Productivity dynamics and the cleansing effect of two recessions: Evidence from the manufacturing sector in Korea

In general, recessions provoke the exit of a greater number of firms from the market. Less productive firms are more likely to exit and release their former resources to the remaining, more productive firms. The present study investigates two recessions in Korea: the Asian financial crisis and the global financial crisis. The main objective of the present study is to analyse the process of creative destruction in a recession, specifically the cleansing effect. We measured total factor productivity using micro‐level manufacturing plant data from 1993 to 2013. We decomposed the source of the changes in total factor productivity to measure the cleansing effect in two large recessions. During the first recession in the 1990s, there was no evidence to support a cleansing effect hypothesis. In contrast, during the second recession in the 2000s, there was evidence of a cleansing effect. In addition, we found differences in market selection criteria in the two recessions; by the second crisis, the market selection criteria had changed to enable a more conducive environment for the creative destruction process.     

Good skills in bad times: Cyclical skill mismatch and the long-term effects of graduating in a recession

We show that cyclical skill mismatch, defined as mismatch between the skills supplied by college graduates and skills demanded by hiring industries, is an important mechanism behind persistent career loss from graduating in recessions. Using Norwegian data, we find a strong countercyclical pattern of skill mismatch among college graduates. Initial labor market conditions have a declining but persistent effect on match quality and skill mismatch early in their careers. Match quality of the first employment may explain up to half of the short-term and most of the long-term earnings loss from graduating in a recession.     

Global macroeconomic uncertainty

We empirically identify global macroeconomic uncertainty using a dynamic factor model, where the conditional variances of all factors are modeled as stochastic volatility processes. Applying this methodology to OECD data, we find the early 1970s and early 1980s recessions as well as the recent Great Recession of the late 2000s to be associated with increases in uncertainty at the global level, but heightened uncertainty during the early 1990s and 2000s slowdowns to be mostly confined to the national levels. We also find that global uncertainty unambiguously lowers national growth rates and raises national inflation rates, and that key macroeconomic variables like oil, commodity and stock prices as well as global liquidity act as drivers of the global dimension of uncertainty.     

The recession's effect on hospital registered nurse employment growth

Recessions are not uncommon in the United States, but the most recent recession is arguably the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Although recessions result in increases in national unemployment in most sectors of the economy, they have resulted in increases in registered nurse (RN) employment as many non-working married RNs re-enter the workforce when their spouses lose their jobs. Over the past decade, hospital RN employment increased by more than 400,000 with virtually all of this growth associated with the two recessions that occurred during this period. The most recent recession led to an increase in hospital RN employment that was not only unprecedented in size, estimated at nearly 250,000, but was marked by the employment of large numbers of RNs over 50 years of age. While national unemployment rates remain high, hospitals should prepare for an eventual jobs recovery when many RNs are likely to leave the workforce.     

Path dependence in net migration during the ICT boom and two other growth periods: the case of Finland, 1980-2013

This paper examines the path dependence of net migration surpluses and deficits by Finnish municipalities in the period of 33 years. Such spatial clustering revealed by spatial autocorrelation represents the spatial formations in which the development indicated by migration is statistically similar over the municipal borders. The results of survival analysis indicate that the chronic centripetal tendency of development generates higher path probabilities of a municipality staying in a surplus formation located in the main urban regions and an increased lock-in tendency compared with deficit formations in peripheries. Thus, the growth processes seem to translate into the self-reinforcing spatial formations of growth and decline in population, production and regional competitiveness suspended by economic downturns and recessions, and so this path dependence is cyclic and recurring, which means that paths constitute relatively short pulses. In the great surge of Information and Communication Technology industries in the 1990s, the spatial formations of migration were higher in volume and path-dependent, but against expectations, spatially less stable compared with more modest growth periods.     

跨国公司投资与区域产业竞争力研究—以上海浦东新区为例

区域竞争力从产业层面进行研究,才有现实意义,在经济全球化下,国内市场国际化竞争趋势日益明显,我国即将加入WTO也要求国内各地区必须培育产业竞争优势,本文提出和评价了研究跨国公司对投资地产业竞争力影响的5种方法,并以浦东新区为例,运用竞争力系数方法分析了跨国公司对浦东行业整体竞争力的影响,并就如何更好地利用跨国公司投资来提高区域的产业竞争力问题,提出了若干建议。     

Permanent and transitory components of recessions

We propose a generalization of existing empirical business cycle models that allows us to decompose recessions into permanent and transitory components. We find that the transitory component of recessions accounts for between 77% and 96% of the observed variance of monthly indicator series. Our results suggest the following three-phase characterization of the business cycle: recession, high-growth recovery during which output partially reverts to its previous peak, and normal growth following the recovery. In addition, we find significant timing differences between the permanent and transitory components of recessions; most notably the lack of the usual high-growth recovery phase following the 1990–91 recession. Final version April 5, 2001     

PRODUCTIVE RECESSIONS AND JOBLESS RECOVERIES

We explore international variation in business cycle dynamics to gain insights into the recent pattern of robust productivity growth during downturns (productive recessions) and weak employment growth during recoveries (jobless recoveries) seen in some advanced economies. We find that sectoral change is associated with productive recessions but that labor market rigidity can impede reallocation and reduce the probability of a productive recession. We also find evidence of a link between productive recessions and jobless recoveries and that recessions dominated by reductions to employment, rather than changes in average employee hours, are more likely to be associated with jobless recoveries. (JELF44, E32)     

Regime-switching approach to monetary policy effects

Even though monetary policy has kept interest rates at historically low levels, the Japanese economy has experienced long lasting recessions since the 1990s. In this paper, Japanese data are employed to conduct an empirical analysis of changes in the effects of monetary policy on the real economy. It is found that monetary policy effects vary depending on the phase of the business cycle and the lending attitudes diffusion indices. More precisely, policy effects are larger in recession but diminish in extreme recession, and monetary policy is more effective when lenders’ attitudes are severe but less effective when they are excessively severe.     

Asymmetry in the Response of Price-Cost Margins to the Level of Demand Across Booms and Slumps: the Case of U.S. Industries* I thank Editor of this journal and an anonymous referee for their helpful suggestions and

Haltiwanger and Harrington (1991) reveal that, while the gain from deviating

from a collusive agreement in an oligopolistic industry is greatest during booms, it

is most difficult to collude during recessions since forgone profits inflicted on

defection are relatively low in recessions. Their numerical simulations show that

firms price more countercyclically during recessions than during booms to deter

relatively greater incentive to defect in recession. This paper tests for a potential

asymmetry in the response of margins to the level of demand across booms and

slumps, using panel data covering 180 U.S. four-digit level SIC manufacturing

industries over the 1963-1987 period. The principal findings accept this theoretical

prediction. [L1, L6]     

The ‘Value’ of Europe: The Political Economy of Culture in the European Community

During the 1970s and 1980s the “cultural sector” became one of the primary motors for wealth creation in the European Community. At the European and national scales, a group of actors helped transform Europe's vast array of practices and services (tourism, heritage, books, audio-visual products, etc.) into “cultural industries” and pushed the EC to develop a common cultural policy to support these industries. Documenting these changes at the European scale, I argue that the perceived impact of cultural policy for particular national economic competitiveness was also significant. Italian MEPs and members of Italy's national government were especially important, as they fought to protect the country's historical heritage and promote tourism. France pushed the strongest and I show how that country's efforts were primarily intended to protect its audio-visual and publishing industries from the EC internal market's liberalisation policies, which were vocally supported by Britain because they would have served that county's national economic interests.     

THE EFFECT OF THE BUSINESS CYCLE ON FRESHMAN FINANCIAL AID

When the economy slips into recession, more needy students enroll in college, increasing the need for financial aid while resources for aid become more scarce. We use “Freshman Survey” data from the Higher Education Research Institute to observe changes in financial aid composition from 1980 to 2000. We use state‐level tax revenues, unemployment rates, and personal income growth as macroeconomic indicators. During recessions, we find that the burden of financing a student's college education shifts from states and institutions to families and federal programs. We also show that these macroeconomic fluctuations are increasingly volatile for underrepresented minorities. (JEL I22, H52, E32)     

Tariff liberalization and trade specialization: Lessons from India

This paper analyzes the effects of policy reform on the structure of India’s trade in manufactures, from 1990 to 2006. It computes comparative advantage indicators on the basis of disaggregated trade flow data and assesses the effects of trade liberalization on the evolution of India’s pattern of trade specialization. Industries where import tariffs have been reduced the most have experienced the highest increase in specialization. Moreover, trade liberalization has helped India improve its comparative advantage in industries with medium- to high-technology content, as well as in some of the industries enjoying the most robust growth in global demand. Liberalization policies have been instrumental in enhancing the international competitiveness of industries.     

我国物流业与三次产业的关联度——基于产业融合视角

运用灰色关联分析模型,计算了我国物流业及其子行业与三次产业的关联度,从产业融合的视角分析了我国物流业与三次产业的相互关系及融合情况,并基于投入产出表计算得出物流业与三次产业的感应度系数和影响力系数,以验证基于灰色关联分析模型所得的结果。结果显示:基于灰色关联分析模型和投入产出表所得的结果具有一致性,即我国物流业与三次产业具有较强的关联性,但物流业发展与国民经济发展不协调,物流业内部结构不合理。最后提出:通过促进物流业内部及外部融合,推动物流业结构调整、服务升级;促进国民经济各产业协调发展,提高物流业的竞争力。     

Viewpoint: Boosting Recessions

This paper explores the effectiveness of boosting, often regarded as the state of the art classification tool, in giving warning signals of recessions 3, 6, and 12 months ahead. Boosting is used to screen as many as 1,500 potentially relevant predictors consisting of 132 real and financial time series and their lags. Estimation over the full sample 1961:1–2011:12 finds that there are fewer than 10 important predictors and the identity of these variables changes with the forecast horizon. There is a distinct difference in the size and composition of the relevant predictor set before and after mid‐1980. Rolling window estimation reveals that the importance of the term and default spreads are recession specific. The Aaa spread is the most robust predictor of recessions three and 6 months ahead, while the risky bond and 5‐year spreads are important for 12 months ahead predictions. Certain employment variables have predictive power for the two most recent recessions when the interest rate spreads were uninformative. Warning signals for the post‐1990 recessions have been sporadic and easy to miss. The results underscore the challenge that changing characteristics of business cycles pose for predicting recessions.     

Changes in cyclical patterns of the USA labor market: from the perspective of nonlinear Okun’s law

The validity of Okun’s law has been debated because of the increase in cyclicality in aggregate hours after 1985. To investigate this, I measure Okun’s coefficients in three phases of the business cycle – recession, early, and late expansions. I found that an increased coefficient for aggregate hours is due to the increased responsiveness of the employment rate during late expansions and to the increased responsiveness of hours per employee during early expansions. These findings question the flexible labor market hypothesis focusing on firms’ firing behaviors during recessions. Rather, working hours’ flexibility represents a more prominent feature of the post-1985 USA labor market.     

Cooperative Strategy,Technology Innovation and Competition Policy in the United States and the European Union

The widespread adoption of joint ventures in the 1980s and strategic alliances in the 1990s by a spectrum of businesses across industries has resulted in cooperative strategy emerging as the corporate and business strategy of the global economy. Of further significance, however, is the relaxation by antitrust authorities in the USA and the EU of policies forbidding or restricting horizontal or competitor collaborations. Beginning in the 1980s, legislation, regulations and guidelines have established a business environment conducive to competitor collaborations. This evolution in competition policy is justified by the need for accelerating technology-based innovations at the firm level, thus improving competitiveness at the national level. The US government and the European Commission have provided firms with "safe harbors' to develop strategic technology alliances with competitors, albeit with notable differences in specific market share thresholds and emphases on qualitative versus quantitative perspectives in their respective competition policy frameworks.     

经济全球化、就业替代与中部地区的"边缘化"

20世纪90年代以来,随着我国对外开放程度不断加深、外商直接投资不断扩展,沿海地区的区位优势得到充分体现,以劳动密集产业和高新技术产业为主的制造业发展迅速,这些地区正在以一种反梯度模式进行着其特殊的"再工业化"过程,并形成对内地国有部门和传统工业地区的刚性就业替代。人口外迁、就业萎缩、经济地位下降,中部地区在经济全球化过程中正在显现被"边缘化"的趋势。     

Business cycle duration dependence and foreign recessions

This study revisits business cycle duration dependence in G7 countries by controlling for foreign recessions, defined as the number of other G7 countries in a recession. Estimates from regime switching logit models show that the monthly likelihood of ending an expansion roughly doubles for every extra G7 country in recession, but the end of foreign recessions do not affect the ending of recessions. They also show that recessions are duration dependent in all G7 countries, but expansions only in the United States and Germany. The economic importance of foreign recessions and duration in driving business cycle phase changes vary across countries.     

城市文化创意产业竞争力研究——广州与上海、深圳的比较

广州文化创意产业发展己初具规模,产业集中度也在不断提高,民营创意企业不断发展壮大,多种所有制度共同发展格局基本形成。通过建立城市创意产业竞争力指标体系,对广州、上海、深圳三个城市的文化创意产业竞争力横向比较,发现广州创意产业发展中还存在生产效率和创新能力较差、现有资源未得到最有效的利用等不足。以迈克尔·波特的竞争力“钻石”模型为分析工具,提出要通过强化政府调控,优化文化创意产业各生产要素,刺激文化市场需求,构建文化创意产业集群等措施来提高广州文化创意产业的竞争力。