COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PLANT DYNAMICS BY SIZE: KOREAN MANUFACTURING

A comparative analysis on Korean manufacturing plants is performed by size of plants and sources of TFP growth are decomposed into entry, exit, and survival effects of plants, focusing on the pre- and post-crisis periods. Additional survival analyses investigate internal and external determinants of the survival of plants. The results indicate that the exit of small- and medium-sized establishments (SMEs) with higher productivity is becoming problematic in the post-crisis period. The improvements in large-scale establishments (LSEs) after the crisis appeared to occur generally in high-technology industrial sectors; SMEs in low-technology industries are suffering from a sluggish market selection process.     

Competitive bargaining equilibrium

In a simple exchange economy we propose a bargaining procedure that leads to a Walrasian outcome as the agents become increasingly patient. The competitive outcome therefore obtains even if agents have market power and are not price-takers. Moreover, where in other bargaining protocols the final outcome depends on bargaining power or relative impatience, the outcome here is determinate and depends only on preferences and endowments. Our bargaining procedure involves bargaining over prices and maximum quantity constraints, and it guarantees convergence to a Walrasian outcome for any standard exchange economy. In contrast, without quantity constraints we show that equilibrium is generically inefficient.     

Phases of economic development and the transitional dynamics of an innovation-education growth model

This paper extends earlier analysis of the transitional dynamics of a growth model in which both human capital and innovation drive income expansion. Funke and Strulik [2000. On endogenous growth with physical capital, human capital and product variety. European Economic Review 44, 491-515] suggest that the typical advanced economy follows three development phases, characterized in a temporal order by physical capital accumulation, human capital formation, and innovation, and that the transitional dynamics of the model reproduce such a sequencing. I argue that other sequences of the phases of development are possible and show that the model can generate a trajectory in which innovation precedes human capital formation. This trajectory accords with the observation that the rise in formal education followed with a considerable lag the process of industrialization. U.S. income and educational time series data are used to corroborate the innovation-education trajectory.     

Technology clubs, R&D and growth patterns: Evidence from EU manufacturing

This paper investigates the forces driving output change in a panel of EU manufacturing industries. A flexible modeling strategy is adopted that accounts for: (i) inefficient use of resources and (ii) differences in the production technology across industries. With our model we are able to identify technical, efficiency, and input growth for endogenously determined technology clubs. Technology club membership is modeled as a function of R&D intensity. This framework allows us to explore the components of output growth in each club, technology spillovers and catch-up issues across industries and countries.     

Engines of growth. Innovation and productivity in industry groups

The diversity of technological activities that contribute to growth in labour productivity is examined in this article for manufacturing and services industries in eight major EU countries. We test the relevance of two “engines of growth”, i.e., the strategies of technological competitiveness (based on innovation in products and markets) and cost competitiveness (relying on innovation in processes and machinery) and their impact on economic performance. We propose models for the determinants of changes in labour productivity and we carry out empirical tests for both the whole economy and for the four Revised Pavitt classes that group manufacturing and services industries with distinct patterns of innovation. Tests are carried out by pooling industries, countries and three time periods, using innovation survey data from CIS 2, 3 and 4, linked to economic variables. The results confirm the specificity of the two “engines of growth”; economic performances in European industries appear as the result of different innovation models, with strong specificities of the four Revised Pavitt classes.     

The politics of growth: Can lobbying raise growth and welfare?

We consider a setup where lobbyist firms undertake contributions to an office-motivated policy maker in exchange for profit increasing regulations, in a general equilibrium model of R&D-driven growth. We find that, despite increasing concentration—which leads to higher prices and less varieties—lobbying may stimulate growth and increase welfare by means of an expansion in aggregate demand if its real costs are small. This conclusion is supported by a simple calibration exercise.     

Anticipation effects of technological progress on capital accumulation: a vintage capital approach

Due to embodied technological progress new generations of capital goods are more productive. Therefore, in order to study the effects of technological progress, a model must be analyzed in which different generations of capital goods can be distinguished. We determine in what way the firm adjusts current investments to predictions of technological progress. In the presence of market power we show that a negative anticipation effect occurs, i.e. current investments in recent generations of capital goods decline when faster technological progress will take place in the future, because then it becomes more attractive to wait for new generations of capital goods. In case that only investments in new machines are possible, actually a whole wave of anticipation phases arises.     

Error-correction based panel estimates of the demand for money of selected Asian countries with the extreme bounds analysis

This paper uses the extreme bounds analysis (EBA) of Leamer (1983, 1985) to analyze the robust determinants of the demand for money in a panel of 17 Asian countries for the period 1970 to 2009. These robust determinants are found to be unit root variables. Therefore, cointegration between these variables is tested with a recent time series panel method developed by Westerlund (2007). This method uses the error-correction formulation and has more power against the null of no cointegration. The results show that there is a well-defined long-run demand for money. Using the lagged error correction term from the estimated cointegrating equation, the short-run dynamic relationships are estimated. This paper, thus, suggests some useful guidelines to estimate other relationships with panel data.     

A nonsmooth, nonconvex model of optimal growth

This paper analyzes the nature of economic dynamics in a one-sector optimal growth model in which the technology is generally nonconvex, nondifferentiable, and discontinuous. The model also allows for irreversible investment and unbounded growth. We develop various tools to overcome the technical difficulties posed by the generality of the model. We provide sufficient conditions for optimal paths to be bounded, to converge to zero, to be bounded away from zero, and to grow unboundedly. We also show that under certain conditions, if the discount factor is close to 1, any optimal path from a given initial capital stock converges to a small neighborhood of the golden rule capital stock, at which sustainable consumption is maximized. If it is maximized at infinity, then as the discount factor approaches 1, any optimal path either grows unboundedly or converges to an arbitrarily large capital stock.     

Structural change in Finnish manufacturing: The theory of the aggregation of production functions and an empirical analysis with a plant-level panel

In this paper, structural change in the Finnish manufacturing industries is studied using the theory of the aggregation of production functions and longitudinal plant-level data for the period from 1980 to 2005. To characterise the nature of structural change in 12 industries, we examine the invariance of aggregate production functions over time. Aggregate production functions need not be estimated because, according to the theory of the aggregation of production functions, the invariance can be analysed by investigating the stability of capacity density functions, which describe the distribution of value added in these industries. Even though the shapes of aggregate production functions alter over time in most industries, there are differences in timing and in the degree of turbulence across industries. The analysis confirms that in some industries (e.g., the paper industry) the late 1980s marked the beginning of a period of relatively strong structural change. The food and communications equipment manufacturing industries are examples of industries for which the 1990s was a period of turbulence.     

Technical change and total factor productivity growth: The case of Chinese provinces

In the literature technical change (TC) is mostly assumed to be exogenous and specified as a function of the time trend or time dummies. However, some exogenous external factors other than time can also affect TC. In this paper we model TC via time trend (external non-economic) as well as other exogenous (external economic) factors (technology shifters). For this we define technology indices based on the external economic factors and the time trend. The specification of production function is then amended to accommodate these technology indices which are not necessarily separable from the traditional inputs. That is, these technology indices allow for non-neutral shift in the production function. In doing so we are able to decompose TC (a component of TFP change) into two parts. One part is driven by time and the other part is related to producer-specific external economic factors. The latter can further be decomposed into each external economic factors. The empirical model uses panel data on Chinese provinces. We identify a number of key technology shifters and their effect on technical change and TFP growth of provinces are examined.