Regional Characteristics,Industry Agglomeration and Location Choice: Evidence from Japanese Manufacturing Investments in Korea*

Using extensive firm‐level data for the years 1998–2006, we analyze the regional location decision of Japanese manufacturing foreign direct investors in Korea by focusing on the role of agglomeration economies. Our logit estimates indicate that horizontal agglomeration matters in the location decision, but vertical agglomeration does not. Strong evidence of country‐of‐origin effects is found. Japanese foreign direct investments in high‐technology industries show a typical ‘follow‐the‐leader’ pattern, while those in the in low‐technology industries are influenced by regional endowments. In addition, Japan's high‐technology firms are likely to prefer urban locations so that they can enjoy the externalities of business services.     

The Effectiveness of aid in Improving Regulations: An Empirical Assessment

The paper empirically assesses the impact of foreign aid on the change in economic freedom, which is closely related to the quality of regulations. We build on a relatively large panel of 77 developing countries and examine the period 2002–2012 using different econometric methods. In addition to standard country fixed‐effects regressions as well as estimations in first differences, we apply the system Generalised Method of Moments estimator. We, therefore, control for the potential endogeneity of foreign aid. We find that highly targeted aid can be a driver of change: Sectorspecific Aid for Business has a significantly positive impact on regulations across developing countries, but we do not find any effects for overall aid or aid directed at broad governance areas. The result that Aid for Business drives improvements in regulatory quality is robust using different model specifications and country samples. The strongest results are found for low‐income countries and for subsamples that exclude outliers. This outcome could partly explain the inconclusive evidence from the previous literature and it confirms our hypothesis that targeted, sector‐specific aid matters.     

Trade Openness and Vertical Integration: Evidence from the U.S. Manufacturing Sector

The present article aims to empirically examine a relationship between trade openness and the pattern of vertical integration using the six‐digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) of U.S. manufacturing data from 2002 to 2006. We use the index of vertical integration made out of inter‐plant transfers data by the U.S. Census Bureau, and we consider three proxies of trade openness—import penetration, export shares, and trade penetration. The empirical results substantiate 2000 theoretical proposition that trade openness undermines motives for vertical integration.     

Systemic Risks Spillovers and Interdependence among Stock Markets: International Evidence with Covar‐Copulas

Empirical studies have provided ample evidence on the potential benefits of international diversification with portfolios that consist of both domestic and foreign assets. This coupled with sudden and periodic crashes in global and developed equity markets have stimulated the interest of investors to diversify across markets that have the potential to provide decorrelation with global markets during turbulent periods. At the same time, international diversification may intensify cross‐border listing of stocks with its antecedent implication of shocks transmission. The above have engendered renewed interest among researchers to explore the dependence levels and spillover effects of shocks among emerging and developed equity markets. This paper examines tail dependence structure and (extreme) systemic risks spillover effects among international equity markets using advanced econometric techniques that underpin the modelling of asset returns. We find evidence of low positive significant dependencies between all African markets and their developed counterparts, except for Egypt. Although no evidence of spillover effects to the markets in Africa was found, both unidirectional and bi‐directional causality between some African and developed equity markets is found, albeit with differences. We are unable to ascribe the dynamics in the causality structure to level of market integration. It is inferred that the degree of individual local markets interdependence with developed counterparts may reflect the relative size, liquidity and degree of foreign investors' participation.     

The determinants of small and medium-sized firm internationalization and its relationship with productive efficiency

The Determinants of Small and Medium-Sized Firm Internationalization and Its Relationship with Productive Efficiency. — The creation of sale structures abroad (CSSA) is an intermediate stage in the process of internationalization when firms are small and foreign direct investment entail high sunk costs. This paper finds that ownership concentration (technological innovation, size, and age) negatively (positively) affects the CSSA decision and that, after controlling for the effect of access to foreign markets under the form of exports, CSSA firms are significantly more efficient than the control sample when efficiency is measured with a stochastic frontier approach. Ownership concentration seems to have two offsetting effects on efficiency: it increases participation to profits and therefore incentives to perform well, while it leads controlling shareholders to underinvest in risky ventures (such as internationalization).     

The Causal Effects of Participation in the American Economic Association Summer Minority Program

This article examines whether participation by underrepresented minority groups in the American Economics Association Summer Minority Program (AEASMP) has causal effects on outcomes associated with success as academic economists. We estimate both propensity score weighted and Heckit parameter estimates of (1) the average effect of treatment and (2) the effect of treatment on the treated. Our results, which vary across specifications of potential outcomes and propensity score truncated samples, suggest that AEASMP participation by black American Ph.D. economists has a positive and causal impact on 4 outcomes associated with success as an academic economist. However if the probability of selection into the treatment by the nontreated is similar to that of the treated, the results suggest that AEASMP participation by black American Ph.D. economists has a positive and causal effect on research productivity and in gaining access to research funding.     

FOREIGN NETWORKS AND EXPORTS: RESULTS FROM INDONESIAN PANEL DATA

Most firms and plants in developing countries produce only for the domestic market and few are able to export. One plausible hypothesis is that foreign networks decrease export costs and that plants with large amounts of such networks will be relatively likely to start exporting. We focus on two types of foreign networks: foreign ownership and imports of intermediate products. Our results suggest that plants in Indonesian manufacturing with any foreign ownership are substantially more likely to start exporting than wholly domestically owned plants. The results remain robust to alternative model specifications and after controlling for other plant characteristics. There is no effect on exports of imports of intermediate products.     

Experience,Learning, and Returns to Scale

The experience curve is a tool for forecasting future decreases in average cost as a function of cumulative output/volume. The extent of an experience effect has profound implications for both pricing strategy and the focus on market share as a managerial objective. At the same time, the underlying sources of the experience effect are not well understood. This article demonstrates that, as commonly measured, experience effects are aggregated with the effects of increasing returns to scale. This implies that standard experience curve estimates are misspecified because they suffer from an omitted variable bias. Strategic implications of the experience‐scale link are discussed.     

AID US TO WIN THE ELECTIONS: FOREIGN AID AND VOTER TURNOUT

We use an innovative procedure to determine the effect of foreign aid on institutions of governance. We use voter turnout as an indicator variable which allows us to identify whether political competition in a country is based on private goods, such as vote‐buying, or on public goods. We suggest that the marginal effect of foreign aid on voter turnout depends on the wider underlying institutional setting. Contrary to popular belief, the theoretical model implies that a higher voter turnout in response to foreign aid can be undesirable when the increase is a consequence of vote‐buying in the electoral campaign. The empirical evidence we examine is consistent with private‐goods political competition, i.e., political parties use foreign aid for vote‐buying and similar electoral tactics, particularly when the underlying institutions are sufficiently bad. This is consistently estimated across specifications which address a range of endogeneity sources.     

International capital flows,debt overhang and volatility

This paper shows how international capital flows originate boom‐bust and sunspot episodes in a neoclassical growth model of a small, open economy. A limit is imposed on how much the economy can borrow from foreign creditors and it is made endogenous by assuming that the debt‐to‐GDP ratio is procyclical. The steady state is locally indeterminate when the credit multiplier is larger than some threshold level, whereas saddle‐point stability prevails when the credit multiplier is low enough. As a consequence, high levels of the credit multiplier lead to both booms followed by busts and sunspot‐driven volatility near the steady state, while, in contrast, low levels ensure monotonic convergence. Compared with saddle‐path equilibria, boom‐bust and sunspot equilibria are associated with both lower welfare and debt overhang, that is, a crowding‐out effect of credit: when the economy is highly leveraged, it uses savings to cut down foreign debt, at the expense of both human and physical investment. Numerical examples show that indeterminacy arises for debt‐to‐GDP ratios that fall within the range of available estimates. Finally, the effects of shocks to the world interest rate on output and consumption are amplified and persistent in the debt overhang regime.     

Peer Networks and Tobacco Consumption in South Africa

This paper deepens the empirical analysis of peer networks by considering their effects on both smoking participation and smoking intensity in South Africa, a country where majority initiate smoking at adolescent age. Peer networks are key in determining the smoking behaviour of youths, but the magnitude of the effects is still debated, questioned and inconclusive. I used a control function approach, a two‐stage least square and the fixed effect method to address the potential endogeneity of peer network. The results suggest positive and significant peer effects on smoking participation and smoking intensity. While the network effects are consistently positive and significant, the magnitude of the estimates varies across methodological approaches with the instrument variable estimates generally lower. Including older adults in the peer reference group increases the peer effect estimates. Finally, using clusters as an alternative measure of network size in wave one, I show that peer effects are independent on network size but rather on network quality. Relative to the results of this paper, previous literature has documented larger peer effects on the decision to smoke. The findings suggest that policies (excise tax) that directly affect the decision to smoke and the smoking intensity of the peer reference group are likely to affect own smoking behaviour.     

Welfare implications of international financial integration

Focusing on technology spillover from foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, this paper investigates the welfare implications of financial integration. Calibrations of a neoclassical growth model with international technology diffusion show that when technology catch-up due to FDI inflows is considered, the welfare gains from financial integration substantially increase, which contrasts with the small gains from additional, capital-accumulation effects of financial integration. The estimates suggest that by further enhancing financial integration, emerging Asian economies, such as the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the largest four Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, will experience substantial welfare gains.     

The Role of Trade Policies in Building Regional Value Chains – Some Preliminary Evidence From Africa

Regional value chains (RVCs) are considered as an important step towards greater integration into global value chains (GVCs), but African countries trade very little value added with each other. Based on the UNCTAD‐Eora GVC database, this paper estimates a panel model from 2006 to 2012 for 37 African countries and sheds light on the role of trade costs in building RVCs in Africa. First evidence is provided for a significantly negative effect on foreign value added of charged tariffs on capital goods and higher time to trade. In addition, higher regulatory quality and a stronger telecommunication infrastructure seem to be positively correlated with a country's ability to participate in RVCs.     

Spillovers from foreign direct investment in services: Evidence at sub-sectoral level for the Asia-Pacific

We take a sectoral level approach to analyzing the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. We disaggregate FDI first by manufacturing versus services, then within services by financial services, trade services, and business services. We consider the effects of FDI inflows on growth of GDP per capita, then distinguish between growth in manufacturing and services value added per capita. Our data sample comprises 14 Asia Pacific economies for the period 1985–2012 to which we apply a dynamic panel generalized method of moments estimation technique. Services FDI as a whole is found to have a significantly positive impact on GDP growth while manufacturing FDI is found to have no effect. The impetus for growth from services FDI traces to financial services in particular, acting not only directly on service sector output but through manufacturing sector output as well. By contrast, trade services FDI is found to have a significantly negative effect on manufacturing output with no significant effect on services output. Foreign participation in trade services may act to expose domestic manufacturers to international competition and may also lead to domestic consolidation to take advantage of economies of scale.     

Does China Transfer Productivity Enhancing Technology to Sub‐Saharan Africa? Evidence from Manufacturing Firms*

Abstract: This paper considers whether trade between China and sub‐Saharan Africa results in productivity‐enhancing technology transfers to sub‐Saharan African manufacturing firms. As trade flows between countries potentially results in interactions that lead to technological improvements in the production of goods and services, we parameterize the level of total factor productivity for African manufacturing firms as a function of foreign direct investment flow, and for the country in which it operates, trade openness with China, and its interaction with foreign direct investment. With micro‐level data on manufacturing firms in five sub‐Saharan African countries, we estimate the parameters of firm‐level production functions between 1992 and 2004. Our parameter estimates reveal that across the firms and countries in our sample, there is no relationship between productivity‐enhancing foreign direct investment and trade with China. In addition, increasing trade openness with China has no effect on the growth rate of total factor productivity. To the extent that total factor productivity and its growth is a crucial determinant of economic growth and living standards in the long run, our results suggest that increasing trade openness with China is not a long‐run source of higher living standards for sub‐Saharan Africa.     

Backward participation in global value chains and exchange rate driven adjustments of Swiss exports

This paper examines the effect of exchange rate movements on export volume, export revenues and propensity to export taking into account the extent of foreign value added content of exports (“backward integration”) in global value chains (GVCs). Using both product-level and firm-level panel data, our results suggest that Swiss exports (intensive margin) and the export probability (extensive margin) are negatively affected by a currency appreciation. However, this adverse effect is mitigated in sectors and firms that are more integrated in GVCs, which could be explained by the “natural hedging” of exchange rate movements. Our findings are robust to the use of different measures of natural hedging and GVC integration and also hold across various specifications and estimation methods that control for sample selection, firm heterogeneity, heteroskedastic errors and persistence in export behavior. The dynamic specifications also reveal that export hysteresis driven by a currency appreciation is a concern particularly for firms that are not established in export markets.     

Productivity Spillovers from FDI in Malaysian Manufacturing: Evidence from Micro‐panel Data*

Using an establishment‐level panel dataset for the Malaysian manufacturing industries for 2000–2004, we argue that differences in the proxies and degrees of foreign shareholdings in measuring foreign presence lead to opposite signs and/or significance of spillover effects. The results show significant evidence of positive productivity spillovers to local establishments in the same industry, based on a broad measure of foreign presence. However, there is no evidence of positive spillover when employment share is used as a proxy for foreign presence. Furthermore, significant negative spillover effects are related to higher employment shares of wholly foreign‐owned establishments. Although there is no significant difference in labor productivity between wholly foreign‐owned and locally‐owned establishments, both majority and minority foreign‐owned establishments have significantly lower levels of labor productivity than locally‐owned establishments in Malaysia.     

Foreign ownership and investment: do firms locate investments close to the headquarter?

Using an international panel data set of the European pulp and paper industry, we address the issue of a possible home-bias effect for real investments in plants with foreign and domestic locations. We find that there is no effect after controlling for firm effects and plant and firm size. These findings are rubust to a number of different econometric specifications, including a difference-in-difference approach. Our findings appear to be relevant for the debate on the effect of foreign takeovers. As far as we are aware, home-bias effects in real investments within multinational firms have not been studied previously.     

Foreign Investment,Divestment and Relocation by Japanese Electronics Firms in East Asia*

Although foreign divestment and international relocation by multinational firms carry important economic implications for the industrialization of East Asian countries, there has been little empirical research on these issues. In this paper we analyze the magnitude and pattern of foreign divestment and relocation by Japanese electronics firms in nine East Asian countries during 1995–2003. The average annual divestment rate of electronics manufacturing affiliates is 3 percent, but divestment patterns diverge strongly across countries. Divestments are much more frequent in higher labor cost countries and in approximately one‐third of cases are accompanied by relocations to lower wage countries, particularly to China. Evidence is found for rivalry between China and ASEAN countries in attracting foreign direct investment, but the growing attractiveness of China has not been accompanied by a reduction in employment in Japanese affiliates in ASEAN countries (with the exception of Singapore). Divestments and relocations are related to Japanese firms’ strategy to reconfigure their Asian production networks in response to changing competitiveness, regional integration, and changes in local investment environments.     

Inflation,economic activity and the operation of fiscal,foreign and monetary impulses in the Netherlands — A preliminary analysis, 1953–1973

Summary This paper tests both the strong and weak versions of the fiscal, foreign and monetary impulse hypotheses holding that each of these impulses is either a sufficient or a necessary condition for fluctuations in price and output to occur.Four impulses are distinguished: a fiscal impulse being a linear combination of autonomous changes in government expenditures and taxes, two foreign impulses measured by the growth rates of world trade and import prices, and a monetary impulse measured by (changes in) the growth rate of the stock of domestic or world money.When tested against the Dutch post-war experience of inflation and output fluctuations, all strong impulse hypotheses have to be rejected, as do the weak fiscal and foreign world trade hypotheses with respect to inflation and the weak fiscal hypotheses with respect to output growth. The weak foreign and monetary impulse hypotheses of output fluctuations, however, and the weak foreign import price and monetarist hypotheses of inflation are not rejected.