The Internet,R&D expenditure and economic growth

We examine the effect of the Internet on the relationship between R&D expenditure and economic growth. Data for 105 countries over the period 1994–2014 are used for panel data analysis. The effect of R&D expenditure on economic growth proves to be affected positively by the Internet and the effect of the Internet on the economic growth is positively strengthened by an increase in R&D expenditure.     

设计产业发展实证研究

随着中国经济、科学、文化的快速发展,中国设计产业已经从萌芽逐渐走向成长。中国经济发达区域已意识到设计产业在国民经济中的先导作用,并积极寻求有效的发展路径。因此选取了设计产业发展进程较快的29个城市（地区）,并搜集了2007—2009年这三年的相关数据,利用计量经济学的固定效应模型进行面板数据研究。结论表明,设计产业的发展对于一个城市的工业生产总值,GDP都有显著的推动作用,另一模型则表明一个城市的研发投入和教育支出对于设计产业也有明显的促进。     

The Sun Also Rises: Productivity Convergence Between Japan and the USA

The growth process for a technological leader is different from that of a follower. While followers can grow through imitation and capital deepening, a leader must undertake original research. This suggests that as the gap between the leader and the follower narrows, the follower must undertake more genuinely innovative R&D and possibly face a slower overall growth rate. The results of a dynamic panel equilibrium-correction model of productivity growth suggest that the productivity gap with the USA had a strong effect on the growth of Japanese manufacturing, and that changes in R&D intensity also made a significant contribution. Moreover, the effect of the productivity gap was significantly higher in industries that had higher R&D intensities, higher levels of human capital, and were more open to exports. This paper is based upon Chapter 5 of my D.Phil. thesis at the University of Oxford. It was partly written while I was a Visiting Scholar at the Foundation for Advanced Information & Research, Tokyo, and was supported by a Sanwa Bank Foundation Research Fellowship and ESRC grants R000234954 and R000237500.     

中国可持续经济增长方式研究—基于1990-2007年间各省市的面板数据

在Lucsa(1988)模型基础上,以1990-2007年各省、市、自治区的面板数据计算中国的全要素生产率,通过对中国经济的全要素生产率的分解.考察各主要因素对经济增长的作用以及它们的变化情况,可以发现:中国的经济增长严重依赖投资拉动,技术进步与人力资本在中国经济增长中的作用不断提高,而较高的行政支出对经济增长起了比较明显的负作用.     

How does the flow of remittances affect the trade balance of the Middle East and North Africa?

ABSTRACT

The Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) economies have one of the highest degrees of dependency on received remittances worldwide. In this study, we have examined the role of remittances in the trade balance of 11 labour abundant MENA countries. Our panel regression analysis showed that the inflow of remittances has fostered the trade deficit. We also found that the final effect of remittances depends on the level of domestic capital formation. The results are robust after controlling for other drivers of trade deficit such as income, inflation, exchange rate and institutions as well as country and year fixed effects.     

Testing the Bhaduri–Marglin model with OECD panel data

The Bhaduri–Marglin model is a post-Kaleckian model that allows one to study the impact of a functional income distribution on the growth in demand. Over recent years, a number of empirical studies based on this model have aimed at determining whether a redistribution towards profits harms or fosters demand growth. The focus so far has been on a very limited number of countries. This paper is the first to test the Bhaduri–Marglin model with panel data. It finds that demand growth is reduced by a redistribution towards profits in the average OECD country. Productivity growth is also impaired.     

What's behind the rise in profitability in the US in the 1980s and 1990s?

Profitability in the US has been rising since the early 1980sand by 1997 was at its highest level since its post-World WarII peak in the mid-1960s, and the profit share, by one definition,at its highest point. In this paper, I examine the role of thechange in the profit share and capital intensity, as well asstructural change, on movements in the rate of profit between1947 and 1997. Its recent recovery is traced to a rise in theprofit share in national income, a slowdown in capital–labourgrowth at the industry level, and employment shifts to relativelylabour-intensive industries.     

Firm performance,corporate governance and executive compensation in Pakistan

This study examines the effects of firm performance and corporate governance on chief executive officer (CEO) compensation in an emerging market, Pakistan. Using a more robust Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation approach for a sample of non-financial firms listed at Karachi Stock Exchange over the period 2005–2012, we find that both current- and previous-year accounting performances has positive influence on CEO compensation. However, stock market performance does not appear to have a positive impact on executive compensation. We further find that ownership concentration is positively related with CEO compensation, indicating some kind of collusion between management and largest shareholder to get personal benefits. Inconsistent with agency theory, CEO duality appears to have a negative influence, while board size and board independence have no convincing relationship with CEO compensation, indicating board ineffectiveness in reducing CEO entrenchment. The results of dynamic GMM model suggest that CEO pay is highly persistent and takes time to adjust to long-run equilibrium.     

Do inter-sectoral flows of services matter for productivity growth? an input/output analysis of OECD countries

This article investigates the impact of technology-intensive services sectors on direct and indirect labour coefficients in a sample of OECD countries. We find that both domestic and imported services contribute to increase productivity. We also find that different service industries (transport, communication, financial, and business services) have a different impact on technological change in non-service sectors classified according to the Pavitt taxonomy.     

Technical change and total factor productivity growth for Swedish manufacturing and service industries

This article presents alternative specifications of the production functions of a large panel of Swedish firms for the period 1992 to 2000. The period can be characterized as a transition when long-run productivity growth in the Swedish economy improved from being among the weakest to one of the strongest within the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In order to present a detailed exploration of this dramatic change, the time trend and general index models are applied to estimate Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth, rate of technical change and returns to scale. The models are extended to allow for firm specific as well as time-varying technical change. The parametric TFP measures are also compared with the nonparametric Solow residual, and several hypotheses are tested to explain the growth patterns in the Swedish economy. It is found that the improved growth rate, initially starting in large exporting manufacturing firms, after a deep economic crisis at the beginning of the 1990s, spilled over to the rest of the economy, both manufacturing and services.     

Evaluating innovation and labour market relationships: the case of Italy

In this paper the link between labour market flexibility andinnovation is analysed paying particular attention to the differenttechnological regimes of economic activities and the differentgeographical areas of the Italian economy. A dynamic panel dataspecification is used to assess the endogenous relationshipbetween patents, included as a proxy for innovation, and jobturnover and wages, which represent labour market indicators.Our results show that higher job turnover only has a significantand negative impact on patent activities in regional sectorsof Northern Italy, while blue and white collar wages have beengenerally found to have a positive and significant impact oninnovation.     

Financial crisis and hotels’ labour productivity growth: evidence from Spanish islands

The article examines hotels’ labour productivity growth over the period of financial crisis. We decompose hotels’ labour productivity into three components: technological change, technological catch-up (efficiency improvement/convergence) and capital deepening. Specifically, we apply our analysis over a sample of 820 Spanish hotels from Balearic and Canary Islands distinguishing three different stages during the crisis period. The results suggest that average terms hotels’ labour productivity was resistant to the financial crisis.     

财政支农支出与农业经济增长方式的关系研究——基于省际面板数据的实证分析

基于我国1978～2009年间的省际动态面板数据,估计了中国28个省份农业TFP变动情况,然后考察了1978～2006年间我国政府财政支农支出的总量和结构对农业TFP的影响。研究表明,1978年以来我国政府财政支农支出总体上提升了TFP,其中经济性支出比社会性和转移性支出对TFP有更大的提升作用。此外不同性质的支出项目对TFP的拉动效应在区域间存在着较大差异。     

Trade Creation and Diversion Effects of Europe's Regional Liberalization Agreements

After a short review of recent developments in gravity modeling and an overview of the liberalization agreements in Europe, this paper measures the trade creation and diversion effects of major European agreements based on the results of a correctly specified triple-indexed gravity model with bilateral fixed effects. Discussion of the resulting trade creation and diversion focuses on the role of partner and non-partner country characteristics including size and relative factor endowments, as well as date, reciprocity, industry coverage, and rate of liberalization characteristics of the agreement.     

Atypical work: a threat to labour productivity growth? Some evidence from Italy

Various theories suggest the existence of a negative relationship between the use of atypical employment contracts and productivity growth, arguing that firms’ utilisation of atypical contracts may reduce the incentive to innovate and internal training, inducing firms to follow a ‘low-road’ to competitiveness, based upon cost-cutting strategies.

This paper aims to provide new evidence on the occurrence of these effects in the Italian economy, where changes in labour legislation from the mid-Nineties onwards, associated with an ‘institutional’ wage moderation period, have brought about a significant process of job creation, but also an appreciable slowdown in labour productivity.

This issue is investigated using a microeconomic approach, taking a rich source of microdata for firms and estimating a dynamic model for labour productivity on a pseudo-panel of firms for the period 2003-2008.

The results support the hypothesis of a negative impact of external labour flexibility on labour productivity growth at firm level, such effect proving stronger for small and medium than for large enterprises and of varying magnitude for the different atypical contracts.     

The predictive value of subjective labour supply data: A partial-adjustment model with measurement error

This paper tests the predictive value of subjective labour supply data for adjustments in working hours over time. The idea is that if subjective labour supply data help to predict working hours, the subjective data must contain at least some information on individual labour supply preferences. In this paper, I formulate a partial-adjustment model that allows for measurement error in the observed variables. Applying estimation methods that are developed for dynamic panel data models, I find evidence for a predictive power of subjective labour supply data concerning desired working hours in the German Socio-Economic Panel 1988–1995.I wish to thank John Haisken-DeNew, Astrid Kunze, Markus Pannenberg, Winfried Pohlmeier, Frank Windmeijer, Rainer Winkelmann, my former colleagues at IZA and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments. The author gratefully acknowledges DIW for providing the data.First version received: December 2001/Final version received: December 2003