ICT capital and labour productivity growth: A non-parametric analysis of 14 OECD countries

This paper uses a new set of country data for 14 countries, members of the OECD, and a non-parametric approach to provide new evidence on the impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on labour productivity growth between 1995 and 2005. For the first time, in the present paper a bootstrap approach for the decomposition of labour productivity change, proposed by Kumar and Russell (2002), is employed. This approach permits to conduct statistical inference on the parameters of interest, and to analyse the effects of ICT technologies on capital accumulation. The results confirm the role of ICT as a general purpose technology that needs organisational and business process changes to fully exploit its growth opportunities. The paper also finds out, by applying a non-parametric test, that ICT technologies positively contribute to the generation of convergence clubs in the evolution of labour productivity. Finally, the empirical evidence offers some basic guidance for future policy intervention in supporting ICT capital investments.     

The two dimensions of policy impacts on economic cohesion: Concept and illustration for the CAP

Given the growing importance of cohesion policy within the European Union (EU) during the last two decades, public and scientific interest in the role of EU policies for regional disparities has risen continuously. Recent empirical studies on the impacts of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on economic cohesion have been strikingly diverse in their principal findings. Whereas some studies suggest positive overall effects on economic cohesion, others stress exactly the opposite. One major reason for the ambiguous results is that a single agreed-upon measure of economic cohesion is lacking. We propose a concept that distinguishes between two dimensions of policy impacts on economic cohesion: (i) the redistributive impact at a defined period of time and (ii) the change of the redistributive impact over time. The first dimension addresses the question whether a policy makes the distribution of a target variable, e.g., income, more equal or unequal at one point of time. The second dimension covers the impact of the policy on the disparity of the same variable over time, i.e., the impact on convergence. An empirical illustration of the concept for 13 NUTS 1 regions in Germany over the period 1991–2009 reveals that the two policy impacts of the CAP are partly contradictory for the two dimensions. It is shown that the CAP fosters economic cohesion by reducing regional disparities in each individual year. With regard to redistributive impacts over time, we find that CAP transfers leave income convergence largely unaffected for society as a whole. Within the agricultural sector, it leads to a convergence of receipts per farm whereas it induces a divergence of farm receipts per hectare.     

我国地区间相对价格水平收敛性再检验——基于面板门限套利模型的经验研究

本文通过建立面板门限套利模型为地区间相对价格水平收敛的假说提供了理论支持,并为采用面板单位根检验进行收敛性检验提供了理论依据。在此基础上,本文通过测算国内地区间相对价格水平,放松了此前文献通常做出的基准年份各地价格水平相等的前提假设,并综合利用第一、二代面板单位根检验方法考察了1995—2010年我国地区间相对价格水平的收敛性。实证研究找到了较多收敛证据但也发现收敛半衰期较长,驳斥了国内市场分割愈演愈烈的判断,也承认了国内商品市场一体化进程尚未达理想程度的现实。此外,本文发现部分商品分类收敛性与其可贸易性有背离,并推测贸易性瑕疵与政策因素起了关键作用。     

我国城市经济增长与能源强度差异研究

在使用滞后调整的面板数据模型基础上,本文对1995～2008年我国内陆地区与沿海地区的城市能源消费强度差异与人均GDP差异之间关系进行实证分析。研究结果发现,与我国省区能源消费强度与经济增长趋同模式相似,随着人均GDP差异的收敛,我国内陆地区与沿海地区的城市能源消费强度差异也是收敛的,但收敛的速度慢于人均GDP的收敛速度。部分内陆城市在人均GDP增长同时,能源消费强度仍处于上升态势,这些地区应该成为我国未来节能减排工作的重点。本文的研究有助于对我国地区经济增长与能源消费强度差距之间的关系进一步理解。     

An evolutionary model of long term cyclical variations of catching up and falling behind

We generalize a single-country model of endogenous growth to the case of a multi-country world economy in which technology transfer and behavioral imitation are the possible means of interaction between countries. The model is evolutionary in the sense that the economies are disaggregated by behaviourally heterogeneous firms, market selection occurs, and the innovation process is uncertain and stochastic. We demonstrate that this structure leads to a complex process of convergence and divergence over time that can be characterized as 1/f noise. Spectral analysis of measures of convergence for six core OECD countries in the period 1870–1989 reveals a similar pattern in the empirical data.     

North-South knowledge spillovers and competition: convergence versus divergence

Technology spillovers from high-productivity countries in the North allow low-productivity countries in the South to improve productivity in high-tech sectors relatively easy. However, the South's share in world goods markets for high-tech products is relatively low, which reduces opportunities for learning by doing. Our simple Ricardian endogenous growth model shows how the balance between toughness of competition in trade and the strength of North-South spillovers determines whether productivity levels diverge, partially converge or fully converge in the long run. If convergence prevails, the North is confronted with declining employment in high-tech sectors. Temporary (trade) policy measures can turn a diverging economy into a converging one.     

Learning with perfect information

For extensive form games with perfect information, consider a learning process in which, at any iteration, each player unilaterally deviates to a best response to his current conjectures of others' strategies; and then updates his conjectures in accordance with the induced play of the game. We show that, for generic payoffs, the outcome of the game becomes stationary, and is consistent with Nash equilibrium. In general, if payoffs have ties or if players observe more of each others' strategies than is revealed by plays of the game, the same result holds provided a rationality constraint is imposed on unilateral deviations: no player changes his moves in subgames that he deems unreachable, unless he stands to improve his payoff there. Moreover, with this constraint, the sequence of strategies and conjectures also becomes stationary, and yields a self-confirming equilibrium.     

The effect of changes in Japanese consolidation policy on analyst forecast error

Our broad research objective is to investigate whether convergence towards international standards improves the decision usefulness of information. Recent changes in Japanese consolidated reporting practices to better align with international standards provide an excellent setting to investigate this research objective. Specifically, we examine the effect of changes in Japanese consolidation policy on financial analysts’ perceptions of the persistence of subsidiary earnings. Previous research provides evidence that, prior to the change in consolidation policy, consolidated financial information was not used efficiently in the Japanese capital market. Prior research finds a positive relation between subsidiary earnings and future stock returns in Japan, indicating that investors underestimate the persistence of subsidiary earnings. Consistent with prior research using stock returns, we find that financial analysts also underestimate the persistence of subsidiary earnings in Japan. We document a significant positive relation between subsidiary earnings and future forecast errors of consolidated earnings. However, following the changes in consolidation policy in Japan, we find that financial analysts no longer underestimate the persistence of subsidiary earnings. Changes in Japanese consolidation policy in conformance with international standards increase decision usefulness by improving the ability of financial analysts to predict overall firm performance. One limitation of our research design relates to the adoption of mandated accounting policy changes by all sample firms in the same calendar time. This makes it difficult to control for the impact of correlated omitted variables. While this concern can never be completely eliminated, we provide additional tests that examine sample partitions by firm size and industry. These additional tests support the primary findings that Japan’s efforts to converge consolidation rules with international standards have improved analysts’ consolidated earnings forecasts.     

中国地区增长是否存在收敛?——随机框架下的再讨论

针对单个面板单位根检验结果具有多种可能含义的问题,本文基于多种面板单位根检验方法以及验证分析(confirmatory analysis)的思路,对改革开放以来我国各地区经济增长的随机收敛特性进行了再检验。结果发现,全国范围内并不存在全局性的随机收敛,借助序贯分类方法,我们发现相对于全国水平的随机收敛只出现在六个省区。进一步检验也未发现存在俱乐部式随机收敛的证据。发展失衡已经成为我国地区经济增长的显著特征,推动地区发展重回均衡应成为经济政策的重要核心。本文研究还表明在对面板单位根检验结果进行解释时需要谨慎。     

Fast convergence in evolutionary equilibrium selection

Stochastic best response models provide sharp predictions about equilibrium selection when the noise level is arbitrarily small. The difficulty is that, when the noise is extremely small, it can take an extremely long time for a large population to reach the stochastically stable equilibrium. An important exception arises when players interact locally in small close-knit groups; in this case convergence can be rapid for small noise and an arbitrarily large population. We show that a similar result holds when the population is fully mixed and there is no local interaction. Moreover, the expected waiting times are comparable to those in local interaction models.