DISAGGREGATING THE ELECTRICITY SECTOR OF CHINA'S INPUT–OUTPUT TABLE FOR IMPROVED ENVIRONMENTAL LIFE-CYCLE ASSESSMENT

Missing process detail of sectors in Input–Output (I–O) tables has been pointed out as a limitation of I–O analysis in environmental-economic life cycle assessment. Aggregation of resource-intensive sectors decreases the accuracy of the results. Often, economic sectors are compiled in a more aggregated form than environmental satellite accounts, and as [Lenzen, M. (2011) Aggregation Versus Disaggregation in Input–Output Analysis of the Environment. Economic Systems Research, 23, 73–89] asserts, it is superior for environmental analysis to disaggregate the I–O table, even if only partial information exists for the disaggregation. In this paper we present a methodology to disaggregate the electricity sector of the Chinese national I–O table by using regional information and cost data for operation and maintenance of power plants. The electricity sector is disaggregated into a transmission and distribution sector as well as eight sub-sectors representing different types of technology in power plants (subcritical coal, hydro, etc.). The electricity consumption mix of each industry is determined by using regional industry presence and regional electricity power mixes. The disaggregated I–O table offers refined results for calculating emissions embodied in international exports from China, a valuable contribution for estimating national greenhouse gases emissions inventories under the consumption-based approach for countries that rely heavily on imports of goods from China.     

Regionalizing National Commodity-by-Industry Accounts

Exended input–output (IO) models are increasingly prominent in regional economic analysis. Social accounting matrices and associated multiplier decompositions, IO econometric model hybrids and computable general equilibrium models are finding greater acceptance in contexts in which simple IO models once dominated. Although the extended regional models build primarily on the foundation of regional, interindustry accounting frameworks, the data from which these regional accounts are drawn are most commonly in the form of a national commodity-by-industry account. Despite this longstanding fact, the IO table adaptation literature has focused almost solely on methods of adapting national interindustry accounts to regional economies. This paper presents a method designed specifically to regionalize commodity-by-industry accounts, in the context of the US reporting system. The focus on commodity-by-industry data demands a confrontation with several important issues that otherwise might go unattended. Using a particular system and its accompanying classification scheme ensures a comprehensive and consistent regionalization method.     

HOW MUCH DO EXPORTS CONTRIBUTE TO CHINA'S INCOME GROWTH?

It is a widespread belief that exports, in particular of ‘high-tech’ products, contribute much to China's income growth. This study addresses this issue by applying a structural decomposition analysis to input–output (I–O) data. We employ two extended I–O tables that distinguish processing trade from ordinary exports. The contribution of exports to the value-added growth from 2002 to 2007 is found to be overestimated by 32% when standard I–O tables are used rather than the extended I–O tables. Even more strikingly, the value-added growth that may be attributed to the exports of ‘high-tech’ telecommunication products is overestimated by no less than 63%. A serious overestimation of the contribution to income growth of certain products (such as high-tech products) sends out misleading signals to policymakers. When measured correctly, the true contribution appears to be substantially smaller than is generally believed to be.     

THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF EXPORTS IN DETERMINING LEVELS OF REGIONAL OUTPUT AND INCOME: A Model and Empirical Evidence from Kenya

Exports have long been assumed by many to be the most important variable in driving regional growth, although factors such as government expenditure, investment demand, and remittances, among others, have also been recognized as significant. In addition, supply-side constraints to the promotion of regional growth and development have recently received increased attention in the literature. This paper evaluates the relative importance of exports, investment demand, and remittances, as well as supply-constrained agricultural production, in determining levels of regional output, value added, and household income in a single region in Kenya. The analysis is based on a mixed endogenous/ exogenous model derived from a social accounting matrix (SAM) which allows for incorporation of both demand and supply-side considerations. The paper finds that exports are, in fact, the most important factor in explaining regional output and wage income in the region studied, although not overwhelmingly so. In addition, the analysis demonstrates the importance of supply-constrained agricultural production as a determinant of income at the household level.     

PROCESSING TRADE BIASES THE MEASUREMENT OF VERTICAL SPECIALIZATION IN CHINA

Vertical specialization (VS) is often measured by the import contents of the exports, using an input–output (I–O) framework. Half of China's exports are processing exports, which largely depend on imported intermediate inputs and tie up upstream as well as downstream trade partners. Thus, one would expect to find strong VS for China. Using the ‘ordinary’ I–O tables, however, this is not the case. Because the production of processing exports is only a small part of total production, the average input structure in the I–O table hides the typical features of processing exports. Using adapted, tripartite I–O tables (for 2002 and 2007) in which the processing exports have been singled out, indeed reveals the expected strong VS in China.     

SERVICES, TRADE, AND REGIONAL STRUCTURAL CHANGE IN CANADA 1974 - 1984

Interest in the extent to which services are traded interregionally and internationally, as well as the role of services as a basic industry, has heightened over the past decade. Analysis of these questions has been hampered, however, by the fact that conventional data sources such as income and product accounts or employment records do not identify transactions between sectors or patterns of trade on a commodity basis. This study uses a series of commodity-by-industry input-output models for the Canadian provinces which do permit an analysis of interregional and international trade on a commodity basis. We are also able to identify the importance of commodity exports on a direct-plus-embodied basis as well as the more conventional direct basis. Our analysis indicates that service exports to the Rest of the World was the fastest growing demand category between 1974 and 1984, followed by exports to Other Provinces. We also conclude that the conventional method of identifying exports, on a direct basis only, understates the amount of services exported as well as the contribution of services to the regional growth process.     

On estimating trade flows in interregional input output models

Non-survey techniques have previously been devised for adjusting regional technical requirements matrices so as to account for commodity imports. Surrogates such as the location quotient have been utilised for estimating trading coefficients in a regional input output table. Extensions of these techniques to an interregional system are generally considered. It is shown that non-survey techniques are conceptually improved as a result of this extension. Particular regard is given to calibration methods that achieve consistency between estimates of exports and imports within an interregional system. The RAS method and some variants are compared and an additive algorithm is demonstrated to be efficient for this purpose.     

Export differentiation in transition economies

I investigate changes in the structure of trade of seventeen transition economies between 1996 and 2006, focusing on differences across three types of products - homogeneous goods, reference priced goods, and differentiated products. I examine shares of exports of each type of good, intensive and extensive margins, and the hazard of exporting. While there are cross-country differences in the distribution of export shares and in intensive and extensive margins, the largest differences exist in the hazard of exporting. There are significant differences in the hazard both across countries and time.     

Why has China’s vertical specialization declined?

Vertical specialization (VS) is quantified by the VS share, which measures the average import content per dollar of exports. A characteristic of China’s export trade is its strong dependence on assembly and processing activities. To take proper account of this, China’s VS shares should explicitly distinguish processing export production from other production. We estimate China’s annual VS shares from 2000 to 2012—the latest year for which a special input–output table is available that makes such an explicit distinction. We find that VS shares increased from 2000 to 2004 and subsequently started to decrease. To explore why it has declined, we introduce a new structural decomposition approach. We find that the decrease of the VS share appears to have been driven mainly by the substitution of imported intermediates by domestic products. This occurred in particular in the production of exports, which implies an upgrading of China’s position in global value chains.     

How do interregional spillovers influence the distribution of technology? The case of Chinese manufacturing

The Chinese economy displays considerable inequality across regions. In this paper, we analyzed the distribution of intermediate input shares in China. We use regional input–output tables from 2007 and find that regions with higher GDP per capita generally had higher input shares, regardless of sector. Then, using intermediate input shares as a proxy of technology, we analyzed the pattern of regional technology distributions across manufacturing sectors as well as the extent of interregional technology spillovers. Our results indicate that interregional backward spillovers have significantly positive impacts on the shape of the technology distributions in eastern (coastal) regions. By contrast, the vertical spillovers of the central and western regions are largely dominated by intra-regional forward effects. Our results suggest that the shift of Chinese manufacturing from coastal to inland regions with lower production costs cannot reduce the imbalance among regions unless the technology gap is narrowed.     

EXPANDING EXTRACTIONS

In this paper, we generalize hypothetical extraction techniques. We suggest that the effect of certain economic phenomena can be measured by removing them from an input–output (I–O) table and by rebalancing the set of I–O accounts. The difference between the two sets of accounts yields the phenomenon's effect (or importance). We suggest that the approach can be used to measure the effect of changes in intermediate output, which are otherwise not easily rationalized within a Leontief framework. Of course, it can also be used to estimate the possible effects of the shutdown of a particular establishment or other identifiable segment of an economy. We demonstrate some properties and potential of the approach using the annual 2006 US I–O accounts.     

Metonymy in Language about Organizations: A Corpus-Based Study of Company Names

abstract    In this paper, I examine the use of metonymies in people's talk about organizations. Drawing upon a corpus of natural talk extracted from the British National Corpus (BNC) I identify recurring categories of metonymies that appear to be a central part of people's talk about organizations. These categories of metonymies involve substitutions where an organization stands in for its members, its products, its facilities, its stock or shares or a company-related event. I also found that metonymies in each of these categories are used as basic metonymic expressions that are only partially connected to metaphorical expressions and interpretations of organizations. Where those connections exist, the use of metonymies follows a metaphor-from-metonymy linguistic pattern (where a metaphorical meaning arises from the use of a metonymy) rather than a metonymy-within-metaphor pattern (where a metonymy is part of a metaphorical expression). I elaborate on the implications of these findings for our understanding of how organizations are discursively constructed and understood through metonymic language.     

Development of environmentally extended social accounting matrices for policy analysis in Alberta

This paper outlines the development of inputs to an integrated land use and transportation model based on a series of environmentally extended social accounting matrices (SAMs) for the Canadian province of Alberta. A novel form of industry disaggregation is employed, based on aggregate iterative proportion and a unique formulation of location quotients. Social accounts are extended via the inclusion of detailed household consumption broken down by income quintiles. The SAMs are developed from supply-use matrices. Physical flow accounts are framed as derived demands, acting as necessary inputs to the production of downstream goods and services. Applications to regional economic modeling are considered, as planning authorities increasingly seek to model the environmental impacts of policy. The SAMs are then applied to the assessment of two technology change scenarios: a shift in the provincial electricity generation mix and a transition to a fully electric private automobile fleet.     

Trade and the Balance of Payments

National accounts data for Q4 2013 revealed that exports surged by 2.8% on the quarter, though while this suggests that the economy has started to rebalance, it did come on the back of a very poor Q3. Services exports came roaring back in the final quarter, after a sustained period of weakness, and goods exports also increased. This contributed to the UK trade deficit almost halving in Q4 compared to the previous three months. But a deterioration in net investment income meant that the UK continued to run a very wide current account deficit…     

Does economic globalization affect the level and volatility of labor demand by skill? New insights from the Tunisian manufacturing industries

The central aim of this paper is to assess the effects of economic globalization on the level and volatility of labor demand for different skill groups in Tunisia. Using a panel dataset covering six manufacturing industries between 1983 and 2009, three main findings are reported. First, exports and imports exert a positive impact only on the semi-skilled and skilled labor demand while foreign direct investment flows increase the demand for semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Second, the regional analysis suggests that exports to the European Union boost the demand for the semi-skilled and skilled labor. Imports from the rest of the world exert similar effects on the demand for these two categories of workers. It emerges also that imports from the European Union lead to a higher demand for skilled labor, which gives support to the validity of the skill-enhancing trade hypothesis in Tunisian industries. Finally, our findings suggest that both exports and imports rise the employment volatility associated with skilled workers. On the other hand, there is a weak evidence of increased employment volatility as a result of foreign direct investment flows.     

THE BIAS OF THE MULTIPLIER MATRIX WHEN SUPPLY AND USE TABLES ARE STOCHASTIC

The literature on stochastic input–output (I–O) analysis has paid considerable attention to the bias in the Leontief inverse. This paper extends previous studies by assuming supply and use tables (SUTs rather than I–O tables or input coefficients matrices) to be stochastic. This is a natural starting point because SUTs have become the basic data sources for I–O applications. In a Monte Carlo simulation experiment, a given SUT is randomized in two different ways and the effects are determined for eight different multiplier matrices. The analysis is carried out for Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Finland, using their SUTs for 2006. The findings indicate that, in general, biases are statistically significant but negligibly small. This corroborates earlier findings obtained for stochastic I–O tables.     

The theory of corporate takeover bids: A subgame perfect approach

In this paper I re-examine Grossman & Hart's (1980a) earlier work on corporate takeovers and address three main shortcomings of their theory. First, their theory implies that in the ‘Nash equilibrium’ either all shareholders will decide to tender their shares or all will refuse the raider's tender offer. Hence, they look only at the pure strategy equilibria. Second, there does not exist any free-rider problem in the extreme cases of pure strategy equilbria because everyone sells his or her share and the raider does not have to deal with any minority shareholder in the equilibrium. On the other hand, if the raid fails and no one sells, then there is no question of dilution either. I show some mixed-strategy equilibria using assumptions of Grossman and Hart. Third, Grossman and Hart claim that their theory rules out the possibilities of takeovers by the inefficient raider in which the shareholders who tender their shares are worse off than they would have been otherwise with the incumbent management. It appears from the model that their argument is based on rather arbitrary assumptions.     

双重上市股票更有投资价值吗？——基于H+A股与A股的对比分析…朱宏泉，应潇潇

通过对比先在H股上市、后回到A股上市的股票（简记为H+A股）与仅在A股上市的股票上市首日收益率、上市后短期和长期收益的差异,探讨两类股票的投资价值。结果显示：相较于A股股票,H+A股上市首日收益更高,但上市后的短期收益和长期收益更低。究其原因,H+A股更高的上市首日收益与其发行定价低相关,短期和长期市场收益低既与公司的业绩不好相关,也与投资者的不认可相关,表明相较于仅在A股上市的股票,H+A股更不具备投资价值。     

Structural vulnerability and resilience to currency crisis: Foreign currency debt versus export

Is there any factor that is not analyzed in the literature but is important for preventing currency crises? I argue that exports are an important factor to prevent currency crises that has not been frequently analyzed in the existing theoretical literature. Using the third generation model of currency crises, I derive a simple and intuitive formula that captures an economy’s structural vulnerability characterized by the elasticity of exports and repayments for foreign currency denominated debt. I graphically show that the possibility of currency crisis equilibrium depends on this structural vulnerability and also analyze how this vulnerability impacts the effectiveness of monetary policy response.     

Alternative Input-Output Matrix Updating Formulations

There has been a recent resurgence of interest in biproportional adjustment methods for updating and interpreting change in matrix representations of regional structures, most commonly input-output accounts. Although the biproportional method, commonly called the RAS technique in the input-output literature, has been shown to have a number of theoretically appealing properties, various alternatives do exist. In this paper, we develop and empirically assess a number of alternatives, comparing performance and examining the attributes of these adjustment methods. Two of these are sign-preserving updating methods for use when tables contain both positive and negative entries. One of these is shown to generate less information gain than does a generalized RAS method that Junius & Oosterhaven (2003) formulated to deal with matrices with both positive and negative values. Overall, while the RAS method continues to be commonly used and its choice is often rational, alternative methods can perform as well or better along certain dimensions and in certain contexts.