Entry to foreign markets and productivity: Evidence from a matched sample of Turkish manufacturing firms

We examine the effects of international trading activities of firms on creating productivity gains in Turkey by using a recent firm-level data set over the period 2003–2010. We establish treatment models and investigate the productivity improvements of firms through trade by using propensity score matching techniques together with difference-in-difference estimates. Three different groups of treatment are constructed: (1) firms that are involved only with import activities, (2) firms that are involved only with export activities and (3) firms that are involved with both export and import activities. The results of the study suggest that both exporting and importing have positive significant effects on total factor productivity (TFP) and labour productivity (LP) of firms. Importing is found to have a greater impact on productivity of firms compared to exporting. Further, two-way trade is found to have more significant effects than those of one-way trade on firm productivity. Finally, our results indicate that international trade has greater impact on LP rather than TFP of firms.     

Technology gap,imported capital goods and productivity of manufacturing plants in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper uses firm-level data from Ghana, Tanzania and Kenya to examine the effect of capital goods imports on domestic firms' productivity, and the role firms' technology gap plays in aiding the transmission of knowledge embodied in capital goods to domestic firms. The results show that increasing imports of capital goods and closing technology gaps have positive effects on productivity. Furthermore, domestic firms with technology standards farther from international best practices benefit more from capital goods imports. The results also imply that trade liberalization policy aimed at eliminating tariffs on capital goods will significantly improve the performance of technically incompetent firms in the African manufacturing sector.     

Why domestic outsourcing is leading America's reemergence in global manufacturing

With cost advantages from manufacturing in Asia and Mexico steadily deteriorating, U.S. firms are reassessing the option of domestic outsourcing to remain globally competitive. The challenge in evaluating international versus domestic outsourcing strategic options lies in that first-movers are extremely and intentionally vague about how they reach their decisions. The purpose of this article is to reveal these reasons by providing statistical and firm-based evidence on five major factors that are influencing the decision regarding where U.S. companies should manufacture to optimize their gross profits. The factors include (1) increasingly competitive U.S. labor costs; (2) increasing productivity of the U.S. workforce; (3) increasingly competitive domestic production costs; (4) incentives from federal, state, and local governments; and (5) improved synchronization of production with other business functions.     

经济开放条件下劳动力市场灵活性与内资企业劳动生产率——基于中国省市和行业数据的经验研究

本文系统地分析在经济开放条件下,劳动力市场灵活性对中国工业部门1999-2009年间内资企业的劳动生产率的影响。分析了经济开放条件下劳动力市场灵活性通过影响外商直接投资FDI流入间接影响劳动生产率和直接影响劳动生产率的两种渠道。此外运用3sls和2sls方法从地区和行业两个层面估计劳动力市场灵活性、FDI和国际贸易等因素对内资企业劳动生产率的影响。结果表明,国际贸易对内资企业生产率的影响不明显,但是伴随着国际贸易的技术外溢促进了地区劳动生产率;FDI具有较为显著的提高我国工业部门劳动生产率的效应;地区数据和行业数据估计都证实了劳动力市场灵活性可通过FDI间接作用和本身的直接作用促进内资企业的劳动生产率提高。     

云南省产业结构趋同度比较研究

通过对云南省10年来三次产业发展数据进行系统地分析,发现省内整体呈“二三一”的产业结构类型,二、三产业比重接近,但产业产值总量仍在低水平徘徊,产业结构升级优化任务依然艰巨。以省内地级市县10年间三次产业变动为基础．将昆明市作为比较对象分析省内产业结构相似状况,利用产业结构相似度系数模型进行测算分析来了解各地级市产业结构特征。最后,基于结果对三次产业发展提出相关政策建议：加快农业服务业发展,提升工业生产效率,完善旅游及服务业。     

Delay and dynamics in labor market adjustment: Simulation results

We simulate numerically a trade model with labor mobility costs added, modeled in such a way as to generate gross flows in excess of net flows. Adjustment to a trade shock can be slow with plausible parameter values. In our base case, the economy moves 95% of the distance to the new steady state in approximately eight years. Gross flows have a large effect on this rate of adjustment and on the normative effects of trade. Announcing and delaying the liberalization can build – or destroy – a constituency for free trade. We study the conditions under which these contrasting outcomes occur.     

Making sense of Bolkestein-bashing: Trade liberalization under segmented labor markets

An increase in the range of tradable goods is analyzed in a two-country Dornbusch-Fischer-Samuelson style model, where labor cannot relocate to another sector upon a non-expected increase in the range of goods that can be traded.The effect of liberalization on the terms of trade tend to favor the poorer country (the “East”), if (as assumed) the most sophisticated goods are tradable before reform. Second, under ex-post liberalization, there exists a class of workers in the West who are harmed because they face competition from Eastern workers and cannot relocate to other activities. But if the East's economy is relatively small, their wage losses are not very large. Things are different, however, if there exist asymmetries in labor market institutions, such that upon reform, labor can relocate in the East but not in the West. Some workers in the West can then experience very large wage losses. Thus, rigid labor markets in the West magnify opposition to reform there.     

Aesthetic labor and visible diversity: The role in retailing service encounters

This study endeavors to investigate the role of the appearance of customer service staff in forming customer perceptions. It also aims to fill the gap in existing knowledge by exploring the notion of visible diversity, for example, ethnicity, age, gender and perceived sexual orientation of store staff in service encounter from the customers’ perspective. The study adopted a qualitative, inductive approach in data collection using a sample of 30 customers from leading Australian fashion retailers. This study identifies three themes explaining customer perceptions of staff's aesthetic labor, namely mirroring appearance, matching appearance, and charming appearance, which can be explained by the social identity theory, role theory and aesthetic capital. It is found that staff appearance might affect customers’ intention to revisit but does not guarantee sales. In addition, based on signaling theory, the results show that age, ethnicity, gender and perceived sexual orientation of the retail store staff are meaningful factors in determining customers’ attitudes and behavior. This study is one of the first that takes aspects of visible diversity into account along with aesthetic labor and customer experience in a retail setting.     

Assessing productivity in the presence of negative data and undesirable outputs

Few studies address the presence of negative data and undesirable outputs in productivity assessment. This study proposes a range-adjusted measure model that uses a non-radial Malmquist productivity index to estimate dynamic productivity in the presence of negative data and undesirable outputs. Banking-industry data are used to demonstrate the proposed model. The results show that during the 2007–2009 global financial crises, bank productivity deteriorated, mainly because of technical changes, and smaller banks suffered smaller financial losses. Finally, a decision making matrix based on the analysis results is presented to show the implications of the proposed method.     

Innovation, R&D cooperation and labor recruitment: evidence from Finland

This article investigates the role played by one type of firm interaction, namely R&D cooperation, and also the acquisition of labor, in the promotion of industrial innovations. We employ a unique innovation dataset from Finland which combines firm specific information about the innovation performance of the firms along with their individual characteristics, as well as firm specific information regarding the origins of their recent labor acquisitions. Analyzing this data allows us to identify the different roles which the knowledge spillovers and labor markets play in the innovation process. Our results suggest that small firms are generally more innovative than large firms; R&D cooperation is an essential feature of innovation, but the variety of cooperation is of little importance; and labor acquisition appears to be only of limited importance for innovation.

Trade and the (dis)incentive to reform labor markets: The case of reform in the European Union

We study the relation between international trade and the gains to reform labor markets by removing firing restrictions. We find that trade linkages imply substantially smaller benefits to reform than those calculated in the closed economy general equilibrium model of Hopenhayn and Rogerson [Hopenhayn, Hugo, Rogerson, Richard, 1993. Job Turnover and policy evaluations: a general equilibrium analysis. Journal of Political Economy 101 (5), 915–938 October]. When economies trade, labor market policies in one country spill over to other countries through their effect on the terms of trade. A key finding in the open economy is that the share of the welfare gains from domestic labor market reform exported substantially exceeds the share of goods exported. Thus, with international trade, a country retains little to no benefit from unilaterally reforming its labor market. A coordinated elimination of firing taxes yields considerable benefits. We also find that the U.K. benefits from labor market reform by its continental trading partners. These insights provide some explanation for recent efforts toward labor market reform in the European Union.     

Technology spillover through trade and TFP convergence: 135 years of evidence for the OECD countries

Using a new dataset on imports of technology and total factor productivity (TFP) over 135 years for the OECD countries, this paper tests whether knowledge has been transmitted internationally through the channel of trade. The empirical estimates show that there is a robust relationship between TFP and imports of knowledge and that 93% of the increase in TFP over the past century has been solely due to imports of knowledge. Furthermore, it is shown that knowledge spillovers have been an important contributing factor behind the TFP convergence among the OECD countries over the period 1870 to 2004.     

Firm productivity and export markets: a non-parametric approach

This paper examines total factor productivity differences between exporting and non-exporting firms. These differences are documented on the basis of a sample of Spanish manufacturing firms over the period 1991-1996. The paper also examines two complementary explanations for the greater productivity of exporting firms: (1) the market selection hypothesis, and (2) the learning hypothesis. Non-parametric tests are proposed and implemented for testing these hypotheses. Results indicate clearly higher levels of productivity for exporting firms than for non-exporting firms. With respect to the relative merits of the selection and the learning hypotheses, we find evidence supporting the self-selection of more productive firms in the export market. The evidence in favor of learning-by-exporting is rather weak, and limited to younger exporters.     

International spillovers of knowledge and sectoral productivity growth: some evidence for Canada and the United States

This paper develops and tests a two-country model of a monopolistically competitive industry in which the production function shifts endogenously via national and international spillovers of knowledge. The basic version of this model implies that, in the long run, the growth rate of sectoral productivity is the same in each country. In support of this version, for a number of matched Canadian and US manufacturing industries, the paper finds that these two countries' rates of sectoral productivity growth tend to converge despite marked international differences in R and D.     

When trade hurts: Consumption indivisibilities and labor market distortions

We present a simple model where complementarities between wages and demand due to factor market distortions can make a transition economy worse off from trade. Prior to trade, a virtuous circle prevails: high wages in industry support a high demand for indivisible industrial goods, which in turn supports high wages. However, factor market distortions in the transition economy create a comparative disadvantage in industry. Opening up to trade results in the import of indivisibles and a fall in manufacturing wages, breaking this virtuous circle. Consequently, trade liberalization without structural reform can have serious adverse effects in a transition economy.     

The shadow of death: analysing the pre-exit productivity of Portuguese manufacturing firms

The pre-exiting productivity profile of mature firms relative to survivors is examined along with an evaluation of how productivity affects the probability of exit along various dimensions. An empirical approach, based on an unbalanced panel of Portuguese manufacturing firms covering a 10-year period, is used. The findings confirm that market selection forces low-productivity firms to exit, but there is also evidence that a sizeable portion of low-productivity firms do not shut down. Conversely, there is a non-negligible fraction of high-productivity firms that do actually close. Consistent with some key theoretical predictions, our analysis reveals that exiting firms have a falling productivity level over a number of years prior to exit. Finally, the results from the survival model show that both small firms and ones with low productivity are relatively much more likely to exit the market. Industry and macro-environment are also found to have a non-negligible role on the exit of mature firms.     

The role of foreign affiliate productivity in the integration strategies of multinational firms

We study the role of foreign affiliate productivity in the operations of multinational firms. We use the panel data of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) headquartered in South Korea during 2006–2013 and exploit the significant variation in affiliate productivity and its operation. With other variables held constant, including the parent firm or affiliate fixed effects, we find that a more (less) productive affiliate exports less (more) to the parent and sells more (less) to other unaffiliated entities. We then provide a possible theoretical scenario that is based on the MNC's optimal integration strategy literature. By allowing foreign affiliates to have varying productivity levels, the model bears predictions consistent with the empirical findings.     

FDI modes and parent firms' productivity in emerging economies:Evidence from Taiwan

This article investigates the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the productivity of parent firms for multinational enterprises in Taiwan. The current research specifically examines the potential differences in productivity effect between FDI toward developing (vertical FDI) and developed countries (horizontal FDI) and between electronics and non-electronics firms. Using panel data on Taiwan firms from 2000 to 2005, results obtained using propensity score matching (PSM) show thatmultinational firms experience a higher productivity following their FDI in developing countries. A time lag exists in productivity gain of investment to developed countries, and is relevant only to electronics firms. Employing the generalized method of moment of the panel fixed model to control for problems of endogeneity and unobservable heterogeneity, the empirical finding suggests that productivity effect caused by investing in developing countries remains significantly positive. A lagged productivity-enhancing effect is also found after FDI in developed countries for both electronics and non electronics firms.     

Creative destruction and regional productivity growth: evidence from the Dutch manufacturing and services industries

Do firm entry and exit improve the competitiveness of regions? If so, is this a universal mechanism or is it contingent on the type of industry or region in which creative destruction takes place? This paper analyses the effect of firm entry and exit on the competitiveness of regions, as measured by total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Based on a study across 40 regions in the Netherlands over the period 1988–2002, we find that firm entry is related to productivity growth in services, but not in manufacturing. The positive impact found in services does not necessarily imply that new firms are more efficient than incumbent firms; high degrees of creative destruction may also improve the efficiency of incumbent firms. We also find that the impact of firm dynamics on regional productivity in services is higher in regions exhibiting diverse but related economic activities.     

Foreign direct investment productivity premium and foreign affiliates' heterogeneity: A comparison between advanced and emerging market overseas investments in the EU

This paper aims to investigate the existence of productivity heterogeneity among foreign‐owned firms (FOFs) based in the European Union (EU). Using firm‐level data for a sample of FOFs investing in the EU over the period 2006–14, we find that foreign affiliates from advanced countries (AFOFs) show a positive productivity gap compared to foreign affiliates from emerging countries (EFOFs). However, when we consider the type and the motivation of foreign direct investment, our results reveal that, while AFOFs always seem to be more productive than EFOFs in manufacturing sectors, EFOFs appear to enjoy a productivity premium compared to AFOFs in the services, when their activity occurs in the same industry as their parent and they operate in less knowledge‐intensive market sectors.