growth rate for Japan and Malaysia is positive in the 1975-1996 period but the efficiency change component remains negative. In all these countries the main contributor to labour productivity growth is capital accumulation. Unlike previous studies we find no evidence of a poor TFP growth performance for Singapore. Furthermore, we estimate that most of Singapore's labour productivity growth is driven by efficiency change. Estimates of rates of convergence towards the frontier economy that is estimated (not assumed as in other studies) to be the US, are also reported.     

Role of TFP in China's Growth*

This paper uses the dual approach to growth accounting to examine the role of total factor productivity (TFP) in recent Chinese growth. Most previous growth accounting studies on China have followed the primal approach, which depends heavily on the national income accounts. Unfortunately, despite efforts to rectify them, Chinese national income accounts data continue to have problems that affect primal approach growth accounting results. The dual approach, in contrast, allows independent price information to play a role. Recent research has focused on the following two questions: (i) How significant has TFP's role been in post‐reform Chinese growth? (ii) Has TFP growth rate slowed down in more recent years? This paper finds that: (i) the TFP growth rate for mainland China computed using the dual approach also proves high; and (ii) there has been some slowdown in TFP growth rate in recent years.     

The role of subcontracting in SME development in Indonesia:: Micro-level evidence from the metalworking and machinery industry

This study investigates whether subcontracting linkages are an important support mechanism for the development of Indonesian small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs). It estimates production functions and calculates indices of total factor productivity (TFP) based on micro-level data from 60 metalworking and machinery firms that supply their products to automobile, motorcycle, agricultural machinery and bicycle manufacturers. The estimation results confirm our main hypothesis that inter-firm cooperation through subcontracting ties increases productivity of Indonesian SMEs. This study implies that the situation where subcontracting ties in Indonesia did not function well in supporting SMEs has been changing recently. Better financial access and business continuity are important in facilitating subcontracting transactions, which can provide SMEs with support necessary for improving productivity. A comparison of TFP indices indicates differences in productivity between firm groups. Larger SMEs, non-pribumi SMEs and SMEs producing automotive/motorcycle parts have, in general, higher TFP than their counterparts.     

Are export tax rebates patronage for Chinese firms? An analysis of productivity

This paper examines the nexus between export tax rebates and productivity using Chinese firm-level data from 2000 to 2007. The empirical findings indicate that a one percentage point decrease in export tax rebate rates increases the total factor productivity (TFP) of a firm by about 0.1 percentage points. We explore the possible mechanisms that explain this nexus and attribute it to the allocation effect of export tax rebate policy; that is, export tax rebates prevent low-productivity firms from exiting the market and further reallocate resources and economic activities to them. In addition, a decrease in rebate rates significantly encourages the TFP growth of surviving firms and leads to an increase in aggregate TFP. Specifically, throughout 2000–07, the declining rebate rates accounted for 5.23% of the rise in the aggregate TFP, and the between-firm effect was 3.85%, which is much larger than the within effect.     

Total factor productivity in South African agriculture, 1947‐91

Indices of total factor productivity (TFP) measure aggregate output per unit of aggregate input, providing a guide to the efficiency of agricultural production. This article outlines the relationship between production functions and TFP indices. Then, an index is constructed for South African agriculture for the period 1947‐91. The index shows that TFP grew at an average rate of 1,3 per cent per annum. However, TFP growth has increased since the reforms of the early 1980s. Since capital has been more realistically priced relative to labour, greater productivity growth has gone together with increasing employment, which must have improved social welfare.     

NEW ESTIMATES OF TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN INDONESIAN MANUFACTURING

This paper estimates new elasticities of value added with respect to labour and capital in Indonesian manufacturing, controlling for the simultaneity problem that potentially exists between the choice of input levels and a productivity shock (such as an increase in productivity due to new production processes), for plant exit, and for quasi-constant unobservable plant characteristics. It does so by applying the Levinsohn and Petrin (2003) production function estimator to plant-level value added, fixed assets, labour, and electricity consumption data over the period 1988–95. This methodology allows us to revisit the previously used growth accounting based elasticities, and thereby improves total factor productivity (TFP) estimates. The results show that, in the period under study, aggregate TFP growth in Indonesian manufacturing was higher than had previously been estimated.     

中国全要素生产率估计:1978-2006年

Solow残差法在计量全要素生产率时忽略了制度因素,为此本文在构建模型时增加制度虚拟变量。通过用修正后的模型估计中国1978年以采的全要素生产率,本文发现:1978年以来,中国的全要素生产率增长率和技术进步对经济增长的贡献都很显著;但1990年代中后期以来却在低位徘徊。文章认为,应该加强教育投入、切实推动生产要素在国内自由流动以及加快立法,以保证市场经济秩序的公平和公正。     

农民的现代性与农业全要素生产率——基于江苏省农户调查的实证分析

文章基于2009年在纵贯江苏省南北区位的631份问卷调查,应用DEA—Tobit模型实证分析了现代性对农业全要素生产率的贡献率及作用机制。估计结果表明,内在涵养与开放观念对农业全要素生产率产生显著贡献。我们应该积极培育现代农民以具有更高的教育期望、科学信仰、劳动积极性、组织协作能力、生产计划性、乐于接受新经验、信任他人等现代化素质,以促进农业生产率稳定增长的长效机制。     

The “news view” of economic fluctuations: Evidence from aggregate Japanese data and sectoral US data

This paper uses aggregate Japanese data and sectoral US data to explore the properties of the joint behavior of stock prices and total factor productivity (TFP) with the aim of highlighting data patterns that are useful for evaluating business cycle theories. The approach used follows that presented in [Beaudry, P., Portier, F., 2004. News, stock prices and economic fluctuations. Working paper 10548. NBER]. The main findings are that (i) in both Japan and the US, innovations in stock prices that are contemporaneously orthogonal to TFP precede most of the long-run movements in total factor productivity and (ii) such stock prices innovations do not affect US sectoral TFPs contemporaneously, but do precede TFP increases in those sectors that are driving US TFP growth, namely durable goods, and among them equipment sectors. J. Japanese Int. Economies 19 (4) (2005) 635–652.     

Productivity Measurement in Gambling: Plant‐level Evidence from the United Kingdom

Although gambling is one of the fastest‐growing service industries, there have been no studies of total factor productivity (TFP) in this sector. We attempt to fill this gap using establishment‐level data from the United Kingdom. We also discuss key measurement issues in calculating gambling productivity and estimate labor and TFP equations, based on a stochastic frontier production function framework, focusing in particular on the impact of information technology on productivity. Our preliminary results suggest that the production function models fit well, generating plausible elasticity estimates. We find consistent evidence that productivity increased following major reforms to gambling taxation in 2001. Our findings yield limited evidence of regional variations in efficiency. Another key preliminary result is that internet operations appear to be associated with higher relative efficiency.     

The heterogeneous effect of international outsourcing on firm productivity

This paper analyses how international outsourcing affects plant total factor productivity (TFP) using a census of Irish manufacturing firms. The results point to a striking pattern: the status of being or becoming an outsourcer matters strongly for firms that are indigenous and not exporting, while for exporters and foreign affiliates, TFP increases are lower, insignificant and sometimes negative. On the other hand, higher intensity of outsourcing matters for both exporters and foreign affiliates. The message is clear: international outsourcing’s initial learning effect on TFP is most pronounced when it serves as a first exposure to international markets, while the “scale effect” of outsourcing en masse only occurs to larger, already internationalised firms.