Aggregate productivity losses from factor misallocation across Chinese manufacturing firms

Aggregate productivity can be largely determined by how efficiently production factors are allocated across heterogeneous establishments. This paper estimates aggregate productivity losses from factor misallocation using a large sample of Chinese manufacturing firms. We analyze the institutional background and provide some stylized facts on factor misallocation of capital and labor in China. Using an approximation method based on the estimation of input gaps, we find that aggregate productivity losses reach an average rate of 11.18 percentage points per year. On average, capital and labor misallocation account for 6.73 and 4.45 percentage points, respectively. State ownership plays an important role in generating factor misallocation and productivity losses. Our results imply that factor misallocation have become a major obstacle preventing China from moving to a more efficient economy.     

Outsourcing and computers: Impact on urban skill level and rent

Cities in the U.S. with a higher initial share of college graduates have had a greater subsequent increase in this share over the past two decades. Concurrently, housing prices have grown faster in these skilled cities. This paper argues that the diffusion of computers and outsourcing may partly explain these two phenomena. In the presented model, skilled workers are more productive in skilled cities and need unskilled support services. The cities' unskilled workers can perform the support services, but when it is cheaper, such services can be undertaken by computers or outsourced to less-skilled cities. New technologies facilitating computerization and outsourcing can increase the skill share and housing prices in skilled cities relative to less-skilled cities, under reasonable assumptions. The basic economics is that the new technologies diminish the demand for unskilled workers in skilled cities and permit skilled workers to earn higher wages, which in turn increases the supply of skilled workers in skilled cities and drives up housing prices. Empirically, this paper documents five stylized facts that the theory can rationalize. Particularly important is rising skill premium in skilled cities relative to less-skilled cities, which supports a production theory involving shifts in labor demand.     

On the satisfaction of peak demand in the certainty case

The concept of full-capacity flat-rate equilibrium is explored for a version of the Arrow-Debreu model with time-differentiated goods and production subject to a capacity constraint. The corresponding equilibrium allocations are shown to be inefficient in general. It is also shown that rationing peak demand is Pareto superior to non-rationing.     

Asset pricing with expectation shocks

This paper adds persistent shocks into the adaptive learning expectation formation process in stochastic growth asset pricing production and endowment economies. These expectation shocks, designed to capture psychological elements which can arise from news, changes in sentiment, herding and bandwagon effects, generate waves of optimism and pessimism in equity price forecasts. The paper estimates parameters of the expectation shock and adaptive learning process with the method of simulated moments, and compares simulation results to U.S. economic and financial market stylized facts. Numerical results for both the estimated production and endowment economies show that the expectation shock model matches several of the stylized facts better than does a model that assumes rational expectations or adaptive learning alone.     

A pareto optimal collaboration period: The role of financial,industrial and macroeconomic conditions in liquidation decision and timing

In this paper, the author highlights the nexus of interactions among financial, industrial and macroeconomic factors determining the Pareto optimal date on which the firm’s claimants stop collaborating and force the firm into liquidation. The condition for optimal liquidation time summarizes the effects of volatility of the aggregate consumer income and the overall price level, demand elasticity, the industry’s concentration level and depreciation on the firm’s going-concern value. It also takes into account the effects of the firm’s level of indebtedness, foregone interest on alternative usages of the financial resources extended to the firm and the costs of risk bearing perceived by the firm’s claimants from continued collaboration.     

The relationship between R&D,innovation and productivity in emerging economies: CDM model and alternatives

CDM (Crépon, Duguet and Mairesse, 1988) is a workhorse model in the economics of innovation, which explains productivity in a three-stage procedure driven initially by R&D and leads to patents and then to productivity improvements. Based on the logic of this model, an increasing number of papers applies it to emerging economies but modifies the original model without being explicit about the nature and implications of this modification. We argue in this paper that, in its original form, CDM does not capture stylized facts of the determinants of productivity in emerging economies and that we need alternative models. Accordingly, we are critical of papers that try to maintain the validity of the model but actually change it. For that purpose, we test the original CDM model and its two alternatives: investment and production capability–driven models. Our research is based on a large sample of firms in Central and Eastern Europe, former Soviet republics and Turkey, and we show that the alternative models are much closer to the stylized facts of innovation activities and technology upgrading in these and other emerging economies. Our conclusions have important policy implications, which we discuss.     

A re-examination of the “zero is enough” hypothesis in the emergence of financial stylized facts

In recent years, a growing literature has claimed that the market microstructure is sufficient to generate the so-called stylized facts without any reference to the behaviour of market players. Indeed, qualitative stylized-facts can be generated with zero-intelligence traders (ZITs) but we stress that they are without any quantitative predictive power. In this paper we show that in most of the cases, such qualitative stylized facts hide unrealistic price motions at the intraday level and ill-calibrated return processes as well. To generate realistic price motions and return series with adequate quantitative values is out-of-reach using pure ZIT populations. To do so, one must increasingly constrain agents?? choices to a point where it is hard to claim that their behaviour is completely random. In addition we show that even with highly constrained ZIT agents, one cannot reproduce real time series from these. Except in a few cases, first order moments of ZITs never equal real data ones. We therefore claim that stylized facts produced by means of ZIT agents are useless for financial engineering.     

Endogenous Growth: Estimating the Romer Model for the US and Germany*

By contrasting endogenous growth models with facts, one is frequently confronted with the prediction that levels of economic variables, such as R&D expenditures, imply lasting effects on the growth rate of an economy. As stylized facts show, the research intensity in most advanced countries has dramatically increased, mostly more than the GDP. Yet, the growth rates have roughly remained constant or even declined. In this paper we modify the Romer endogenous growth model and test our variant of the model using time series data. We estimate the market version both for the US and Germany for the time period January 1962 to April 1996. Our results demonstrate that the model is compatible with the time series for aggregate data in those countries. All parameters fall into a reasonable range.     

By force of demand: Explaining cyclical fluctuations of international trade and government spending

This paper explores the role of demand shocks, as an alternative to productivity shocks, in driving both domestic and international business cycles within the international real business cycle (IRBC) framework. In addition to those well-documented domestic business cycle fluctuations (e.g., the volatility and cyclicality of output, consumption, investment, labor hours, and labor productivity) and international business cycle properties (e.g., the countercyclical net export and the comovement puzzle), this paper focuses on two additional stylized facts in the industrialized countries: the procyclical trade openness (the GDP fraction of trade volume) and the countercyclical government size (the GDP fraction of government spending). Using a parsimonious dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, we show that the model׳s predictions under productivity shocks are not consistent with these facts. Instead, a demand-shock-driven model replicates the above facts while matching other domestic and international business cycle properties. An estimated version of the model confirms the quantitatively important impacts of demand shocks.     

On the emergence of scale-free production networks

We propose a simple dynamical model for the formation of production networks among monopolistically competitive firms. The model subsumes the standard general equilibrium approach à la Arrow–Debreu but displays a wide set of potential dynamic behaviors. It robustly reproduces key stylized facts of firms׳ demographics. Our main result is that competition between intermediate good producers generically leads to the emergence of scale-free production networks.     

Asset allocation and multivariate position based trading

I add a second risky asset and a risk free bond to the univariate artificial market investigated by Lux and Marchesi (Int J Theor Appl Finance 3(4):675–702, 2000), keeping track of traders aggregate positions and wealth. Asset allocation and security selection are modeled as separate decision processes, as is common practice in financial institutions. Introducing position based trading avoids inconsistencies in traders inventories resulting from the order based setup of the original model, while preserving its ability to reproduce the stylized facts of financial return series.      

The adoption,diffusion, and evolution of organizational form: insights from the agrifood sector

The adoption and diffusion of contract farming and vertical integration in modern agriculture has varied widely across regions, commodities, or farm types. This paper lays out a framework for understanding the evolution of organizational practices in U.S. agriculture by drawing on theories of the diffusion of technology and organizational complementarities. Using recent trends as stylized facts, with case studies from various agricultural industries, we argue that research identifying complementarities within specific sectors of the agrifood system will greatly improve our understanding of the organizational structure of agricultural production, and we identify several specific lines of inquiry. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modes of Interaction and Performance of Human Service Networks

Governments everywhere are engaged in self-conscious projects of administrative and managerial improvement. Scholars of public management thus confront a fascinating array of talk, conjectures, and facts on administrative and managerial change that can be assembled from myriad sources. There are as well stylized facts, stories, conjectures, and ideological glosses – these might be termed ‘theory substitutes’ – that may or may not be consistent with actual developments worldwide and which are provocative in their implications. Our goal as scholars of governance and management must be to penetrate appearances to ascertain whatever lessons and meanings might lie beneath. A variety of theoretical frameworks ranging from conceptual classifications to synoptic speculations to causal accounts of state building are available for this intellectual work.     

Powerful tests for structural changes in volatility

Detecting structural changes in volatility is important for understanding volatility dynamics and stylized facts observed for financial returns such as volatility persistence. We propose modified CUSUM and LM tests that are built on a robust estimator of the long-run variance of squared series. We establish conditions under which the new tests have standard null distributions and diverge faster than standard tests under the alternative. The theory allows smooth and abrupt structural changes that can be small. The smoothing parameter is automatically selected such that the proposed test has good finite-sample size and meanwhile achieves decent power gain.     

Non-Gaussian models for CoVaR estimation

In this paper we show how to obtain estimates of CoVaR based on models that take into consideration some stylized facts about multivariate financial time series of equity log returns: heavy tails, negative skew, asymmetric dependence, and volatility clustering. While the volatility clustering effect is captured by AR-GARCH dynamics of the Glosten-Jagannathan-Runkle (GJR) type, the other stylized facts are explained by non-Gaussian multivariate models and copula functions. We compare the different models in the period from January 2007 to March 2020. Our empirical study conducted on a sample of listed banks in the euro area confirms that, in measuring CoVaR, it is important to capture the time-varying dynamics of the volatility. Additionally, a correct assessment of the heaviness of the tails and of the dependence structure is needed in the evaluation of this systemic risk measure.     

The returns to skill

Since 1975, increases in the return to skill (measured by years of education), in the percentage of the labor force that is skilled, and in the variance of wage income within skill categories have characterized the U.S. labor market. The first two facts point towards an increase in the demand for skilled labor; the third fact establishes that this increase in demand has not been uniform for all members of a particular skill category. Hence, the three stylized facts point toward unobserved skill heterogeneity within education classes. In this paper, we argue that education per se does not measure skill adequately, and we suggest an alternative measure based on the observed skill characteristics of the job. We analyze the return to various dimensions of skill, including formal education. After accounting for other elements of skill, we find that the return to years of education has been constant since 1970. Moreover, variations in direct measures of skill, such as mathematical ability or eye-hand coordination, account for a substantial fraction of the increased dispersion in income among the college educated, and some of the increase in wage dispersion among those who have not earned a college degree.     

Speculative hyperinflations and currency substitution

We propose a rational expectations framework for understanding speculative hyperinflations that end in response to ‘orthodox’ stabilization programs. Motivated by a strong degree of hysteresis in the stock of real balances after the end of hyperinflations, we provide a cash-and-credit model in which the money demand exhibits persistence because individuals can establish long-lasting credit relationships. We use the model to show that if hysteresis in real balances is possible then a fiscal–monetary reform that successfully stops a speculative hyperinflation may fail to prevent it. We argue that speculative hyperinflationary equilibria are consistent with some key stylized facts observed in extreme hyperinflations.     

THE INNOVATION‐EMPLOYMENT NEXUS: A CRITICAL SURVEY OF THEORY AND EMPIRICS

Understanding whether technical change is beneficial or detrimental for employment is at the center of the policy debate, especially in phases of economic recession. So far, the effects of innovation – in its manifold declinations and intrinsic complexity – on labor demand have proven to be not unequivocal. This essay critically reviews the role of technical change in shaping employment dynamics at different levels of aggregation. First, it disentangles theoretically the role of different compensation mechanisms through which employment adjusts after an innovation is introduced. Second, it critically presents the most recent empirical evidence on the topic, with a focus on methods and limitations. Finally, it provides an attempt to conceptualize a number of stylized facts and empirical regularities on the innovation‐employment nexus.     

Offshoring,globalization, and welfare

We investigate the issue of offshoring in a general-equilibrium model of two countries and one sector of increasing returns to scale. Our model uncovers that offshoring occurs and endogenously evolves in a bell-shaped pattern when trade costs decline, explaining some stylized facts in developed countries. Furthermore, this simple framework can be applied to examine the welfare issue. We find that a fall in offshoring costs benefits the high-wage country but hurts the low-wage country. On the other hand, the low-wage country benefits with trade liberalization. The impact of falling trade costs on the welfare of the high-wage country depends on the values of offshoring freeness.     

Long‐run neutrality of demand shocks: Revisiting Blanchard and Quah (1989) with independent structural shocks

With reference to a stylized theoretical macromodel, Blanchard and Quah (American Economic Review, 1989, 79, 655–673) identify empirical aggregate supply (e.g., productivity) and demand shocks by assuming that the latter are neutral for economic activity in the long run. Taking advantage of recent contributions to the structural VAR literature and data‐based identification, we find that effects of unique independent non‐Gaussian structural shocks support this assumption. Moreover, unlike the results in Blanchard and Quah, statistically identified supply shocks exhibit (insignificantly) opposite impacts on gross domestic product and unemployment in the short run. In comparison with benchmark results obtained under assumed long‐run neutrality, statistical identification points to a stronger role of aggregate supply shocks for shaping temporary profiles of US unemployment during the recessionary period 1973:Q3–1975:Q1.