Productivity,price recovery,capacity constraints and their financial consequences

Mining and fishing are both extractive industries, although one resource is renewable and the other is not. Miners and fishers pursue financial objectives, although their objectives may differ. In both industries financial performance is influenced by productivity and prices. Finally, in both industries capacity constraints influence financial performance, perhaps but not necessarily through their impact on productivity, and both industries encounter external as well as internal capacity constraints. In this study we develop an analytical framework that links all four phenomena. We use return on assets to measure financial performance, and our analytical framework is provided by the duPont triangle. We measure productivity change in two ways, with a theoretical technology-based index and with empirical price-based indexes. We measure price change with empirical quantity-based indexes. We measure internal capacity utilization by relating a pair of output quantity vectors representing actual output and full capacity output, and we develop physical and economic measures of internal capacity utilization. We also show how external capacity constraints can restrict the ability to reach full capacity output. The analytical framework has productivity change, price change and change in capacity utilization influencing change in return on assets.     

Government wage differentials

This paper shows that public sector wages usually exceed private but the size and composition of the differentials depend on sex and level of government. Using a technique derived from the literature on sex discrimination, these differentials are decomposed into a portion attributable to differences in productivity between the two types of workers and a portion ascribed to economic rent. This rent results from public workers' relatively greater political influence in the government wage-setting process and a systematic upward bias in public wages imparted by present government pay policy.     

Regional migration in Spain: the effect of personal characteristics and of unemployment,wage and house price differentials using pooled cross-sections

We present an empirical model of individual migration using time-series of cross-sections from the Spanish Labour Force Surveys 1987–1991. Personal characteristics not only have an important direct effect on migration decisions but also alter the effect of regional variables. We find that the estimated probability of migration for the unemployed not registered, who are known for certain not to receive benefit, is higher than that of the employed which in turn is higher than that of the unemployed registered, which includes all the benefits recipients. An important finding is that the effect of regional unemployment on migration is positive for the unemployed not registered but is important and negative for those registered.     

Estimating wage differentials without logarithms

Regression models of wage determination are typically estimated by ordinary least squares using the logarithm of the wage as the dependent variable. These models provide consistent estimates of the proportional impact of wage determinants only under the assumption that the distribution of the error term is independent of the regressors — an assumption that can be violated by the presence of heteroskedasticity, for example. Failure of this assumption is particularly relevant in the estimation of the impact of union status on wages. Alternative wage-equation estimators based on the use of quasi-maximum-likelihood methods are consistent under weaker assumptions about the dependence between the error term and the regressors. They also provide the ability to check the specification of the underlying wage model. Applying this approach to a standard data set, I find that the impact of unions on wages is overstated by a magnitude of 20-30 percent when estimates from log-wage regressions are used for inference.     

Inter-city wage differentials and intra-city workplace centralization

We explore the interaction of inter-city and intra-city wage differentials by occupation. The paper makes two main contributions. 1) We construct an occupation-specific index of workplace centralization that accounts for the difference between average employment density from the perspective of employees in each occupation and average employment density from the perspective of all employees. 2) We provide empirical evidence that relative wages of central to non-central occupations increase with city size, or equivalently, the elasticity of wages with respect to city size increases with occupational centrality. We conjecture that this empirical regularity arises because, as city size increases, workers in more central occupations face an increasingly less desirable locus of housing prices and commuting times relative to workers who have jobs in residential areas. The results are robust to the inclusion of individual-specific human capital variables and city-specific fixed effects.     

Wage curve, unemployment duration and compensating differentials

In this study unemployment effects on individual pay are investigated following the study on ‘wage curves’ by Blanchflower and Oswald (1990). In bargaining models, higher unemployment should lower wage pressure; due to compensating wage differential arguments, on the other hand, workers who take jobs with higher layoff risks should be rewarded. In a cross-sectional study on Austrian data, a negative wage curve is confirmed. Contrary to the results by Blanchflower and Oswald no U-shape is found, also long-term unemployment seems to be important. No conclusive evidence of compensating differentials has been determined.     

Intraurban manufacturing location decisions and local tax differentials

This study examines the role that fiscal factors play in the intrametropolitan location decisions of manufacturing firms. Emphasis is placed on analyzing location choices of relocating firms, rather than existing patterns of economic activity or estimating changes in net employment. The results indicate that the property tax rate is a significant location factor to relocating firms selecting sites within an urban area and that income tax differentials have a negative but weak influence on those decisions. The location disincentives of property taxes are strongest for large firms and tend to decrease with firm size.     

Firm turnover and productivity differentials in Ethiopian manufacturing

Are the forces of market selection at work in Africa? How successful are markets in these economies in sorting out firms on an efficiency basis following the sequence of reforms to liberalize and particularly to transform some of the previous command economies to market oriented ones? What is the pattern of entry and exit in the manufacturing sector and how does it affect industry productivity growth? This study examines these issues using firm-level industrial census data from the Ethiopian manufacturing sector. It is the first attempt to analyze firm turnover and productivity differentials using industrial census data in sub-Saharan Africa. The Ethiopian manufacturing sector exhibits a high firm turnover rate that declines with size. Exit is particularly high among new entrants; 60% exit within the first 3 years in business. Our study consistently shows a significant difference in productivity across different groups of firms, which is reflected in a turnover pattern where the less productive exit while firms with better productivity survive. We also found higher aggregate productivity growth over the sample period, mainly driven by firm turnover.     

Regulation and Productivity

We investigate the impact of occupational safety and health (OSH) and environmental regulation on the rate of growth of total factor productivity (TFP) in the Quebec manufacturing sector during the 1985–88 period. Our results show that environmental regulation and OSH protective reassignments (a prevention policy with respect to OSH) have led to a reduction in productivity growth, while the presence of mandatory prevention programs and of fines for infractions to OSH rules have led to an increase in productivity growth. Interestingly, this is, to our knowledge, the first result showing that OSH regulation may have had a positive effect on productivity growth.     

The pervasive absence of compensating differentials

We study the relation between individual preferences for job amenities (e.g., type of work, job security) and compensating wage differentials in cross‐section. To this end, we estimate a partial equilibrium job search model on panel data from eight European countries. There are five non‐wage job characteristics and two sources of job‐to‐job mobility: on‐the‐job search and reallocation shocks. We also allow for two types of unobserved heterogeneity. We find strong preferences for amenities, especially job security, yet, these preferences do not translate into significant wage differentials in cross‐section. Counterfactual experiments show that one would need extremely low levels of search frictions for compensating differentials to arise. Lastly, a similar exercise on the distribution of job change outcomes reveals the role of constrained job‐to‐job mobility in the absence of compensating wage differentials. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Productivity and Welfare

Technical change is generally characterized by a rate and biases, both evaluated for given producer prices. This paper examines the potential discrepancy between this rate and the corresponding rate of consumer welfare change as measured by Allais distributable surplus. We postulate a general equilibrium context with various market failures (taxes, quotas, imperfect competition, and “poorly priced” commodities), and use comparative statics to express the rate of welfare change in terms of the rate and biases of the technical change. An elementary simulation model of a taxed economy suggests that the rate of welfare change may differ from the rate of technical change by as much as 50% under plausible circumstances.     

Increase of electricity price and energy efficiency: analysis using the macroeconomic interindustry model of Taiwan

From 2012 to 2013, the price of electricity in Taiwan increased by 19.78%. This large increase forced producers to invest in improving electricity efficiency. In this paper, the macroeconomic interindustry model of Taiwan (MEIT) is developed to study the economic effects of high electricity prices and consequential improvement in energy efficiency. MEIT describes the structure of 47 industries, from both real and price-income approaches. To resolve inconsistent data, RAS is employed. A technical model is also integrated to consider technical feasibility, which offsets the usual shortcomings of technological analysis in an economic model. The iron and steel industry is taken as a case study. Estimated results indicate that higher electricity prices negatively affect Taiwan’s economy. However, improving energy efficiency can reduce some of this effect.     

Inter-city wage differentials and the value of air quality

This paper proposes a method of valuing air quality based on differences in wages among cities. Using an urban location model it is shown that the supply of labor to any city increases with the real wage and with air quality in the business district. If individuals have log-linear utility functions then the value at home and at work of an equal proportionate reduction in pollution throughout the city can be computed from the coefficients of the labor supply function. The computations are illustrated for one-digit labor supply functions estimated from 1970 Census data.     

Environmental policies,national culture,and stock price crash risk: Evidence from renewable energy firms

This study investigates the impact of country‐level environmental performance and national culture on the stock price crash risk of renewable energy firms. Employing a large sample of 626 renewable energy firms across 31 countries, we find a significant nonlinear relationship between country‐level environmental performance and crash risk. National culture dimensions are found to strongly predict the crash risk of renewable energy firms, particularly after the global financial crisis. On the contrary, national culture dimensions and environmental policies are observed to not exert any significance in explaining the crash risk of fossil fuel firms. Our results are robust with respect to alternative measures of stock price crash risk and the endogeneity of national culture dimensions. Overall, the findings of this paper contribute to the environmental economics literature by providing new evidence regarding the role of societal and environmental factors in explaining the stock price crash risk of energy firms.     

Compensating differentials in teachers' salaries

Using a sample of 1419 school districts from six states, this paper investigates the importance of compensating wage differentials in the teaching profession. Particular attention is paid to the role of locational amenities such as crime, climate, and the cost of living in the determination of teacher's salaries. Evidence is produced supporting the hypothesis that nominal wages adjust, ceteris paribus, to geographical variation in the cost of living to keep real wages constant. Wages are also found to be quite responsive to changes in the climate.     

Productivity agreements and productivity

The effectiveness of productivity agreements as an agency for increasing productivity would be greatly enhanced by approaching the production process as a highly complex “system”, instead of assuming a simple relationship between labour effort and higher productivity.     

Analysis of technology pathway of China's liquid fuel production with consideration of energy supply security and carbon price

Efforts to provide alternative resources and technologies for producing liquid fuel have recently been intensified. Different levels of dependence on oil imports and carbon prices have a significant impact on the composition of the cost-minimizing portfolio of technologies. Considering such factors, how should China plan its future liquid fuel industry? The model for supporting the technology portfolio and capacity configuration that minimizes the total system cost until 2045 is described in this study. The results obtained for different carbon prices and levels of dependence on oil import indicate that the oil-to-liquid fuel (OTL) will remain dominant in China's liquid fuel industry over the next three decades. If the carbon price is low, the coal-to-liquid fuel (CTL) process is competitive. For a high carbon price, the biomass-to-liquid fuel (BTL) technology expands more rapidly. The results also reveal that developing the BTL and CTL can effectively reduce the oil-import dependency; moreover, a high carbon price can lead to the CTL being replaced with the low-carbon technology (e.g., BTL). Improvement in energy raw material conversion and application of CO₂ removal technologies are also effective methods to control carbon emissions for achieving the carbon emission goals and ultimately emission reduction targets.     

Exploring efficiency differentials between Saudi higher education institutions

There have been considerable public debates surrounding the efficiency of Saudi higher education institutions, specifically after Vision 2030. We explore the efficiency of institutions of higher learning in Saudi Arabia. Panel data from 61 higher education institutions are employed for the academic years 2008–2014 to estimate efficiency scores. Also, second stage regression analysis was employed to identify the main determinants of efficiency scores. We conclude that despite exponential growth in government funding for the higher education sector, technical efficiencies remained almost stagnant over the study period along with a persistence of inefficiencies. Second stage regression results confirm that institution ownership itself does not have a significant effect on efficiency scores. However, being a university and acquiring more than 20 years of experience have a positive impact on efficiency scores. An increase in both lower secondary completion rates and percentage of female students in secondary general education increases efficiencies, whereas higher employment to population ratio and increasing female academic staff ratio in tertiary education reduces institutional efficiencies.     

Estimating a tournament model of intra-firm wage differentials

We consider the estimation of a tournament model with moral hazard (based on Rosen (1986), AER)) when only aggregate data on intra-firm employment levels and salaries are available. Equilibrium restrictions of the model allow us to recover parameters of interest, including equilibrium effort levels in each hierarchical stage of the firm. We illustrate our estimation procedures using data from major retail chains in the US. We find that only a fraction of the wage differential directly compensates workers for higher effort levels, implying that a large portion of the differentials arises to maintain incentives at lower rungs of the retailers.