The Impact of Ageing and the Speed of Ageing on the Economic Growth of Least Developed,Emerging and Developed Countries, 1990–2013

Studies relating ageing and countries’ economic performance address mostly developed economies. However, extant studies demonstrate that less developed countries (LDC) and emerging economies (EE) are reaching the transition process faster than those from developed regions, which renders the speed of ageing, besides ageing, a critical variable to explore in this context. Comparing system dynamic panel data estimations for 40 LDC, 19 EE and 28 developed countries (DC), between 1990 and 2013, we uncovered that ageing is detrimental to countries’ economic growth, with noticeable nuances depending on countries’ development level. The current level of ageing significantly and negatively impacts on DC's growth but not on that of LDC or EE. For these latter groups, the most relevant issue is the speed of ageing. The current annual growth of old age dependency ratio significantly diminishes EE's growth prospects whereas the lagged annual growth of the ageing index and the old age dependency ratio significantly curtails LDC's growth. Such results emphasize the need for urgent public policies that might mitigate the imbalance in LDCs’ age structure before the speed of ageing leads LDCs to become even much poorer.     

Diversification and Specialization Paradox in Developing Country Trade

This paper examines and resolves a puzzling issue associated with less developed country (LDC) export compositions. Since the newly industrialized country (NIC) takeoff during the early 1970s, LDC exports have involved an increasingly broader and diversified export base. Yet trade theories, both “old” that focus on classic comparative advantage, and “new” which rely on scale economies, lead to expectations of growing specialization as a concomitant of LDC takeoff. This study examines periods of rapid growth and structural transformation of trade for a representative group of LDCs covering a wide geographic and temporal sample.     

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.     

Premature deindustrialization

I document a significant deindustrialization trend in recent decades that goes considerably beyond the advanced, post-industrial economies. The hump-shaped relationship between industrialization (measured by employment or output shares) and incomes has shifted downwards and moved closer to the origin. This means countries are running out of industrialization opportunities sooner and at much lower levels of income compared to the experience of early industrializers. Asian countries and manufactures exporters have been largely insulated from those trends, while Latin American countries have been especially hard hit. Advanced economies have lost considerable employment (especially of the low-skill type), but they have done surprisingly well in terms of manufacturing output shares at constant prices. While these trends are not very recent, the evidence suggests both globalization and labor-saving technological progress in manufacturing have been behind these developments. The paper briefly considers some of the economic and political implications of these trends.     

Export Market Performance of OECD Countries: An Empirical Examination of the Role of Cost Competitiveness

We investigate the relationship between export market shares and relative unit labour costs using a long panel of 12 manufacturing industries across 14 OECD countries. We ask how sensitive are export market shares to changes in relative costs and what determines this sensitivity? Both costs and embodied technology are important, but neither can fully explain changing export positions. We explore whether residual country-specific trends might be linked to 'deep' structural features of economies. Sensitivity to labour costs is lower in high tech industries and core ERM countries. Industry elasticities have increased, especially in industries subject to increasing product market competition.     

企业出口之动态效应研究-来自中国制造业企业的经验:2001-2007

本文对中国企业的出口选择及其学习效应进行研究。结果表明:中国同样存在优质企业做出口的现象;出口会迅速实现企业的规模扩张;出口企业通过出口学习会给企业带来生产率的短期提高,而后出现动态衰减。我们的研究启示是:依附低端制造和外生出口贸易中介的中国企业,通过进入国际市场虽然取得了规模上的快速扩张,但在效率提升上却收获甚微,动态地来看,中国做出口的优质企业可能会演变为更劣质的企业。     

Export,R&D and new products. a model and a test on European industries

In this article we extend the model developed by Bogliacino and Pianta (Industrial and Corporate Change 22 649, 2013, b) on the link between R&D, innovation and economic performance, considering the impact of innovation on export success. We develop a simultaneous three equation model in order to investigate the existence of a ‘virtuous circle’ between industries’ R&D, share of product innovators and export market shares. We investigate empirically – at the industry level – three key relationships affecting the dynamics of innovation and export performance: first, the capacity of firms to translate their R&D efforts in new products; second, the role of innovation as a determinant of export market shares; third, the export success as a driver of new R&D efforts. The model is tested for 38 manufacturing and service sectors of six European countries over three time periods, from 1995 to 2010. The model effectively accounts for the dynamics of R&D efforts, innovation and international performance of European industries. Moreover, important differences across countries emerge when we split our sample into a Northern group – Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom – and a Southern group – France, Italy and Spain. We find that the ‘virtuous circle’ between innovation and competitiveness holds for Northern economies only, while Southern industries fail to translate innovation efforts into export success.     

Exchange Rate Volatility and Exports: Regional Differences between Developing and Industrialized Countries

This study uses a large panel of industrialized and developing countries to investigate the link between exchange rate volatility and exports. Although the empirical literature on this relationship is extensive, a clear consensus about its nature and importance is yet to emerge. Using fixed- and random-effects models to capture cross-country differences, pooled export equations are estimated for the entire panel and various subsets of countries. The results, which are robust across different volatility measures, indicate that negative effects exist for LDC exports, especially from Latin America and Africa, but not for exports from Asian LDCs or industrialized countries.     

Export-led growth: the case of the Slovenian and Estonian economies

The export-led growth hypothesis is investigated in the case of the two small, open and export-oriented Slovenian and Estonian economies. The Johansen cointegration test and Granger causality test were applied to investigate the relationship between the time series variables for export, import and gross domestic product (GDP). The results reveal evidence to support the export-led growth hypothesis in both economies. The Granger causality relationship is found between export growth and economic (GDP) growth for both countries. Slovenia and Estonia can enhance economic growth by providing a better enabling environment for exporters and by market expansion.     

Market structures in small open economies: Evidence from Denmark

This paper provides some stylized facts about market structure in Denmark, a country exhibiting high rates of exports and imports as is common in small developed economies. Utilizing disaggregated data at the firm-product level for manufacturing industries, we highlight the widespread presence of industries that are neither purely oligopolistic or monopolistically competitive; rather, they contain a few domestic leaders with numerous firms having insignificant domestic market shares. We also document that, relative to the latter type of firms, leaders have greater labor productivity, are more capital intensive, and pay higher wages; additionally, they are more likely to export and import, although they exhibit a greater domestic intensity relative to exporters with negligible domestic market shares. Finally, through a model of leaders and followers, we investigate how leaders can benefit from acting strategically against small firms and quantify its potential impact on industry outcomes through a numerical exercise.     

汇率冲击与劳动力市场调整——中国行业数据的经验研究

文章主要分析在汇率冲击下,中国可贸易行业1998—2009年劳动力市场的调整过程。文章利用实际有效汇率指标和动态面板估计方法分析影响劳动力市场调整的不同渠道。结果表明,汇率贬值通过出口渠道增加就业和降低工资,通过进口渠道降低就业和提高工资,通过效率渠道促进就业和降低工资。高贸易依存度行业的就业汇率弹性大于低贸易依存度行业,低加成比例行业的就业汇率弹性大于高加成比例行业,劳动力技术结构是影响就业汇率弹性的重要因素。     

Austrian exporters: unique or alike? New insights and missing puzzle pieces

In this paper we provide detailed evidence on the performance of exporters compared to non-exporters in Austrian manufacturing industries based on firm-level data. The centrepiece of the study is the issue of the export premium, i.e. the size and productivity advantages of exporting firms compared to their purely domestic peers. We present evidence for the existence of sales, labour productivity and wage premia. These results are largely in line with the results found for other European countries. Furthermore we document the existence of large differences in these premia across industries and provide explanations for this finding. Our results are robust with regards to including additional firm control variables such as employment and R&D-related variables though the magnitudes of the export premia become much smaller. We also propose a new interpretation of the export premium estimation with firm fixed effects which we interpret as a result on export switchers. Finally, we employ a probit model to document the importance of sunk export costs for the decision to export.     

Urbanization with and without industrialization

We document a strong positive relationship between natural resource exports and urbanization in a sample of 116 developing nations over the period 1960–2010. In countries that are heavily dependent on resource exports, urbanization appears to be concentrated in “consumption cities” where the economies consist primarily of non-tradable services. These contrast with “production cities” that are more dependent on manufacturing in countries that have industrialized. Consumption cities in resource exporters also appear to perform worse along several measures of welfare. We offer a simple model of structural change that can explain the observed patterns of urbanization and the associated differences in city types. We note that although the development literature often assumes that urbanization is synonymous with industrialization, patterns differ markedly across developing countries. We discuss several possible implications for policy.     

Neighborhood effects of developing country protection

We examine how protection in LDCs affects welfare in other countries whose economic circumstances are similar. Theoretical analysis suggests the effects may be positive or negative. Analysis of data on protection in nine selected LDCs showed positive correlations among patterns of protection and trade, but a tendency for greater protection against the exports of other LDCs than against developed countries. To evaluate the general equilibrium economic effects involved, we used the Michigan Computational Model of World Production and Trade. The results showed positive terms-of-trade effects on other countries within the LDC sample group and negative effects for may DCs. However, the terms-of-trade improvement was very small and cannot be expected to outweigh the efficiency losses of protection within the LDCs themselves.     

TRANSACTION COST IMPAIRMENTS TO INTERNATIONAL TRADE: LESSONS FROM EGYPT

Increasing evidence indicates the relative importance of transaction costs in international market penetration by LDC manufactured goods exporters. This paper identifies the sources and nature of these costs and recommends policies capable of helping LDC exporters overcome transaction cost-based obstacles to such exports. Data for the analysis are from questionnaires addressed to samples of manufactures exporters and trading intermediaries in Egypt.     

TRANSACTION COST IMPAIRMENTS TO INTERNATIONAL TRADE: LESSONS FROM EGYPT

Increasing evidence indicates the relative importance of transaction costs in international market penetration by LDC manufactured goods exporters. This paper identifies the sources and nature of these costs and recommends policies capable of helping LDC exporters overcome transaction cost-based obstacles to such exports. Data for the analysis are from questionnaires addressed to samples of manufactures exporters and trading intermediaries in Egypt.     

Product complexity and economic development

Development is a process of transforming a country's economic structure towards the production and export of more complex products. We use Hidalgo and Hausmann's (2009) method of reflections to compute measures of product and country complexity, and rank 5107 products and 124 countries. We find that: (i) the most complex products are in machinery, chemicals, and metals, while the least complex products are raw materials and commodities, wood, textiles, and agricultural products; (ii) the most complex economies in the world are Japan, Germany, and Sweden, and the least complex, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, and Nigeria; (iii) the major exporters of the more complex products are the high-income countries, while the major exporters of the less complex products are the low-income countries; and (iv) export shares of the more complex products increase with income, while export shares of the less complex products decrease with income.     

FDI,Industry Heterogeneity and Employment Elasticity in China

We investigate the different impacts of foreign direct investment (FDI) on employment elasticity with China's firm level data from 1998 to 2007. Our analysis shows that the inclusion of FDI does significantly affect firms' employment elasticity when facing wage, capital and output shocks. These effects vary dramatically across industries with different factor intensities and export status. Specifically, we find that non‐exporters with FDI tend to increase employment elasticity more than exporters when wage, capital input or output changes. However, FDI firms that are engaging in labor‐intensive production tend to have larger output and capital input elasticity of employment while smaller wage elasticity of employment. Our findings help to explain the contradicting results in existing literature and provide important references for China's policy makers to design proper industry policies towards FDI.     

国际贸易中消费排污产品的排污标准

该文运用新近拓展的差异减污模型分析消费排污产品的排污标准对贸易中的发达国家和发展中国家的效应.结果显示,发达国家实行排污标准,短期内对发展中国家的低减污产品构成非关税壁垒,长期中却提升发展中国家产品的减污量及出口量.国际贸易中垂直差异的文献表明,最低质量标准降低本国社会福利,本研究则显示发达国家实行排污标准提高本国的社会福利.