What can we learn from the distribution of trade patterns?

This paper proposes an empirical framework for analyzing the dynamics of trade specialization, using a symmetric transformation of the standard Balassa (Manch Sch Econ Soc Stud 33(2):99–123, 1965) index and the conditional density estimation methods suggested by Hyndman et al. (J Comput Graph Stat 5(4):315–336, 1996). The framework is implemented using data on the cross-sector export and import specialization of the four initial EU Cohesion countries over the last 40 years. We discuss the importance of studying both the distribution’s external shape and the intra-distribution dynamics and why it is interesting to include imports in the analysis. We find a reduction of the overall degree of export specialization in Portugal, Greece and Spain. Conversely, Ireland has the strongest export specialization and there is evidence of an increase over time. The export intra-distribution dynamics reveal persistence of the specialization status in the four countries, especially for high values of the index. In all countries, the degree of specialization is higher for exports than for imports and intra-distribution dynamics reveal more mobility of import specialization than that of exports.     

Firm productivity,wages, and agglomeration externalities

Using detailed census data from Morocco, this paper investigates the existence of local externalities in manufacturing. In contrast to many other studies that focus on aggregate employment growth, we examine the effect of externalities on firm-level productivity and wages. Our empirical results show that agglomeration externalities occur through both productivity and wage effects. Returns to specialization are strong and large in magnitude. In accordance with the views of Marshall, Arrow and Romer, the net effect of competition on productivity and wages tends to be negative. Large firms facing no local competition have higher revenues and pay lower wages. We also find some limited evidence in favor of the diversity argument put forth by Jacobs.     

Related variety and industrial growth: evidence from U.S. commuting zones

This article uses industrial employment data at U.S. commuting zone level to test two widely debated propositions about related variety and industrial growth. Our empirical investigations confirm that related variety and specialization have positive interaction effects on industrial employment growth and that the impacts of related variety on industrial growth are much stronger in manufacturing sectors than in nonmanufacturing sectors.     

Are the budgets of state and local governments destabilizing? A six country comparison

This study uses estimates of the annual impact of changes in state and local government budgets during the period 1955–1965 for six countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These, in turn, are compared with the GNP growth rate in order to evaluate the contribution to short-run stabilization.The conclusions are that the year-to-year impact of the state and local sector was substantially smaller than that of the central government; and this is true for countries like Germany and the United States, which have large state-local sectors, as well as for countries like Belgium and France, where the state-local sector is quite small. Also, the impact tends not to vary over the cycle as much as that of central government. Germany was the country where budgetary change made the largest contribution to economic stability, but the effects in all other countries except Belgium were also positive (albeit to a much smaller degree).     

Distribution and growth reconsidered: empirical results for six OECD countries

We analyse the relationship between functional income distributionand economic growth in Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands,the UK and the USA from 1960 until 2005. The analysis is basedon a demand-driven distribution and growth model for an openeconomy inspired by Bhaduri and Marglin, which allows for eitherprofit- or wage-led growth. We find that growth in France, Germany,the UK and the USA has been wage-led, whereas Austria and theNetherlands have been profit-led. In the case of Austria a domesticallywage-led economy changes to profit-led when including the effectof distribution on external trade. The Netherlands, however,are already profit-led without external trade. Our results sofar only partially confirm Bhaduri and Marglin's theoreticalconclusion that wage-led growth becomes less feasible when theeffects of distribution on foreign trade are taken into account.     

Low-wage import competition,inflationary pressure,and industry dynamics in Europe

Have exogenous changes in import competition from low-wage countries (LWCs) brought about changes in inflationary pressure in Europe? This paper examines whether labor-intensive exports from Asia and other global regions have a uniform impact on producer prices in Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. In a panel covering 110 (4-digit) NACE industries from 1995 to 2008, instrumental variable estimations document that LWC import competition is associated with strong price effects. More specifically, when Chinese and other Asian LWC exporters capture 1% of a European market, producer prices decrease by about 3%. Next, decomposing the mechanisms that underlie the LWC price effect on European industry, we show that import competition has a pronounced effect on average productivity and only a muted effect on wages. Owing to the exit of firms and the increase in productivity, LWC import competition is shown to have substantially reduced employment in the European manufacturing sector.     

Falling Labor Share and Rising Unemployment: Long–Run Consequences of Institutional Shocks?

The literature on unemployment has mostly focused on labor market issues while the impact of capital formation is largely neglected. Job creation is often thought to be a matter of encouraging more employment on a given capital stock. In contrast, this paper explicitly deals with the long–run consequences of institutional shocks on capital formation and employment. It is shown that the usual tradeoff between employment and wages disappears in the long run. In line with an appropriation model, the estimated values for the long–run elasticities of substitution between capital and labor for Germany and France are substantially greater than one.     

The effects of agglomeration economies on technical efficiency of manufacturing firms: evidence from Indonesia

This article examines the effects of agglomeration economies and industrial structure upon firm-level technical efficiency in the Indonesian manufacturing industry over the period 2004–2009. A stochastic production frontier and three channels of agglomeration economies consisting of specialization, diversity and competition are used. The empirical results show that the effects of specialization and diversity upon firm-level technical efficiency are positive and negative, respectively, indicating that specialization is more favourable than diversity for stimulating firms’ technical efficiency. Competition has a positive sign, showing that region with high levels of competition tend to be more conducive in accelerating firm-level technical efficiency. In terms of firm location, both dummy for urban region and industrial complex turn out to be positive, indicating that firms located in both areas are experienced higher technical efficiency. Both firm size and age also have positive effect upon technical efficiency.     

集聚经济与基于价值链的企业区位选择——重新发现内部集聚经济

以往集聚经济的研究多集中在以专业化、多样化等为核心的外部集聚经济,对内部集聚经济关注不足。而在"多部门企业(Multi-unit firms)"组织方式背景下,单一企业的规模经济逐渐扩展为同一集团下属企业由于共同区位带来的内部集聚经济,重新发现内部集聚经济益发重要。文章旨在以华东地区整车集团新成立企业的区位选择为例,分析内部集聚经济对企业区位选择的影响。研究发现:整车集团在某区域的从业人员总数每增加1%,该集团在该地设立下属企业的概率提升0.818%。纳入集团的初始位置、在投资地的投资时长和本地竞争等因素后,内部集聚经济的影响作用依然稳健。集团企业在同一价值链环节内部和不同价值链环节之间均会发生共同集聚。另外,加入内部集聚经济因素后,没有找到外部集聚经济稳健地影响企业区位选择的证据。     

东北地区产业结构对区域经济韧性的空间溢出效应研究

产业结构多样化与专业化之争是经济学中的一个长期热门话题，区域经济韧性概念为区域发展产业结构多样化抑或是专业化提供了一个全新研究视角。近年来，经济遭受2008年金融危机、第四次产业革命兴起等外部冲击后，长期处于下行态势。基于2009-2018年东北地区34个地级以上城市面板数据，采用空间杜宾模型，探究产业多样化与产业专业化对区域经济韧性的影响。结果发现：产业结构多样化对本市经济韧性起到提升作用，但会降低邻近城市的经济韧性；产业结构专业化对本市和邻近城市经济韧性起到提升作用，能够更好地发挥自身竞争优势，优化资源配置，形成规模效应。     

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PLANT DYNAMICS BY SIZE: KOREAN MANUFACTURING

A comparative analysis on Korean manufacturing plants is performed by size of plants and sources of TFP growth are decomposed into entry, exit, and survival effects of plants, focusing on the pre- and post-crisis periods. Additional survival analyses investigate internal and external determinants of the survival of plants. The results indicate that the exit of small- and medium-sized establishments (SMEs) with higher productivity is becoming problematic in the post-crisis period. The improvements in large-scale establishments (LSEs) after the crisis appeared to occur generally in high-technology industrial sectors; SMEs in low-technology industries are suffering from a sluggish market selection process.     

Entry,market turbulence and industry employment growth

This paper investigates the relationship between industrial dynamics in terms of firm entry, market turbulence and employment growth. Do entry of firms, the composition of industry dynamics (net entry) and market turbulence (entry and exit) influence industrial employment growth? This paper provides an empirical investigation, using unique data for 42 disaggregated Swedish industrial sectors during the period 1997–2001. It is hypothesised that the importance of entering firms, net entry and market turbulence may differ significantly across industries. A quantile regression method is used in order to detect industrial differences in the response to industrial employment growth. The empirical evidence shows that, on the one hand, firm entry and market turbulence have a positive effect on employment for fast growing industries and that the effect is larger for high growth industries. On the other hand, the composition of industry dynamics in terms of net entry rates has a more dispersed effect across all industries, even though the effect of net entry is larger for high growth industries.     

财政分权、地方政府投资和产业结构调整——来自中国的经验

财政分权以后地方政府投资逐渐演变成为我国投资体系中的一个重要组成部分,对经济发展和产业结构调整产生了较大的影响。以面板数据实证方法分析了1994年财政分权改革后地方政府投资对产业结构调整的影响。研究结论显示,我国地方政府投资由于处于投资竞争的现实使得其对第二产业的发展过于偏重,而对第三产业的发展推动较小,从而不利于我国产业结构的调整。     

Union coverage and sectoral wages: Evidence from the Netherlands

This paper investigates the impact of union coverage on sectoral wages in the Netherlands. The semi-elasticity of the wage rate with respect to union coverage appears to be around 0.05; it is higher in the industrial than in the other sectors. The impact of union coverage on wages appears to be lower in the Netherlands than in the US and the UK. Union coverage increases the weight of internal (sector-specific) factors in wage determination and decreases the weight of external (labour market) factors. Apparently, unions increase the role of rent sharing in wage formation and stabilize employment.     

DIVERSITY AND ECONOMIC EVOLUTION: FAILURES OF COMPETITIVE ECONOMIC SYSTEMS

This paper has two themes. First, diversity of relevant attributes driving the dynamics of socioeconomic systems, including industrial systems'is often needed to increase their likelihood of transiting to a superior state. However, systems left to their own devices do not always evolve to states where they possess sufficient or optimal diversity for further evolution or growth to a superior state. Evolutionary market mechanisms can be of this nature. Structural adjustment policies and globalization seem to be adding to industrial and other types of uniformity. Hence, real danger exists that global industrial structures influenced by field effects will become "piled up" and reduce the likelihood of the global economic system evolving to a superior economic state. Furthermore, diversity is an important driving force in other growth processes, e.g., those adding to the stock of knowledge. Second industrial diversity of techniques and behaviors may be potentially Paretian valuable as a means of optimal adjustment to continual technological change and as a manifestation of specialization according to differences in individual abilities and in those of organizations. Insofar as attempts at benchmarking try to ensure uniform adoption of "best practice" in industry, they are likely to be doubly damaging because short-run potential Paretian benefits are forgone, and in stifling industrial diversity they may also undermine industrial diversity as a source of future economic growth. (JEL D00, D89, O30, 014)     

Persistence, Asymmetries and Interrelation in Factor Demand

A neoclassical factor demand model for structures, equipment and labour is analyzed in this paper. It incorporates a variety of dynamic specifications, such as a multi-period time-to-build for structures, internal adjustment costs for each production factor, and external investment adjustment costs. First-order conditions of the model are estimated by the generalized method of moments using manufacturing industry data from the US, Canada, West Germany, the UK (all 1960.I–1988.IV), France (1970.I–1992.II) and the Netherlands (1971.I–1990.IV). The results endorse time-to-build for structures, persistence of technology shocks and interrelations in adjustment cost dynamics.     

Technological leadership and sectorial employment growth: A spatial econometric analysis for U.S. counties

This paper studies the determinants of technological catch‐up considering spatial and sectoral aggregation of industries. We investigate how geographical and technological proximity to the technology leader impact regional employment growth. We model technological progress by means of a hierarchical process of catch‐up to the technology leader. We also incorporate measures for knowledge spillover effects to test the roles of competition, specialisation, and diversity at the industry level. Empirical results using data at the county level for different economic sectors (2‐dig NAICS) for the United States indicate that human capital plays a crucial role in promoting sectoral employment growth. The association between technological/geographical distance to the technology leader and employment growth varies across sectors.     

The role of the wage-productivity gap in economic activity

This paper argues that wages lagging behind productivity is a long-run structural phenomenon due to the interplay of wage dynamics and productivity growth. We call this interplay frictional growth, a term that can only be nullified in the utopian case of zero growth and/or no dynamics. In that vein, we challenge the prevailing view of the neutrality of the labour income share and investigate its impact on the evolution of employment. We thus estimate wage setting and labour demand equation systems – for France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, the UK, and the US over the 1960–2008 period – and find that the labour share is negatively associated with employment even when the conventional assumption of a unitary long-run elasticity of wages with respect to productivity holds. Acknowledging the presence of the wage-productivity gap in both the short and long run, this work stands as the building block for assessing the effect of the falling labour share on economic activity. As recent work has shown that the widening wage gap is also an important factor prompting inequality, it can be argued that by supporting employment the falling labour share ‘sweetens’ the impact of rising income inequality, and, as such, deserves the attention of policy makers.     

产业聚集对区域创新绩效影响的实证研究——以电子及通讯设备制造业为例

分析了产业聚集所产生的各类知识溢出对区域创新绩效的影响以及产业聚集的最佳聚集程度和规模,并以我国电子及通讯设备制造业为例进行实证研究。结果显示:多样化的产业环境有助于区域创新,竞争对区域创新存在负面影响,研发多样化对区域创新的影响并不显著;总就业密度提高一倍,则创新水平将提高24%;就业密度与区域创新绩效的关系曲线呈倒U型,且就业密度均为600人/平方公里时区域创新绩效达到最高;区域人口规模与区域创新绩效的关系曲线呈U型,对应拐点大致出现在区域人口总规模为6500万人处。