The Adjustment Property

An input–output (IO) system which is capable of producing any semi-positive net product by an adequate choice of the activity levels of its processes satisfies the ‘adjustment’ property. We analyze under which conditions the adjustment property holds for IO systems in which some produced goods have a purely intermediate character. The peculiarity of these pure capital goods is that final demand for them is identically zero. One of the ways to deal with this type of system is to eliminate the pure capital goods, by means of vertical integration.     

„Wir haben bei Henkel international eine einheitliche Arbeitsweise im Finanzbereich geschaffen“

Praxis / ArtikelInterview

„Wir haben bei Henkel international eine einheitliche Arbeitsweise im Finanzbereich geschaffen“ Jürgen H. Daum im Gespr?ch mit Dr. Carlo Mackrodt, vormals Vice President Global Financial Services, Henkel KGaA, zur Neugestaltung des Henkel-Finanzbereichs     

The Outsourcing of Manufacturing and the Rise of Giant Global Contractors: A Marxian Approach to Some Recent Transformations of Global Value Chains

This article aims to show that the Marxian ‘law of value’ can provide solid foundations for the comprehension of the constitution and dynamics of Global Value Chains (GVC). It offers an explanation of the social processes of ‘value creation and capture’ within a chain based on the system-wide motion of global capital accumulation. A firm connection is thus established between the particular dynamics internal to each industry and the general dynamics of the ‘system as a whole’, which is, precisely, where the greatest weakness of the GVC approach lies. Furthermore, the usefulness of those general theoretical insights is then shown through a more empirical discussion of recent transformations in the composition and governance structure of GVC resulting from two interrelated processes: the tendency for a growing de-linking between innovation and manufacturing and the rise of highly concentrated global contractors. These phenomena have paradigmatically developed in the electronics industry, giving rise to the formation of the so-called modular or turnkey production networks. The discussion therefore focuses on that particular industrial sector.     

The Impact of Interactive Corporate Social Responsibility Communication on Corporate Reputation

Companies increasingly communicate about corporate social responsibility (CSR) through interactive online media. We examine whether using such media is beneficial to a company’s reputation. We conducted an online experiment to examine the impacts of interactivity in CSR messages on corporate reputation and word-of-mouth intentions. Our findings suggest that an increase in perceived interactivity leads to higher message credibility and stronger feelings of identification with the company, which also boost corporate reputation and word-of-mouth. This result implies that using interactive channels to communicate about CSR can improve corporate reputation. Our results also show that the detrimental impacts of negative user evaluations on corporate reputation are much higher than the favorable impacts of positive evaluations. This finding suggests that, despite the effectiveness of interactive communication channels, firms need to carefully monitor these channels.     

Pro-poor trade policy in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper examines the presence of a pro-poor bias in the existing structure of protection of six Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gambia, and Madagascar. We build on a simple agricultural household production model and we propose an extension to include adjustments in labor income. Our approach, which can be implemented without repeated cross-sections of household level data, suits well the data constraints in SSA. It also allows us to capture the heterogeneity in trade protection at the tariff line level. The pro-poor bias indicators suggest that SSA's trade policies tend to be biased in favor of poor households, as these policies redistribute income from rich to poor households. This is because protection increases the agricultural prices of goods that are sold by African households and this effect dominates both the impacts of higher consumption prices and the strong Stolper–Samuelson effects that benefit skilled over unskilled workers.     

Prioritising land to be preserved for agriculture: A context-specific value tree

In Belgium as in many other countries, agricultural land is under pressure for development of other land uses. This paper presents a method for setting priorities for preservation of land for agriculture. The method is based on a participatory approach through which a value tree is formulated. This results in a list of criteria to define farmland value, which is explicitly linked to the objectives for farmland preservation. The value tree allows the list of criteria to be determined in a structured and consistent way. The participatory process contributes to the development of a shared vision on farmland preservation. The approach also incorporates context specificity, as shown by its application for farmland preservation in Flanders.     

The ABC-LCA method for the integration of activity-based costing and life cycle assessment

This article presents an approach to integrating life cycle assessment (LCA) into an activity-based costing (ABC) model to develop a steering system that takes into account both financial costs and associated environmental impacts. By combining the formalism of LCA and ABC matrix calculations, we show how impact assessment results can be affiliated with costs to jointly and simultaneously compute the costs and environmental impacts of products and activities. The conditions of integration are developed following the four-step structure of LCA. The proposal is applied to a simplified case study of the ‘Classic Pen Company.’ The developed ABC-LCA approach paves the way for further test applications, which are considered useful in the context of environmental indicators for strategic steering, communication with customers and forecasting or simulation.     

Exporting firms and the demand for skilled tasks

This paper explores the link between exports and the demand for skilled tasks. Using the Chilean Encuesta Nacional Industrial Anual (ENIA), an annual census of manufacturing firms, we first show that Chilean exporters utilize more skills than Chilean non‐exporters. More importantly, we establish a distinct pattern of task differentiation among exporters both within skilled and unskilled tasks. Exporting firms demand the services of skilled specialized workers (engineers) as opposed to skilled administrative workers and managers. In addition, exporters demand less unskilled labour, especially blue‐collar operatives. This suggests that exporters substitute skilled engineers for unskilled blue‐collar workers to perform export‐related tasks.     

Policy impact assessment in developing countries using Social Accounting Matrices: The Kenya SAM 2014

This paper describes the structure and estimation of a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) of Kenya for the year 2014. Among its specificities, this SAM includes a very high disaggregation of the agri‐food sector and accounts for the double role of households as producers and consumers. Accounting for these characteristics is crucial to provide robust socioeconomic analysis in the context of developing countries. Indeed, this type of database is valuable to perform ex‐ante evaluations of economic policies with various economic models and techniques. In this paper, we present an application with a linear multiplier analysis (backward linkages and value chain decomposition). The results show the capacity of the primary sector in Kenya to generate value added and employment, with this growth distributed more intensely in rural households whose main livelihood is semi‐subsistence agriculture.