Environmental impact of customs union agreement with EU on Turkey's trade in manufacturing industry

In this study, we analyse Turkey's manufacturing industry trade by estimating sectoral import and export demand equations for 1980–2000. The study aims to understand whether the trade in the manufacturing industry complies with pollution haven hypothesis, and whether the free trade environment provided by the customs union (CU) agreement altered the trade pattern of the clean and dirty industries. Results of our econometric models have shown that while CU positively affects the import demand, it does not have any significant impact on the export demand of Turkish manufacturing industry. In terms of the environmental impact, distinction between clean and dirty industries turns out to be significant for both import and export demand. In general, our findings suggest that both clean and dirty industries’ import demand increased during the study period. In terms of export demand, clean industries’ export demand declines whereas dirty industries’ export demand increases compared to the total demand.     

Market structure and pricing behaviour in Austrian manufacturing

The paper provides a formal model of price rigidities which is consistent with the observed difference in pricing across industries. The empirical test for a sample of Austrian manufacturing industries confirms the derived propositions. Concentration, inventoriability, export orientation, and disparities in firm size do not influence the price level directly but are shown to have an impact on the sensitivity of prices to demand and cost changes. Cost (demand) changes are less (more) fully transmitted into prices in concentrated industries.I am indebted to the participants of the Industrial Organization Conference held in Vienna in June 1992 and especially to Helmut Schuster and Karl Aiginger for valueble comments.     

Volatility spillovers between the oil market and the European Union carbon emission market

This paper examines the dynamics of volatility transmission between EU emission allowances (EUA) and oil markets using a range-based volatility measure. We propose a multivariate conditional autoregressive range model with bivariate lognormal distribution to capture volatility dynamics and volatility spillovers between oil and EUA markets. Our findings for Phase II of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme point to the existence of volatility dynamics and leverage effects and to no significant volatility spillovers between these markets. These results remained robust to other volatility measures and model specifications.     

Turkish trade unionists and Turkey’s membership of the European Union

In all the discussions regarding Turkey’s accession to the EU, little attention has been paid to the views of workers. This paper provides a statistical analysis of the views of over 6000 Turkish trade union members on Turkey’s EU membership. Parameters are estimated using multilevel probit models where the nested structures of workers into trade unions and federations were taken into account since they shared some joint characteristics because of belonging to these organisations. It confirms the extensive disillusion with the EU found elsewhere in Turkish society but more interestingly it disconfirms an idea that those inside the EU may too easily assume to be the case: that it is those with what might be considered modernist characteristics among the Turkish population who are most likely to be in favour of EU entry. The idea seems to chime well with assumptions that the EU is a progressive, modern force. But whatever the validity of such a view, EU entry is not in fact found to be the favoured goal of the young and the best educated: it is older workers who are the most likely to support entry and those who are educated to the highest level the most likely to oppose it. Amongst the main three trade union federations there is also a greater propensity of members of trade unions affiliated to Hak Is (the Islamic federation) to support entry than those in Turk Is (centre right) or DISK (historically the most militant).     

Measuring the impact of trade flows on employment in the Turkish manufacturing industry

This paper investigates the impact of export and import flows on the change in manufacturing employment using an accounting-identity based approach which enables the change in employment to be decomposed into the contribution made not only by trade but also by domestic consumption and productivity change. The analysis is carried over (i) four subperiods, two belonging to the period before 1980 when Turkey switched from a regime of import-substitution based growth to one of export-orientation, and the other two, to the period after 1980, and (ii) three tradebased categories; net exporting, import competing and noncompeting sectors. It is found (a) that trade has a more significant role to play in employment change in the post-1980 periods, (b) that this is observed more in the net exporting and noncompeting categories rather than the import competing category, and (c) that the switch to export-oriented growth in 1980 did not lead to export-based employment to be dominant in employment changes but has acted as a buffer in the sense that employment may either have grown much less or declined more severely if the post-1980 expansion of exports had not occurred.     

Measuring the degree of market power in the Greek manufacturing industry

This paper investigates the competitive conditions in the Greek manufacturing industry, estimates the net and the total welfare losses due to the possible existence of market power and investigates factors affecting the market power at sectoral level and over time. The bootstrap method is applied to assign measures of accuracy to the statistical estimates. The empirical results imply the presence of imperfect competition in the Greek manufacturing industry and the existence of welfare losses. Furthermore, the findings indicate that labor intensity, the sector size and the openness influence the market power at the sectoral level and labor intensity, while the number of firms and the openness affect the market power over time.     

Power laws and the market structure of tourism industry

In this article, we use both graphical and analytical methods to investigate the market structure of one of the world’s fastest growing industries. For the German and Italian datasets, we show that the size distribution of tourism industry is heavy-tailed and consistent with a power-law behavior in its upper tail. Such a behavior seems quite persistent over the time horizon covered by our study, provided that during the period 2004–2009, the shape parameter is always in the vicinity of 2.5 for Germany and 2.6 for Italy. Size of the tourism industry has been proxied by the lodging capacity of hotel establishments: hotels, boarding houses, inns, lodging houses, motels, apartment hotels, tourist villages, and tourist apartments. Data belonging to the EUROSTAT and ISTAT databases have been used for Germany and Italy, respectively. Our aim is not to provide the best fit to the data but simply to focus our attention on the right tail of the size distribution of tourism industry. Understanding the behavior of the upper tail is indeed fundamental to capture the structure of the market. This study adds a new evidence to the list of empirical phenomena for which power laws hold.     

E-commerce and the market structure of the recorded music industry

In this article, we study the impact of the development of e-commerce on the concentration of the recorded music industry in France, for the period 2003–2010. First, we find that over the whole period, CD sales, measured at the distributor level, are less concentrated online than offline. Second, we find that sales concentration online has increased between the early period of e-commerce (2003–2006) and the later period (2007–2010).     

Effects of the single market on the Austrian insurance industry

The integration of European services markets and the implementation of associated European Union directives open up formerly closed national markets to competition from the Single Market. The purpose of this study is to measure the effects of liberalization on technical efficiency and the productivity development of the insurance industry. As an example we construct efficiency frontiers for the years 1992 through 1999 for the Austrian insurance industry using Data Envelopment Analysis. We use the resulting efficiency scores also to construct a Malmquist productivity index for the transition period. In search for effects from the Single Market, returns to scale, economies of diversification, and distribution channels we relate efficiency and productivity measures to several firm specific characteristics. For this purpose we use unbalanced and balanced panels of individual firm data.All correspondence to Thomas Url. The authors gratefully acknowledge valuable comments from David Cummins, Finn Forsund, Shawna Grosskopf, Michael Theil, seminar participants at the University of Vienna, the University of Business Administration Vienna, the Austrian Institute of Economic Research, the Austrian Insurance Association, and the SOR-Conference Jena, the EOR Conference Brussels, the 25th EGRIE Conference Vienna, and two anonymous referees. Ursula Glavninger provided valuable research assistance.     

The behaviour of relative prices in the European Union: A sectoral analysis

Using multivariate unit root test methods, this paper investigates the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) hypothesis at the sectoral level across six European countries over the last 17 years. Evidence of mean reversion towards PPP is found for the relative prices of some sectors and countries. Mean reversion in relative prices is explained by cross-country and cross-sectoral characteristics such as the distance between countries, nominal exchange rate volatility, differences in GDP per capita, non-tariff barriers, research and development, advertising, industrial concentration and tradeability of the products.     

A modified logit model for time series with an application to the pricing behaviour of manufacturing firms in Australia

The modified logit model (Amemiya and Nold, 1975) is generalised to the case where the error term is autocorrelated. The asymptotic distribution (as n →∞ and T →∞) of a feasible GLS estimator of β is derived. Tests of linear restrictions on β and the significance of ρ are presented. The results of the applied work suggest that the factors which explain the pricing behaviour of manufacturing firms, as reported in the tendency survey conducted by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Westpac Banking Corporation, include historical inflation rates of up to 7 quarters and capacity utilisation. First version received: March 2001/Final version received: July 2002 RID="*" ID="*"  The first draft of this paper was written while the author was on study leave at the Department of Econometrics, University of Sydney, Australia.     

Factor market structure and technology choice in the Colombian brick industry

This paper examines the relationship between factor markets and an industry structure such that capital-intensity is correlated with size, and firms of different sizes coexist in the long run. Empirical evidence shows that wages vary positively with firm size after correcting for education, experience, turnover and firm location. Secondary source evidence suggests that capital access differs across entrepreneurs, according to their positions in Colombian society. These assumptions are combined in a model which can generate the industry structure observed. The alternative hypothesis that capital access improves over a firm's lifetime, so that industry structure represents a growth path, is examined and rejected.     

The impact of governing structure on the pricing behavior and market structure of public institutions of higher education in the U.S

The governance structure of a state university system is the relationship between the individual institutions and the governing board. We hypothesize that the structure will impact both the pricing behavior as well as the market structure of the institutions. The more centralized the governance structure, the more aligned it will be with the interests of the state government. Assuming that the state’s interest is to educate in-state students, those who are most likely to remain in-state therefore generating future tax revenue for the state, institutions with more centralized governance structure are more likely to offer in-state students a lower tuition price relative to out-of-state students. This hypothesis is tested with an OLS model using data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) for the 1997–1998 academic year. We find that the ratio of out-of-state to in-state tuition is greatest among those institutions with the most centralized governance structures. They engage in the highest level of price discrimination relative to institutions with other types of governance structures. Using the classification of instructional programs, we calculate a weighted average of the percent of duplicate degrees for each type of governance structure. We find that as the governance structure becomes more centralized, the percentage of duplicate degrees in a field decreases across institutions within the same state. This suggests states with a more centralized structure have less homogeneous institutions and educational offerings.     

The effects of market structure on industry growth: Rivalrous non-excludable capital

We analyze imperfect competition in dynamic environments where firms use rivalrous but non-excludable industry-specific capital that is provided exogenously. Capital depreciation depends on utilization, so firms influence the evolution of the capital equipment through more or less intensive supply in the final-goods market. Strategic incentives stem from, (i) a dynamic externality, arising due to the non-excludability of the capital stock, leading firms to compete for its use (rivalry), and, (ii) a market externality, leading to the classic Cournot-type supply competition. Comparing alternative market structures, we isolate the effect of these externalities on strategies and industry growth.     

Do Low Wages Stimulate Investment? An analysis of the relationship between distribution and investment in Turkish private manufacturing industry

This study analyses the relative impact of profitability and demand on accumulation in Turkish private manufacturing industry on the basis of the theoretical framework outlined by Marglin & Bhaduri (1990). The main motivation behind this analysis is to shed light on the demand aspects of the slowdown in accumulation in the manufacturing industry despite the increase in profitability during the structural adjustment episode. For this purpose, the ratio of investment to value-added is estimated as a function of the profit share and an accelerator term, namely the growth rate of value-added, using panel data for the 26 industries of the private manufacturing sector. The results show that investment is not responsive to the profit share, whereas growth has a consistent positive impact. This result is significant in explaining the inability of pro-capital income policies to stimulate manufacturing investments throughout the export-promotion era. The export boom maintained by the use of the existing capacity rather than by new investments shows the limits of export demand to compensate for the fall in domestic consumption out of wages. The results make a strong case against the argument that profitability enhances accumulation. Evidence shows that it is not possible to enhance accumulation and long-term potential for growth simply based on promoting profitability, without paying attention to the demand aspects.     

Supply‐chain trade and labor market outcomes: The case of the 2004 European Union enlargement

The structure of international trade is increasingly characterized by fragmentation of production processes and trade policy. Yet, how trade policy affects supply‐chain trade is largely unexplored territory. This paper shows how the accession of 10 Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) to the European Union affected European supply‐chain trade. We find that accession primarily fostered CEECs’ integration in global value chains of other entrants. Smaller integration benefits stem for East–West trade in services for lower‐skill activities. These increases in value‐added exports translate into sizeable job creation.     

Innovation behaviour of firms in a small open economy: the case of the Czech manufacturing industry

This paper describes the role of R&D and analyse its impact on productivity in the Czech economy in a CDM model. Four CIS waves (2001, 2003, 2006, and 2008) were used in the CDM model. The estimated low innovation input elasticity around 9 % describes the Czechs as poor innovators in the EU. This economy was a developing country until 2006 and we have observed a substantive FDI inflow since 1998. Multinationals have a higher sales share now and are an essential part of the economy. Multinationals engage less in innovation, but innovating MNEs spend more on R&D per employee and appropriate more from their innovated goods. The FDI inflow was a form of innovation wave. Innovation output is an important determinant for boosting productivity among SME’s. Public support had positive effect on innovation intensity; however, no additional effect on innovation output.     

Prices and market structure: an empirical analysis of the supermarket industry in Chile

This article investigates empirically the relationship between market structure and consumer prices in the supermarket industry in Chile. A panel of monthly data from 16 cities in the period January 1998–September 2006 is used. We find that, the more concentrated the industry in a city, the higher the prices, while the participation of major national chains in cities tends to lower prices. In terms of magnitude, this latter effect prevails over the former. Moreover, the dominant local chain is found to behave differently depending on whether or not one of the national chains is present in the city. Finally, we find that prices rise when a national chain acquires another chain and both were previously in a city (inmerge) while if only one of the two was present (outmerge), prices fall.