Productivity and Internationalization: A Micro-Data Approach

An appropriate analysis of the effects of globalization requires a careful analysis of the various ways in which different firms operate in international markets. Micro data at the level of individual firms and employees can enhance our empirical understanding of the relationships between internationalization, firms, jobs and employees. These micro data become increasingly available. This paper provides an introduction to this special issue that illustrates the wide variation, richness and policy relevance of the emerging micro data driven research on the effects of internationalization and productivity.     

Explaining the Productivity Growth Gap Between China and India: The Role of Structural Transformation

Chinese and Indian aggregate productivity growth has been significantly different over the last 30 years. This paper studies the role of structural transformation in accounting for the aggregate productivity growth gap between two economies. We calibrate a neoclassical model of structural transformation for China and India. The model implies that higher productivity growth in China's manufacturing and agriculture accounts for most of the aggregate productivity growth gap between the two countries. According to the development strategy of China's government, China would start a new phase of structural transformation whereby employment is moving from manufacturing to services. Since the productivity growth gap in services is pretty small between China and India, if China wants to remain superior in relative productivity, it should improve the productivity growth rate of services. In contrast, the relative performance in India hinges on closing its productivity gap in agriculture and manufacturing relative to China.     

Productivity and technology in Nepal:: An analysis of foreign and domestic firms

This study uses plant level data from the census of manufacturing establishments to examine the production technology and labor productivity of foreign and domestic firms in Nepal. The results show that the capital intensity in foreign firms is higher than that in domestic firms. The statistical results also imply that foreign firms have higher labor productivity. A simultaneous equation model suggests that foreign firms are technically not more efficient than domestic firms. In fact, analysis indicates that foreign firms are technically less efficient. The foreign firms may have derived their competitiveness from capital intensive technology that is found to be one of the major factors to boost labor productivity.     

Technology convergence networks for flexible display application: A comparative analysis of latecomers and leaders

This study investigates whether systematic differences exist between the technology convergence networks of South Korea, a latecomer country in the field of flexible display applications, and Japan, a leading country. Data focusing on materials for flexible display applications were collected from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Co-classification analysis was performed for the two countries’ technology networks. The processed data were then analyzed using cluster and concentration index analyses. Cluster analysis indicates that South Korea has a homogeneous technology field, whereas inter-field technology convergence is active in Japan. The concentration index analysis shows that South Korea focuses on specific technology fields, while Japan actively engages in distributed technology convergence. Thus, this study contributes to understanding technology convergence by clarifying how technology is connected and integrated by latecomer and leader country in the field of flexible display applications.     

Poverty and unemployment in India: An analysis of recent evidence

This paper examines the association between poverty and unemployment using the data collected by the Indian National Sample Survey from October 1972 to September 1973. Data is analyzed for two states of India: Gujarat and Maharshtra. Contrary to the widely accepted view, supported even in the ILO reports, that the poor are too poor to remain unemployed, this paper highlights a clear association between unemployment and poverty (as measured by the per capita expenditure of households). Poverty is, however, more widespread than unemployment.     

Public and Private Capital Productivity Puzzle: A Nonparametric Approach

Is public expenditure productive? Is there a shortfall or excess in public capital investment? We address these old issues in the light of new econometric tools. It is argued that the Cobb-Douglas specification that ignores nonlinearity inherent in the functional relationship of the production technology causes incorrect estimates of input elasticities. To avoid possible model misspecification, we use Li-Racine generalized kernel estimation. This procedure is used to estimate the returns to private capital, employment, and public capital in gross state product from a panel of 48 states for 17 years. In contrast to previous studies, we find that the return to public capital is positive and significantly different from zero.     

Export Behavior and Firm Productivity in German Manufacturing: A Firm-Level Analysis

This paper examines the causal relationship between productivity and exporting in German manufacturing. We find a causal link from high productivity to presence in foreign markets, as postulated by a recent literature on international trade with heterogeneous firms. We apply a matching technique in order to analyze whether the presence in international markets enables firms to achieve further productivity improvements, without finding significant evidence for this. We conclude that high-productivity firms self-select themselves into export markets, while exporting itself does not play a significant role for the productivity of German firms. JEL no. F10, F13, F14, D21, L60     

A delayed revolution: environment and agrarian change in India

Slow growth of agricultural income has contributed to poor economicgrowth and poverty in India in modern times. The condition wasweakened by Green Revolutions in the last third of the twentiethcentury. Conventional accounts attribute the stagnation to institutionscreated during colonial rule in India. This article suggests,instead, that it derived from an environmental constraint. TheGreen Revolutions succeeded partly because state aid enabledpeasants to overcome the constraint in some regions.     

Major determinants of the share of manufactures in exports: A cross-section analysis and case study on India

Zusammenfassung Wichtige Determinanten des Fertigwarenanteils an Exporten: Eine L?nderübersicht und eine Fallstudie über-Indien. —Die Variablen Pro-Kopf-Einkommen, Industrialisierungsgrad, Bev?lkerungszahl und -dichte erkl?ren zusammen einen groβen Teil der Unterschiede im Anteil der Fertigwaren an den Gesamtexporten zwischen den einzelnen L?ndern. Die Einflüsse der Variablen auf die Fertigwarenanteile sind positiv. Auβerdem zeigt die Regressiorisanalyse der L?nderstudie, daβ mit der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung das relative Volumen der Fertigwarenexporte der Kategorie SITC-6 abnimmt und dasjenige der Kategorie SITC-7 zunimmt, worin sich die ?nderungen in den komparativen Vorteilen widerspiegeln. In Indien sind die ?nderungen des relativen Umfangs der Fertigwarenexporte verschiedener Gruppen im Zeitablauf ziemlich ?hnlich denjenigen, die in der L?nderquerschnittsanalyse beobachtet werden konnten.

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Resumen Principales déterminantes de la participation de productos industriales en la exportación total: Una comparaci?n internacional y el caso de la India. —Un análisis regresivo con corte transversal saca a relucir que las variables: ingreso per capita y grado de industrialización así como la población y su densidad explican gran parte de las diferencias internacionales con las que productos semi-elaborados y acabados participan en la exportación total de un pals. La asociación entre las variables exógenas y la variable endógena es positiva. Además se demuestra que con el desarrollo económico la importancia relativa de los productos incluídos en CUCI-6 disminuye y la de los productos correspondientes a CUCI-7 alimenta, lo cual refleja cambios en las ventajas comparativas. La aplicación del modelo al caso de la India demuestra que las variaciones de la estructura de exportación en el tiempo son.bastante parecidas a aquéllas que se pueden observar en el corte transversal.

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Résumé Les déterminants majeurs de la part qu’ont les manufactures dans l’exportation: Une analyse internationale et une étude du cas des Indes. — Le—reyenu par tête de population, le degré d’industrialisation, le chiffre et la densité de la internationales dans la part qu’ont les manufactures dans l’exportation. Ces variables population, ces quatre variables ensemble expliquent, en grande partie, les différences y exercent une influence positive. En outre, les régressions internationales démontrent que, avec le développement économique, le volume relatif des exportations de produits’manufacturés delà catégorie SITC-6 diminue, tandis que celui des produits de la catégorie SITC-7 augmente, ce qui reflète les changements dans les avantages comparatifs. Aux Indes, les variations dans les volumes relatifs de l’exportation de produits manufacturés des différentes catégories ressemblent largement à celles de l’analyse internationale.

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Riassunto Importanti determinanti della quota di merci finite per le esportazioni: una visione d’insieme di Paesi e uno studio di un caso preciso sull’India. — Le variabili reddito pro capite, grado di industrializzazione, numéro e densità délia popolazione spiegano irisieme una gran parte delle differenze nella quota dei prodotti finiti per le esportazioni complessive tra i singoli Paesi. Le influenze delle variabili sulle quote di prodotti finiti sono positive. Inoltre l’analisi di regressione dello studio di Paesi mostra che con lo sviluppo economico il volume relativo dell’ esportazione di prodotti finiti delia categoria SITC-6 diminuisce e quello della categoria SITC-7, crescej in cui si riflettono i mutamenti nei comparativi vantaggi. In India, i mutamenti dell’entità relativa delle esportazioni di prodotti finiti di diversi gruppi sono abbastanza simili a quelli che possono essere osservati nell’analisi trasversale di Paesi.

     

Technological Diffusion and Productivity Convergence: A Study for Manufacturing in the OECD

In this article is investigated the issue of total factor productivity convergence through international technological diffusion on disaggregate manufacturing panel data from 1970 to 1995 with respect to a set of OECD countries. Estimates of alternate growth equations imply conditional convergence in all industries. Leaving out the conditioning variables still implies a significant catch-up effect in a great majority of industries. These same industries are also characterized by σ-convergence and by a tendency toward a unimodal distribution of relative productivity levels. These results suggest that, during the period of investigation, total factor productivity growth performances in OECD manufacturing were dominated by transitional dynamics. Evidence in favor of the presence of a unit root in the technology gap between frontier and non-frontier countries is, therefore, misleading.     

Price convergence among Indian cities: A cointegration approach

Price dynamics in Indian cities were examined using cointegration analysis. We identified and calculated a common trend for prices in 25 major cities in India. Impulse response functions were obtained to calculate the rates of convergence to the prices and we found that the half-life of any shock is very small for Indian cities. Although a close to 3-month half-life seems too fast, there is some indication in the literature that half-life can be much smaller than the conventional rates of 3–5 years. We have calculated half-life using the panel unit root method, and found that estimates of half-life from cointegration analysis provide a faster convergence rate than estimates using the panel unit root method. We also analyzed how shock can be transmitted from one city to another and found no systematic behavior of transmission from one city to another.     

Productivity,Trade, and Institutional Quality: A Panel Analysis

Recognizing that gains historically attributed to trade capture instead the roles of institutions and geography, we estimate the relationship between labor productivity and trade for a panel of countries, 1980 to 2000. We use real and nominal openness as measures of trade. The endogeneity of trade and institutional quality is accounted for with instruments. Our trade instrument is based on a theoretically motivated gravity equation and uses a more comprehensive data set than in related studies. Fixed‐ and random‐effects and system‐GMM panel estimation methods address potential biases associated with cross‐section estimations. We find a robust relationship between real openness and labor productivity from the 1990s. Countries that trade more generate higher levels of productivity, supporting an institutional theory of growth. We find evidence that countries with low‐quality institutions benefit from openness to trade and that the positive effect of trade on labor productivity is lower for more populated countries.     

Bribery and firm performance in India: A political economy perspective

This study examines how corruption affects firm performance in India using data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey for 2013-14. A set of testable hypotheses is formulated with regard to the interaction between bribery and the political environment to capture the nuances of the effect of corruption on firm performance. To overcome endogeneity between bribery and firm performance, the study employs two-stage least squares instrumental variables estimation. The foremost finding is that bribery has significantly negative effects on firm profitability and labor productivity. This finding confirms the hypothesis that in India bribery “sands the wheels” of business. A further finding is that the negative effect of bribery on productivity is stronger in states run by right leaning parties, although there is no significant effect of party orientation on the relationship between bribery and profitability. This finding supports the hypothesis that tighter connections between business and government facilitate rent seeking that undermines productivity even as profitability is unencumbered. Finally, bribery is found to have more harmful effects on smaller and older firms than on larger and younger ones.     

中印制成品产业内贸易分析

本文通过对中印制成品产业内贸易的分析发现,首先,从静态的产业内贸易水平的考察来看,中印制成品主要是以产业间贸易的模式为主。其次,从动态产业内贸易水平的考察来看,中印的贸易增长主要是以产业间贸易为主要特征的。另外值得一提的是,对于边际产业内贸易指数不能纠正贸易不平衡性的问题也需要进一步的研究,以便找到更能真实反映边际产业内贸易的指标体系。     

中印制成品产业内贸易分析

本文通过对中印制成品产业内贸易的分析发现,首先,从静态的产业内贸易水平的考察来看,中印制成品主要是以产业间贸易的模式为主.其次,从动态产业内贸易水平的考察来看,中印的贸易增长主要是以产业问贸易为主要特征的.另外值得一提的是,对于边际产业内贸易指数不能纠正贸易不平衡性的问题也需要进一步的研究,以便找到更能真实反映边际产业内贸易的指标体系.     

Age and Productivity: Sector Differences

In most industrialised countries, the workforce is ageing rapidly. If ageing workforces affect sectors differently, the total impact of ageing will depend on the industrial structure of an economy. This paper measures the impact of changes in the age structure of establishments on productivity using representative linked employer–employee panel data. We argue that establishment age-productivity profiles might differ for various reasons. For example, the importance of physical strength and possibilities to compensate deficits in skills differ between sectors. We investigate differences in the age-productivity profiles between the (metal) manufacturing and services sectors. However, in our preferred specification that controls for several potential sources of estimation biases, we find no significant differences in the age-productivity profiles between these sectors.     

Regional disparity and convergence of electricity consumption in China: A distribution dynamics approach

One critical factor that affects China's achievement of its peak emission by 2030 is total electricity demand. The aim of this study is to examine regional disparity in electricity consumption in China. The analysis is based on a panel database which is compiled at the provincial level. A distributional dynamics approach is then employed to reveal the trend and movement of each province within the distributions in different regional groupings. The mobility probability plot (MPP) is also employed to provide detailed information on the probability of change in electricity consumption. The results demonstrate significant divergence presents across provinces, over time and within different regional groups. The results can pinpoint the transition mechanism within each region so that appropriate energy policy can be formulated to accommodate future demand in electricity for different regions in China. The results suggest that regional specific energy efficiency policy is needed.     

China and India： A Tale of Two Economies

I. Two Populous GiantsIt has been conventional wisdom to make comparison between the two geographicallylarge and populous countries, which share a long common border, have entrepreneurialtrading heritage, enormous internal diversity, large agricultural sectors, ancient culturesand almost five thousand years of histories. Both were noted for their economic prowess inthe past, albeit their more recent history of the last two centuries has been replete withdistressful colonization of one and eco…