Exporting and Productivity in the United Kingdom

This paper investigates various aspects of the links betweenexporting and productivity for a large sample of firms in theUnited Kingdom. We find evidence to support the propositionthat sunk costs are important. Self selection takes place, withlarger and more productive firms entering export markets, andfirms have to become more productive in order to enter. Industrycharacteristics also affect the likelihood of entry—bothindustrial and spatial agglomeration are important. When werely on an unmatched sample of firms we can find some evidenceof further productivity improvement after entry, but this disappearswhen we use a matched sample. Our results suggest that policyshould avoid simply subsidizing firms that may self select intoexport promotion policies and focus instead on reducing informationasymmetries and supporting development of clusters.     

Productivity, innovation and ICT in Old and New Europe

This paper investigates the productivity performance of CEE countries vis-à-vis the EU-15 during the 1990s to detect sources of convergence between the two regions. The paper shows that changes in labour intensity have been an important source of productivity convergence during the 1990s, and are likely to remain so in the near future. It is also found that despite lower income levels, ICT capital in the CEE-10 has contributed as much to labour productivity growth as in the EU-15. Industry analysis shows that manufacturing industries that have invested heavily in ICT have been key to the restructuring process. As such ICT may therefore have been an important source of growth but probably temporary source of convergence. In the longer run the impact of ICT on growth will have to come primarily from its productive use in services. The paper therefore includes a New Economy Indicator that reflects the existence of conducive environment for continued ICT investment and diffusion. It shows that further reforms are much needed for CEE countries to enter a second convergence phase in the coming decades.This paper is written as part of a project on Information & Communication Technologies as Drivers of Economic Development in Post-Communist Countries sponsored by USAid (Grant No. 220/001.6). The industry data for the EU-15 (section 4) are updated estimates derived from a study sponsored by DG Enterprise of the European Union (OMahony and van Ark 2003). We are grateful to Robert Inklaar and Edwin Stuivenwold for statistical assistance, and to various commentators on this paper at seminars and workshops. We benefited in particular from comments by Bart Los and Marcel Timmer. The authors are solely responsible for the results presented and any remaining omissions.     

Labor productivity in the United States and the United Kingdom during the nineteenth century

A number of writers have recently questioned whether labor productivity or per capita incomes were ever higher in the United Kingdom than in the United States. This paper focuses on aggregate and sectoral labor productivity in the two countries during the nineteenth century. We build on earlier work by Broadberry to push comparative productivity estimates back to 1840 based on a time series projection from a 1910 benchmark and checked against a benchmark estimate for 1850. The results indicate that labor productivity in agriculture was broadly equal in the two countries, and that the United States had a substantial labor productivity lead in industry as early as 1840, while the United Kingdom was ahead in services. Hence aggregate labor productivity and per capita incomes were higher in the United Kingdom in the mid-nineteenth century, particularly since the United States had a larger share of the labor force in low value-added agriculture and a smaller share of the population in the labor force.     

Sectoral Productivity Growth and R&D Spillovers in the Netherlands

This paper assesses empirically whether R&D spillovers are important and whether they originate from domestic or foreign activities. Data for eleven sectors are used to explain the impact on total factor productivity of R&D by the sector itself, by other Dutch sectors and by foreign sectors. We find that both domestic and foreign R&D are significant for the Dutch economy. The elasticity of total factor productivity with respect to R&D is approximately 37% for R&D by a sector, 15% for R&D by other Dutch sectors and 3% for R&D by foreign sectors. Our findings suggest moreover that more R&D speeds up the adoption of foreign technologies. Thus, even for a small open economy as the Netherlands, promoting investment in R&D is appropriate as it both stimulates adoption and generates spillovers.     

生产力增长、智慧生产力与人的自由全面发展

文章认为,生产力是一个涵盖劳动者、劳动对象、劳动手段及交通、能源、管理、信息、科学技术等多种因素在内的而且人的自由全面充分发展、个人生产力和智慧生产力在其中的主导地位日益突出的庞大的集合体和有机的超大的系统。物质生产力的发展是人类实现自由全面发展的基础和从必然王国向自由王国迈进的条件。科技进步为人的自由充分发展创造了条件,人必须充分发展以适应新科技革命。文章指出,就现代科技革命和社会主义市场经济发展而言,全面充分发展个人生产力即智慧生产力才是发展社会主义的社会生产力的最重要和最根本的途径。     

United Kingdom Education 1997-2001

This paper reviews the achievements of the Labour government'seducation policy between 1997 and 2001. Tony Blair claimed thathis government would make education a priority. The first partof the paper reviews the scale of education spending in relationto the economy at large and within the education budget. Thesecond part of the paper looks at the productivity of schools.How far have the changes that have affected schools in the past10 years, and in the past 5 years in particular, had an impacton the quality of school achievements? The paper suggests therehave been significant improvements, not just on average butespecially in the gains made in poor areas and in the leastgood schools. Finally the paper discusses the funding of highereducation, the introduction of income-related loans to covermaintenance, and up-front fees. The paper concludes that someserious errors were made in policy design. Even so, the useof the Inland Revenue as the collection agency was a successfulinnovation and should be built upon.     

Exchange Rate Behavior of Canada,Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States

We revisit a significant research topic on exchange rate behavior by restating the test procedures with an appropriate econometric methodology to re-examine three aspects. (i) Does the inflation (price) factor affect nominal exchange rate? (ii) Do relative interest rates affect a country’s exchange rate? (iii) Do the price and interest rate effects hold if controls for non-parity factors are embedded in tests? The quarterly data series for this study are taken over 55 years. The traditional parity condition model with price and interest rate as criterion variables is extended to take into account recently-verified non-parity factors, namely trade, productivity and foreign reserves. The results affirm that both parity factors and also the non-parity factors significantly affect the exchange rates of Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. In our view, these findings relating to four free-floating currencies help extend our knowledge on how currency behavior is consistent with parity and non-parity theorems using a relevant methodological approach in this study.     

Externalities,Cross-Sectoral Spillovers and Productivity Growth

We provide an interpretation of the productivity dynamics in the manufacturing sector based on the idea of the thick market externality à la Diamond. An econometric model has been estimated which allows to disentangle the long run effects of these trading externalities from those of internal economies of scale and of aggregate industry-level economies. The results obtained—based on a cointegrated system of non-linear-error-correction equations—confirm the hypothesis that the trading externality matters. Moreover, our findings point out that the emphasis generally posited both on internal and external economies of scale is not justified.     

我国贸易多样性的影响因素和生产率增长——基于内延边际与外延边际的考察

依据Feenstra等人的检验方法,本文测算了中国省份层面的初级品和制成品贸易多样性,结果发现,制成品进口多样性的地区区域出现扩散形态,而出口多样性走向区域趋同.在计算样本期我国省份TFP指数基础上,研究进一步考察了贸易多样性与生产率增长的双向关联,结果发现,除了科研投入,贸易多样性成为我国生产率提高的重要因素;就贸易...     

金融排斥:英国的经验

所谓金融排斥是一个社会中的一部分人,由于多种原因难以进入主流金融体系获得必要的金融服务。它既是金融问题,又是社会问题,影响社会的和谐发展,是金融发展过程中值得关注的现象。本文以经济和金融高度发达的英国为对象,考察其金融排斥的现状,分析产生的原因,总结其解决金融排斥问题的措施方法,为我们避免和弱化金融排斥问题提供参考借鉴。     

英国想尽办法吸引中国游客

中国导游Luti Shia正带着一群来自中国游团的游客游览英国,她拿着麦克风站在一辆旅游大巴的前部,开始用汉语讲解关于英国的解说词。这一车中国游客黎明时分就起床了,现在已经完成了英国4座城市走马观花式游览的第一站。他们上午在剑桥著名的历史中心区逗留了短短40分钟,就在十点半离开。随着大巴向约克市驶去,Shia小姐在她滔滔不绝的教科书式解说词中,加入了更多英国生活的奇异片段,     

Financial innovation and the long-run demand for money in the United Kingdom and in West-Germany

Financial Innovation and the Long-Run Demand for Money in the United Kingdom and in West Germany. — This paper uses a cointegration model to compare the long-run demand for broad money in the UK and (West) Germany during the period 1963Q1–1990Q2. In the long-run demand function for Germany, real M3 is determined in classical manner by real income and a single opportunity cost variable. By contrast, the UK demand function requires in addition an explicit own rate on money as well as a risk variable. The income elasticity is also very high. These differences reflect the more rapid pace of financial innovation in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s.