Globalization and imperfect labor market sorting

This paper focuses on the ability of the labor market to efficiently match heterogeneous workers to jobs within a given industry and the role that globalization plays in that process. Using matched worker–firm data from Sweden, we find strong evidence that openness improves the matching between workers and firms in industries with greater comparative advantage. This suggests that there may be significant gains from globalization that have not been identified in the past — globalization may improve the efficiency of the matching process in the labor market. These results remain unchanged after adding controls for technical change at the industry level or measures of domestic anti-competitive regulations and product market competition. Our results are also robust to alternative measures of the degree of matching, openness, and the trade status of an industry.     

Unionized labor markets and globalized capital markets

This paper studies the effects of international integration of capital markets in a world where countries differ in their labor market institutions: one country has a perfectly competitive labor market while the other is unionized. We show that workers should favor autarky in the unionized country, but oppose it in the non unionized country and vice versa for owners of capital. Aggregate gains from integration, however, are negative. We also show that, under capital mobility, an increase in relative bargaining power of unions does not always improve workers' welfare.     

Globalization and specialization

The popular Dixit–Stiglitz–Ethier framework proposes that globalization increases the menu of intermediate goods available to downstream firms and that gains from specialization raise welfare unambiguously. This study shows that both results depend critically on the assumption that demand elasticities are invariable. The more general framework presented here provides two main insights: First, whether specialization rises or falls depends ultimately on the shape of the cost function, and second, globalization can actually reduce welfare in the case when specialization falls.     

服务国际化的内涵及动因分析

20世纪90年代以来,全球经济竞争的焦点正从货物贸易转向服务贸易,服务业国际直接投资迅速增长,服务呈现出强劲的国际化趋势。本文分析了服务国际化的内涵和主体,重点探讨了促进服务国际化发展的外部环境因素和服务企业国际化的微观动因。     

全球化与区域集团化互动效应的实证检验

随着“多哈回合”陷入僵局,经济全球化步伐有所减缓,区域集团化浪潮日益高涨,两者之间的关系之争成为理论界研究的热点问题。文章在在对两者关系进行创新的基础上,阐述了全球化背景下区域集团化产生的四大效应,并从静态和动态两个方面对全球化与区域集团化的互动效应分别给予验证。     

Globalization,Coordination, and Subsidiary Performance-Evidence from Companies in an Advancing Country

ABSTRACT

We investigate an important issue in globalization, the relationship between production capacity of a global company's subsidiary and its performance, where the subsidiary's relative size of production capacity is regarded as its globalization level. Analyzing the field data on 42 Korean companies engaged in global operations, we reached preliminary conclusions. First, the optimal level of subsidiary globalization represented by its relative production capacity does not exist. This lack of significance subsides when we associate the globalization level with global coordination between the headquarters and its subsidiary. Global coordination turns out to be a significant factor, either direct or moderating in relation to the globalization level, in determining the subsidiary's performance. We also found that the type of coordination supporting the subsidiary's innovation is different from that enhancing its operational efficiency: for the subsidiary's innovation capability, indirect coordination is effective, whereas direct coordination can be detrimental. In addition, we report effects of other factors such as global experience, host country and target market characteristics on the subsidiary performance.     

Globalization and the ‘confidence game’

We show that governments in developing countries have an incentive to play the “confidence game” — wherein the need to win the confidence of the international capital market ‘can actually prevent a country from following otherwise sensible policies and force it to follow policies that it would normally consider perverse’. This incentive arises because of a combination of a ‘conformity bias’ and ‘good news bias’ in governmental decision making in an open economy, which results in inefficient outcomes which increases rather than decreases the threat of devaluation. While institutions that encourage greater transparency and the public revelation of information, may often mitigate this inefficiency, on some occasions increased transparency may even exacerbate the inefficiency.     

经济全球化下海关法面临的挑战及对策

经济全球化对各国海关的最大挑战就是如何处理好海关有效监管和便利贸易之间的矛盾。20世纪90年代以来各国海关法纷纷进行改革以适应经济发展需要。改革的主要内容包括:改革海关组织和通关程序,实现快捷通关、促进贸易发展;合理分配权利和义务,满足通关效率的需要;海关法的立法体例凸现通关制度的模式等。海关法的渊源则表现为国内海关法的国际化、国际海关法的国内化、区域海关法的兴起等特点。中国海关法应进一步完善海关法律体系,以适应经济全球化的挑战。     

全球化视角下的中欧贸易争端及其博弈分析——以纺织品为例

欧盟已经并将继续成为对华贸易摩擦的首要发起国,中欧双方在贸易争端中考虑的第一影响变量就是经济全球化。全球化使贸易争端具有了不可避免性和可协调性,并为其提供了动态变化机制,进而使其成为一场欧盟占主动的完全信息动态博弈。近期的纺织品贸易磨擦就是一个明证,我国在博弈中只能也必须积极应对,并力争促成由被动向主动地位的转变,即我国在短期内要尽快建立成熟的争端应对机制,长期则要逐步促成比较优势的全球实现和动态升级。     

金融发展、金融脆弱与银行国际化

银行国际化一方面会促进金融发展,另一方面也将导致金融脆弱.本文以理论分析和实证检验相结合的方式,探讨了我国银行国际化从不同方面促进金融发展以及导致金融脆弱之间的逻辑关系,并对两种不同效应从整体宏观的角度进行比较,得出银行国际化正效应大于负效应的结论,从而在理论上回答了政策当局是否应当推行银行国际化的问题.     

Globalization, culture, and marketing strategy: Introduction to the special issue

This special issue of the Journal of Business Research features eleven articles selected from the papers presented during the fifth meeting of the Royal Bank International Research Seminar which took place in Montreal at the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, September 25 and 26, 2009. They cover topics related to globalization, cultural values, global consumer behavior, market segmentation, marketing strategies of emerging economies, consumer socialization, materialism, service quality, and government actions.     

Organizational governance and TMT pay level adjustment

This paper analyzes how the characteristics of boards and structure of ownership moderate a firm's capacity to adjust top management team (TMT) pay levels in the face of changes in its economic and complexity conditions. Using panel data from Spanish listed companies between 2003 and 2007, the results indicate that, over time, characteristics of corporate governance system contribute to give a fundamental importance to boards and ownership structure in the determination and adjustment of TMT pay. These associations appear to be even stronger than those that in other Western European and North American countries. Both the Spanish cross-holding and concentrated firms' ownership structure, and socially intervened boards play a major role in the high levels of pay received by the TMT, which, in turn, reflect a moderate adjustment of compensation practices to variations of surrounded environment factors.     

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.     

Enhancing marketing with engineering: Optimal product line design for heterogeneous markets

Successful product line design and development often require a balance of technical and market tradeoffs. Quantitative methods for optimizing product attribute levels using preference elicitation (e.g., conjoint) data are useful for many product types. However, products with substantial engineering content involve critical tradeoffs in the ability to achieve those desired attribute levels. Technical tradeoffs in product design must be made with an eye toward market consequences, particularly when heterogeneous market preferences make differentiation and strategic positioning critical to capturing a range of market segments and avoiding cannibalization.We present a unified methodology for product line optimization that coordinates positioning and design models to achieve realizable firm-level optima. The approach overcomes several shortcomings of prior product line optimization models by incorporating a general Bayesian account of consumer preference heterogeneity, managing attributes over a continuous domain to alleviate issues of combinatorial complexity, and avoiding solutions that are impossible to realize. The method is demonstrated for a line of dial-readout scales, using physical models and conjoint-based consumer choice data. The results show that the optimal number of products in the line is not necessarily equal to the number of market segments, that an optimal single product for a heterogeneous market differs from that for a homogeneous one, and that the representational form for consumer heterogeneity has a substantial impact on the design and profitability of the resulting optimal product line — even for the design of a single product. The method is managerially valuable because it yields product line solutions efficiently, accounting for marketing-based preference heterogeneity as well as engineering-based constraints with which product attributes can be realized.     

全球化、全要素生产率与区域发展差异——基于珠三角、长三角和环渤海的面板数据分析

得益于对外开放政策,地处沿海的珠三角、长三角和环渤海相继成为中国经济的三大引擎,但珠三角仍然保持一种相对优势。这种区域差异是源于全球的数量效应还是质量效应?本文比较分析表明,三大区域之间的TFP存在显著差异;TFP经济增长的贡献,从高到低依次是珠三角、长三角和环渤海。基于贸易、投资和金融维度,本文以面板数据分析技术研究了全球化对区域TFP差异的影响。主要发现是:在区域整体层面上,全球化促进了TFP的提高;但在区域内,全球化对三大区域TFP的促进作用并不显著且无统计意义。全球化对三大区域经济增长的贡献主要是通过数量效应实现的,质量效应尚未成为影响区域经济差距的实质性因素。外贸和FDI增长方式的外延和粗放、较低的金融市场的国际化程度,制约了区域层面TFP的增长。     

Post-Soviet Russian Film and the Trauma of Globalization

In this paper the author discusses how in post-Soviet times, after years of communal property and existence, Russia has reacted and adjusted itself toward the global expansion of Western capital with all the consequences of that process. The analysis focuses on three films, Mikhalkov’s The Barber of Siberia (1999), Fruntov’s All That of Which We’ve Dreamed So Long (1997), and Balabanov’s Of Freaks and Men (1998), which in different, very desperate ways illustrate Russia’s economic and cultural ambivalence towards Western economic and cultural growth. The paper pursues the cultural manifestations of the cost of a psychological crisis exacted at the level of both society and the individual.     

Explaining variability in the investment location choices of MNEs: An exploration of country,industry and firm effects

This paper examines the variation in foreign direct investment (FDI) location decisions of European multinational enterprises (MNEs.) An innovative empirical approach is applied to a new data set which contains over 15,000 individual FDI location decisions in 25 European countries over a 17-year period and combines country-, industry- and firm-level factors. The empirical results show that the responsiveness of FDI location choices to country-level factors is heterogeneous both across sectors and across firms of different characteristics as well as unobserved factors. For example, the results show that the importance of market size increases with investing firm’s size and skill intensity, while proximity between countries, as well as cultural and linguistic ties are more important for smaller firms.     

Trade liberalization and the allocation of labor between households and markets in a poor country

We consider the relationship between relative price changes and the allocation of labor between households and the formal wage labor market in the context of Vietnam's liberalization of its rice trade in the 1990s. Many individuals in poor economies work within their own household rather than in formal labor markets. We find that larger rice price increases in a community are associated with declines in hours adults devote to work within the household and increases in time spent in the wage labor market. We also observe increased specialization in household economic activities accompanying these shifts in hours towards wage work. Our results are consistent with the idea that a growth in the extent of the market shifts production and labor from households to markets during development, thereby inducing gains from specialization. Thus, the reallocation of labor between households and markets in response to a trade liberalization might be an important component in understanding the link between trade and growth in very poor economies, currently the focus of the Doha WTO negotiation round.     

Optimal tax and debt policy with endogenously imperfect creditworthiness

This paper studies the patterns of optimal tax rates and borrowing in a developing country characterized by a costly tax collection. Its access to the international credit market is determined by the efficiency of the tax system, the relative bargaining power of creditors, and the outstanding debt. Country risk modifies considerably the pattern of taxes and borrowing in recessions. The tax rate exhibits strong counter-cyclical patterns in economies operating close to the credit ceiling, whereas the tax rate exhibits very few cyclical patterns in economies operating on the elastic portion of the supply of credit, where country risk factors are absent.