Multinational companies, backward linkages, and labour demand elasticities

Abstract .  This paper investigates the link between nationality of ownership and wage elasticities of labour demand at the level of the plant. In particular, we examine whether labour demand in multinationals becomes less elastic with respect to the wage if the plant has backward linkages with the local economy. Our empirical evidence, based on a rich plant level dataset, shows that the extent of local linkages does indeed generally reduce the wage elasticity of labour demand. This result is economically important and holds for a number of different specifications.     

International Factor Mobility, Government Size and Welfare

An examination of the available data reveals that the size of government varies considerably across time and countries. By making use of a simple general equilibrium model, this paper demonstrates that size of government is affected by the availability of capital and labour within an economy. Specifically, this paper utilises a model of a closed economy that produces one-private and one-public good. Both goods are produced by means of capital and labour. Production functions are subject to constant returns to scale and perfect competition prevails in all markets. The elasticity of substitution between the public and the private good is greater than unity and there is no international factor mobility in the initial equilibrium. The size of government is measured by total spending on the public good as a proportion of the total expenditure on the private and public goods. It is shown that capital (labour) inflow can decrease (increase) the size of government. Capital inflow increases welfare if the private good is relatively capital intensive whereas labour inflow increases welfare if the public good is relatively capital intensive.     

Testing the Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek theory with a natural experiment

I use the historical episode of near‐elimination of commuting from the West Bank into Israel to test three key predictions of the Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek model of trade and find strong support for them. On the production side, I use variation between districts and find that wage changes were not correlated with the size of the shock to the labour force (factor price insensitivity) and that districts that received larger influx of returning commuters shifted production more towards labour‐intensive industries (Rybczynski effect). On the consumption side, data are consistent with identical homothetic preferences, which, combined with the production results, supports the Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek theorem on the factor content of trade.     

SHIFT WORKING AND TRADE IN LABOUR SERVICES WITH TIME ZONE DIFFERENCES

Using a two‐factor (labour and capital), two‐good (shift‐working and non‐shift‐working commodities) model with two countries (Home and Foreign), which are located in different time zones, we highlight the impact of trade in labour services (via communications networks) on the comparative advantage of countries capable of such trade. It is shown that a comparative advantage in a shift‐working commodity is held by pairs of countries in different time zones and connected through a good communication network. Concerning factor prices, if the shift‐working commodity is capital (respectively, labour) intensive, the wage rate for day‐shift labour will decrease (respectively, increase) as a result of trade in labour services. It is also demonstrated that this labour service utilization is mutual: some of Home's day‐shift labour will be utilized for the Foreign night shift, and vice versa. Thus, periodic trade in labour services occurs across countries.     

Public finance solutions to the European unemployment problem?

Unemployment in Europe is heavily concentrated among low-skilled workers. It has therefore been suggested that structural unemployment could be reduced by shifting the tax burden away from low-skilled labour and away from the production of consumer services, which are intensive in the use of such labour. This paper finds that a tax shift away from low-paid labour may raise aggregate employment and welfare, but only if wage formation is sufficiently responsive to changing tax incentives. The analysis also suggests that non-negligible employment and welfare gains could be reaped by offering tax concessions or subsidies to those parts of the consumer service sector which compete most directly with low-productivity home production and with underground economic activity.     

Skilled Labour and International Specialisation in OECD Countries

Human capital and skilled labour are likely to become increasingly important determinants of industrial localisation. This paper calculates the factor content—the services of skilled labour, classified by level of education, embodied in trade in manufactures—for a sample of OECD countries in 1970–85. USA and Japan show a strong ‘revealed comparative advantage’ in human capital intensive production. In general, OECD countries where highly educated labour is abundant tend to specialise in and export skill intensive goods. Changes in the ranking with respect to specialisation in skill intensive goods, in particular the strong improvement of Japans' position, seem to be linked to different rates of accumulation of human capital.     

Host country characteristics and agglomeration in foreign direct investment

By combining unique data on Swedish multinationals with industry data for 18 countries, the influence of host country characteristics on the location of foreign production is analysed. Particular attention is directed towards agglomeration tendencies in firms' location. The sample selection incorporates countries where firms have no affiliate production, which is an extension of previous research in this area. The results suggest that agglomeration effects are present, predominantly in technologically advanced industries. It is also shown that market size, the supply of skilled labour and earlier exports pattern, affect the location of overseas production.     

International Competition for Multinational Investment

We examine the economic justification for providing investment subsidies to foreign-owned multinationals. These provide employment opportunities and generate demand for domestic intermediate inputs, produced by domestic workers with increasing returns to scale. Offering subsidies to multinationals may be in the national interest if the investment raises the net value of domestic production. When agglomerative forces are sufficiently strong, a subsidy that attracts the first foreign firm may induce several to enter, establishing a thriving modern sector. With a limited number of foreign enterprises, countries may compete to attract investment. This subsidy competition transfers much of the rents to the multinationals.
JEL classification: F 12; F 23     

Why does China protect its labour‐intensive industries more?*

China's tariff structure favours labour‐intensive sectors, and this is at odds with traditional theory of comparative advantage. The paper argues that tariffs in China are a mechanism for protecting technology‐backward domestic – especially state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) from competition technology‐advanced foreign enterprises producing in China. With relatively integrated labour markets and cross‐firm technology differences, SOEs’ subsistence is supported by subsidized credit and limited access of foreign firms’ local production to tariff‐protected domestic markets. Labour market integration and capital subsidies increase the relative cost of labour in SOEs compared to their foreign competitors, hurting more domestic firms in industries that use labour more intensively. Restrictions to FIEs’ (foreign‐invested enterprises) access to tariff‐protected product markets, which protect more labour‐intensive industries, compensate for the greater cost disadvantage of SOEs in labour‐intensive sectors.     

A model of firm heterogeneity in factor intensities and international trade

Empirical evidence suggests that exporters are, in addition to being more productive, significantly more skilled‐labour intensive than non‐exporters. In a setting that captures both these features, we show that the firm selection induced by trade liberalization works along two dimensions. First, export growth increases competition for skilled labour. This leads to the exit of some of the skilled‐labour intensive firms, while benefitting unskilled‐labour intensive ones. Second, within the group of firms with the same factor intensities, the reallocation of factors is towards the exporters. We show that the increased competition for skilled labour dampens the positive effect of trade liberalization on sector‐wide TFP and real income.     

On factor proportions as a guide to the future composition of developing country exports

A previously widely quoted study by Hal Lary (Imports of Manufactures from: Less Developed Countries) concluded that labour intensity should, under the postulates of the factor-proportions model, be useful for anticipating the future composition of LDC exports. In this paper, we empirically evaluate the utility of labour intensity as such a guide. As a first test recent changes in developing countries' market shares for Lary's labour intensive products are compared with those for other items. With few exceptions, the export performance for labour intensive goods was superior. Overall, the LDCs increased their market share for these products in spite of a generally declining competitive position in world trade. Separate (correlation) tests indicate that a direct relation exists between the degree of labour intensity of individual products and changes in developing countries' market shares. That is, the LDCs made the greatest gains in the most labour intensive products.Since labour intensity was shown to provide a guide to changes in developing country exports, we examined its implications for the future. Specifically, the National Bureau's indices of value added per employee were updated to gain insights into the probable composition of LDC trade in the 1980s. The results suggest that many of the products previously identified as being labour intensive, and therefore suitable for production and export by developing countries, would also be classified as likely LDC export items on the basis of 1976 production data. In fact, textiles, footwear, and furniture became relatively more labour intensive which suggests that the LDCs will put increased competitive pressure on developed country producers of these products over the next decade. However, our statistics also show that some miscellaneous manufactures and processed foods became more capital intensive. This indicates that LDCs may be losing their competitive edge in these products and are less likely to make sizeable market share gains in the future.     

基于投入产出法的中国制造业垂直专门化程度的测算

近年来,随着经济全球化的发展,以生产工序国际分工和生产制造外包为主要特征的全球生产分工体系逐渐发展起来.中国制造业凭借低成本制造优势以及比较强的产业配套能力吸引了大批跨国公司将其生产制造环节转移到中国.用投入产业法对中国制造业垂直专门化程度进行测算,并将15类产业按照产业要素密集程度分为资源密集型、劳动密集型、资本密集型、资本技术密集型四大类别,结果表明VS比率增长最快的是资本技术密集型产业,其次为资本密集型产业,第三位为资源密集型产业,最低为劳动密集型产业.     

Factor Demand in Pakistan's Manufacturing Sector

This paper estimate factor demand function by choosing appropriate technology. Departing from the conventioanl parting from the conventional practice of using and capital as factor inputs we extend the list of factors of production by including energy. Since we have more than two factor inputs the two-level (nested) CES production function is the natural choice for the appropriate technology. Using this technology we derive the factor demand for functions and estimate these for Pakistan's manufactruing sector covering a period from 1959-60 to 1982-83. The output elasticity of labour, capital and energy are found to be 0.47, 0.66 respectively. These informations, in particular, the employment elasticity are extremely important for manpower planning. These findings confirm the capital intensive structure of Pakistan's manufacturing units. [200]     

Trade, Multinational Sales, and FDI in a Three-factor Model

The overwhelming importance of multinational activities as well as the coexistence of exporters and multinationals within the developed countries demand for theoretical models which provide a convincing explanation of simultaneous two‐way trade and horizontal multinational activities. We present a model with three factors of production to disentangle the two‐fold role of headquarters for their affiliates into a know‐how (headquarters services) and a capital‐serving part (FDI). We simulate the model to derive predictions about the impact of trade costs, plant set‐up costs, fixed multinational network costs, relative country size and factor endowments on exports, multinational sales and FDI. The effects are not uniform for multinational sales and FDI. Whereas exports and affiliate sales increase with the similarity in country size, FDI is more likely to increase monotonously with the sending country's size.     

Impact of Low‐Skilled Immigration on Female Labour Supply

In this paper, segmenting the market by educational levels, we investigate which native‐born women are more affected by an increase of low‐skilled immigrants working in the household service sector. We present a model of individual choice with home production and, using a harmonized dataset (the Cross‐National Equivalent File), we estimate its main comparative static results. The results suggest that the share of immigrants working in services is positively associated with an increase of native‐born women's labour supply at the intensive margin, if skilled, and at the extensive margin, if unskilled. Moreover, the results show that these effects are larger in countries with less‐supportive family policies.     

Labor Training and Foreign Direct Investment

Evidence shows that most foreign direct investment (FDI) flows from developed to developed countries (North–North) in skilled labor‐intensive industries. This paper builds a model that incorporates labor training into the proximity–concentration tradeoffs to analyze the entry mode of multinationals to a foreign country. Production requires both skilled labor and unskilled labor.. A multinational pursuing FDI needs to provide training to some workers in the host country to equip them with skills that are specific to the production of the firm. Labor training and skill specificity lead to contract friction. It is shown that in skilled labor‐intensive industries, FDI increases along with the economic development level of the host country, whereas in unskilled labor‐intensive industries, the reverse is true. This paper provides a theoretical explanation for the empirical findings on the prevalence of North–North FDI in skilled labor‐industries and North–South FDI in unskilled labor‐intensive industries.     

Labour Taxation in a Unionised Economy with Home Production

The impact of payroll taxes on unemployment and welfare are examined in a model with household production and union–firm wage bargaining. The analysis shows that unemployment typically falls as the payroll tax rate in the market sector for household substitutes (the service sector) is reduced. This holds even when the payroll tax rate in the non-service sector is raised in order to maintain a balanced government budget. Welfare improves with a reduced-service-sector payroll tax rate only if unions are equally strong and firms are equally labour intensive across the sectors.
JEL classification : E 24; H 21; J 22; J 51     

FACTOR PRICE EQUALIZATION IN JAPANESE REGIONS*

This paper tests factor price equalization (FPE) in Japanese regions. I found that FPE is strongly rejected, even when unobserved cross‐regional differences in factor quality and productivity are considered. The wage tends to be low in labour‐abundant regions specializing in labour‐intensive industries. The cross‐regional gap in absolute wage levels remains large, while convergence is observed during the 1990s, a period of wage declines that appeared to be related to deep import penetration. This finding of FPE violation is to be expected, given the restricted interregional labour mobility and distinctive difference in specialization patterns across regions in Japan.     

Do international flights promote FDI? The role of face‐to‐face communication

International passenger flights facilitate business travel for in‐person meetings abroad. However, the significance of face‐to‐face communication (FFC) is not clear. To identify the FFC channel, this paper examines whether flights promote FDI more strongly for multinational firms that face relatively intensive FFC in foreign production. Expatriate employees are used as a proxy for the FFC intensity. Using firm‐level data on Japanese multinational firms for the period 1989 to 2006, I show that more frequent flights increase new FDI entry, with the larger positive effects for multinationals in high FFC sectors. The results support the FFC channel to connect flights and FDI.     

Environmental Policy, Tax Incidence, and the Cost of Public Funds

This paper studies under what conditions a double dividend may occur in the sense that both environmental quality and employment rise. A simple static general equilibrium model is employed in which tax policy faces the dual task of internalising a negative environmental externality and raising revenue to finance public consumption. The model features a clearing labour market with both labour demand and supply and a fixed factor of production (e.g. capital). Hence, we can study tax incidence and its effect on employment, environmental quality, and the marginal cost of public funds. It is shown for the case of an upward sloping labour supply curve and less than full tax shifting by employers that a shift towards greener preferences cannot yield a double dividend, even if the fixed factor is important. However, if labour supply curve bends backwards, more environmental concern confers a double dividend.