ICT-specific technological progress in the United Kingdom

This paper analyses the impact of rapid technological change in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector on economic growth in the United Kingdom. We find that technological progress specific to the ICT sector accounts for around 20–30% of long-run labor productivity growth. We demonstrate that a permanent increase in the growth rate of ICT-specific technological progress will increase the investment expenditure share of GDP but lower the aggregate depreciation rate, while an increase in the return to investment in ICT will increase both the expenditure share and the depreciation rate.     

A note on the measurement of the slowdown in total factor productivity

Investigation of foreign exchange control generally focuses on the black market in currencies and the resultant welfare loss to the country under exchange control. But very little attempt has been made to formulate the internal income transfer from foreign exchange earners who choose not to resort to black market, to importers who receive the foreign exchange at less than free market rate. This paper quantifies such measures of income transfer as importer's cost savings, exporter's income transfer, and the transaction cost loss of the market. A case study is developed using the 1951–74 export figures of the state of Kerala in India, showing that the exchange-earning pure or net exporter pays a hidden subsidy to the exchange-consuming importer; and by extension, an exchange-earning agricultural region of a less developed country subsidizes the import-consuming industrial sector of that country.     

International flows of people and institutional change

International travel clearly increases human interaction over space and exposes societies to foreign influences, foreign ideas, and foreign institutions. Does international travel promote institutional change in a traveler's home country? This paper uses panel data from 149 countries to test the hypothesis of institutional change stemming from international travel. We generally find that foreign travel does not affect political institutions. In one sub-sample, we find limited evidence that international travel can be a determinant of institutional quality in the home country depending upon whether the home country is an autocracy or democracy.     

RCEP 框架下企业 OFDI 技术利益的理论机制与实证检验

区域全面经济伙伴关系协定（RCEP）合作框架下中国企业对外直接投资（OFDI）及其技术利益格局会深远影响成员国的后续科技创新与合作。本文基于上市公司面板数据，运用“熵权法”测算技术利益，结合企业、环境、东道国与OFDI特征研究中国企业对RCEP国家直接投资的技术利益实现问题。研究发现：对RCEP国家直接投资对实现技术利益具有显著促进作用；管理效率的提升强化技术利益的实现能力，高知识产权保护水平强化技术利益实现的动机。进一步分析表明，国有企业能实现更多的技术利益，而民营企业可以通过提高管理效率和知识产权保护水平提升技术利益实现水平；企业OFDI水平越高、东道国知识产权保护水平越高，技术利益实现效果越好；投资到RCEP国家的企业相比投资到“一带一路”国家的企业会获得更多技术利益。     

Transboundary Pollution and International Migration

We analyze the welfare effects of international migration in the presence of transboundary pollution. We use a simplified Copeland and Taylor (1999) model, where the (developed) home country's pollution abatement technology is superior to that of the (less developed) foreign country. If there is no trade, workers will migrate from the foreign country to the home country. The foreign country gains from migration, but whether the home country gains or not depends on the abatement‐technology gap and the magnitude of the coefficient of transboundary pollution. World welfare will increase under migration. If there is free trade in goods, international migration occurs when the home country specializes in the production of the environmentally sensitive good. In this case, migration will result in increased production of the manufactured good and increase the level of world pollution.     

Allocation of emission permits with leakage through capital markets

This paper analyses how tradable emission permits should be allocated to firms when capital is internationally mobile. When international environmental problems are attempted solved through uncoordinated policies between countries, it might be desirable for the home country to issue free emission permits in proportion to the use of capital in order to prevent leakage through international capital movements. The desirability of free emission permits will however be reduced if capital also can be employed in a domestic non-polluting sector. In this case, it may even be optimal to tax the use of capital in the polluting sector. It is also shown that it is always optimal to subsidise the use of capital in the polluting sector if the use of labour is taxed at an optimal rate. Finally, leakage does not affect the optimal domestic emission limit as long as appropriate capital subsidies and labour taxes are implementeed.     

Foreign and domestic R&D investment

A considerable share of R&D investment is due to multinational firms that simultaneously operate R&D bases at home and abroad. We develop a simple model of foreign and domestic R&D investment and test the model's predictions on a sample of 146 Japanese multinational firms’ R&D investments in Japan and the United States in 1996. The empirical results confirm that the foreign to domestic R&D ratio depends on relative technological opportunities and relative demand conditions, with foreign research expenditures responding to technological opportunity and foreign development expenditures responding to demand.     

Short-term policy in open semi-industrialized economies: The narrow limits of the possible

This paper develops a model to analyze short-term policy alternatives in semi-industrialized countries. The major points raised are the following: (i) There are two sectors, producing traded and non-traded goods. The latter is characterized by a fairly low elasticity of substitution and a high relative labor share. If the elasticity of substitution in the traded goods sector has an econometrically reasonable value, then short-run improvements in both the labor share and real income may well call for revaluation of the exchange rate and an increase in home good's price (prices of both goods being measured in wage units). (ii) If excess supply functions have Walrasian stability, such price changes will lead to deterioration in the balance of payments: On the other hand, devaluation-induced improvement in the balance of payments (with constant government expenditure) can lead to an improvement in real income, but reduces the labor share. (iii) If the economy is formally unstable, due to capitalists and laborers concentrating their expenditure demands respectively on the goods intensive in factor payments to themselves, then balance of payments improvement in a comparative static analysis may entail reductions in both real income and the labor share. (iv) If the additional realistic assumption is made that elasticities of excess supply functions for the two goods with respect to the interest rate are quite low, then in general improvement of all three targets (real income, balance of payments, and income distribution) will be unattainable. If in addition the government cannot finance expenditure changes by anything but money supply changes, then in general only one target variable can be attained. (v) Numerical sensitivity analysis based on Chilean data indicates that these (and other) rather pessimistic results hold for fairly wide ranges of ‘plausible’ parameter values, as long as the model's short-run Keynesian assumptions are maintained.     

THE WELFARE EFFECTS OF FOREIGN CAPITAL INFLOW WITH TARIFF-RIDDEN AND QUOTA-RESTRICTED IMPORTS*

The welfare effects of foreign capital inflow and changes in the foreign price and tariff rate of a tariff-ridden imported good are considered for a small country for both 3 times 2 and 3 times 3 trade models with a quota-restricted imported good (whose special case is a nontraded good). For the 3 times 2 model, foreign capital inflow does not affect home welfare when there is no tariff on imports, but it harms the home country if a tariff is imposed on the imports to the extent that the tariff-ridden imported good is more capital intensive than the exported good. On the other hand, for the 3 times 3 model the foreign-capital inflow benefits the home country if the tariff rate is below a certain level under the analogous capital-intensity assumptions. The welfare effects of changes in the foreign price of the tariff-ridden good and its tariff rate remain the same for both models.     

Competing to Outsource in the South

This paper analyzes foreign direct investment (FDI) competition in a three‐country framework: two Northern countries and one Southern country. We have in mind the competition of Airbus and Boeing in a developing country. The host‐country government endogenizes tariffs, while Airbus and Boeing choose domestic output and FDI. Wages and employment in the home countries are negotiated. We find that in the unique equilibrium, both Airbus and Boeing compete to undertake FDI in the developing country. This arises because the host country can play off the multinationals, which in turn stems from three factors: (a) oligopolistic rivalry; (b) quid pro quo FDI; (c) strategic outsourcing—FDI drives down the union wages at home if the host‐country wage is sufficiently low. However, if the host‐country wage is sufficiently high, the union wage increases under FDI. In such cases, FDI competition benefits the multinationals, the labor unions, as well as the host country.     

Foreign exchange reserve adequacy and exogenous shocks

One of the traditional benchmarks in international macroeconomics is that a country should maintain reserves that can cover at least 12 weeks of imports. The notion of reserve adequacy, however, is not static and is intimately associated with the occurrence of financial crises as well as exogenous shocks, with many observers using the reduction in reserves below this benchmark as a sign of fragility. This article provides a benefit-cost type approach to evaluating reserve adequacy. The benefits of holding reserves are evaluated using a dynamic random effects probit model of financial crises while the cost of reserve holdings (output loss due to an over-investment in reserves) is obtained from a panel growth equation. Using the methodology outlined above, the study finds that in small states, the optimal holding of foreign exchange reserves is approximately 25 weeks of imports, approximately 13 weeks higher than the international rule-of-thumb. This estimate of optimal reserve holdings is interrelated with the economic characteristics of the country, particularly its fiscal stance. Indeed, this article finds that countries with a prudent public expenditure management framework in place are able to hold a smaller stock of reserves without necessarily impacting the expected growth for the country.     

中国OFDI逆向技术溢出效应 的影响因素研究* ——基于国别面板数据的非线性门槛技术回归

本文首先对对外直接投资逆向技术溢出效应的机理进行了分析,然后以2003-2013年中国对外直接投资的13个主要发达国家的数据为样本,考察了中国对外直接投资逆向技术溢出效应的影响因素。本文的实证结果发现,中国与东道国之间的技术差距、东道国研发（R&D）支出、全要素生产率、人力资本、技术创新能力、制度环境是对外直接投资逆向技术溢出效应的正相关因素。同时,本文以技术差距作为门槛变量进行门槛效应检验,结果表明,技术差距存在单一门槛值,当中国与东道国之间技术差距较大时,技术差距对逆向技术溢出产生了正向影响;当技术差距缩小后,正相关关系仍然存在,但影响程度有所下降。     

Foreign Factor Ownership and Optimal Tariffs

In the presence of foreign factor ownership tariffs change not only the terms of (goods) trade but also income flows between countries. Assume that only the home country owns factors abroad. Then the optimal tariff is negative if and only if foreign factor ownership entails trade-pattern reversals. Trade-pattern reversals are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for a negative optimal tariff if the foreign country owns factors in the home country. Changes in the home country's tariff shift the foreign country's offer curve. This adds a new dimension to optimal tariff analysis.     

The effect of technology choice on specialization and welfare in a two‐country model

This study presents a simple two‐country model in which firms in the manufacturing sector can choose a technology level (high or low). We show how trade costs and productivity levels affect technology choices by the firms in each country, where the fixed cost of adopting high technology differs between the two countries. This depends on the productivity level of the high technology. In particular, if the productivity of high technology is medium and trade costs are not too low, then a technology gap between countries arises. In this case, improving the productivity of the high technology country reduces the welfare level of consumers in the country in which low technology is adopted. To compensate for the welfare loss of the country from the technological improvement, trade costs should be reduced.     

Rational Underdevelopment*

We propose a two‐region two‐sector model of uneven development, where technological change benefits either the lagging or the leading region. In this framework interregional transfers may lead to persistent underdevelopment; by raising wages, transfers reduce the chance of the backward region adopting a new technology and taking off. Due to uncertainty about which region benefits from technological change, the backward region may rationally choose to remain underdeveloped, while the advanced region continues to pay transfers. The model provides a rationale for cases, such as Italy's Mezzogiorno, where the same rich region subsidizes the same poor region on a continuous basis.     

Migration and optimal income taxes

The issue addressed in this paper is the optimal taxation of incomes earned in the home economy, and of incomes earned abroad, when people can migrate. As a preliminary, the optimal taxation of home incomes when there is migration and no taxation of foreign incomes, is discussed. Then in a more general setting, we deal with optimal taxation of different kinds of labour when another kind of labour is not taxable, and show how this bears on the taxation of foreign incomes. The last sections of the paper analyse a simple model in which people choose between taxable labour at home, taxable labour abroad, and untaxable labour. A condition is found implying that the optimal tax on foreign income is higher than on the home income of a person of equal utility.     

Labor market structure and offshoring

We consider a two‐country, two‐sector model in which a firm’s offshoring decision depends on labor market rigidities that impose additional costs on the firm. Firms endogenously choose their organizational form considering their productivity level and organizational costs. The costs generated by labor market frictions play a key role in determining the benefits of each organizational structure, and thus helps determine the conditions under which a firm decides to offshore. There are three different types of equilibria depending on the relative levels of the domestic and foreign labor market costs and the price of the intermediate input. In all equilibria, a relative rise in the domestic labor market cost increases the share of firms that offshore, while decreasing domestic integration. Furthermore, an economy with offshoring has a higher welfare level and a lower unemployment rate than it would under autarky.     

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Trade-Theory Analysis of Leakage Under Production- and Consumption-Based Policies

Without a comprehensive global climate agreement, carbon leakage remains a contentious issue. Consumption-based pricing of emissions—which could in practice be implemented with a full border tax adjustment (BTA)—has been forwarded as an option to increase the effectiveness of unilateral climate policy. This paper questions the economic rationale behind this approach, using a theoretical $2 \times 2$ trade model in which leakage occurs through terms-of-trade effects. We show analytically, first, that consumption-based pricing of emissions does not necessarily result in less leakage than production-based policies. Second, the sign of the optimal unilateral carbon tariff depends on the carbon-intensity differential between the foreign country’s exporting and non-exporting sectors, and not on the differential between home’s and foreign’s exporting sectors, as implied by the full BTA approach. Third, based on empirical data for the year 2004, our model implies that full BTA applied by the European Union on e.g. imports from and exports to China would—by shifting China’s production from the export sector with a relatively low carbon-intensity towards the more carbon-intensive non-export sector—actually increase leakage.     

Optimal Capital Taxation in a Neoclassical Growth Model

This paper studies the optimal factor tax incidence in a neoclassical growth model with a given share of government expenditure in output. In the Ramsey planner's optimization, the effect of next period's capital on government expenditure equals the given share of the marginal product of capital. Capital accumulation reduces the discounted net marginal product of next period's capital by way of increasing government expenditure. In order to internalize the distortion, it is optimal to tax capital income in the long run.     

Host country's strategic policies and multinational firm's choice of entry mode

This paper examines the effects of contract enforceability and market structure on a firm's choice between licensing and foreign direct investment. Clearly, the firm's choice impacts upon social welfare in the host country. Therefore, the government of the host country is likely to set contract enforceability for inducing the multinational firm (MNF) to choose a desirable mode of entry. The paper takes into account two different cases. In the first case, the host country does not have an incumbent that can compete with the MNF, and in the second case, it has one incumbent that can compete. The paper shows that the government's choice of contract enforceability is crucially dependent upon the domestic market structure and the domestic capacity to absorb the advanced technology of the MNF.