Fragmentation and vertical intra-industry trade in East Asia

East Asia experienced an unprecedented change in its international trade patterns in the last 10–15 years. To investigate this development, the paper decomposes machinery trade into one-way trade, vertical intra-industry trade (vertical IIT), and horizontal intra-industry trade (horizontal IIT), using finely disaggregated international trade data. Our empirical analysis confirms that the significance of vertical IIT drastically increased, while the relative importance of one-way trade dropped. In addition, our empirical results show no evidence that most vertical IIT conforms to the vertical product differentiation model. Rather, the explosive increase in vertical IIT is largely due to the expansion of back-and-forth transactions in vertically fragmented cross-border production processes. The findings show that vertical international production sharing did become an essential part of each economy in East Asia in the 1990s, particularly with the explosive increase in vertical transactions of machinery parts and components.     

On the periphery of the international dollar standard: Canada,Latin America,and East Asia

This paper focuses on how the world dollar standard works in two respects. The first is the dollar as a benign facilitator of international exchange both in private and official transacting. The second is the possibility of dollar encroachment on the domestic domains of weaker currencies. But this encroachment is quite different across more mature industrial economies such as Canada with long-term bond markets in comparison to more extreme encroachment in Latin America and less extreme in East Asia where domestic bond markets barely exist. It examines the risks in alternative exchange rate regimes for emerging markets where the term to maturity of finance is short, with external liabilities all dominated in foreign exchange, largely dollars. Problems faced by central banks in regulating money and exchange rates, and bank regulators in limiting default risks, are jointly considered.     

Fragmentation and parts and components trade: Comparison between East Asia and Europe

This paper argues that fragmentation theory is well suited for explaining the mechanics of international production/distribution networks in East Asia, in contrast with the traditional horizontal product differentiation model fitted for intra-industry trade in core Europe. Using finely disaggregated international trade data, patterns of international trade in East Asia and Europe, particularly trade in machinery parts and components, are carefully examined, and the gravity equation approach is applied to check the validity of the theoretical framework.     

Global managers and Japanese multinationals: internationalization and management in Japanese financial institutions

The paper examines the internationalization of Japanese banks in the 1980s and 1990s and the experiences of managers within them. These banks underwent a vast expansion in international activities in the 1980s, followed by an equally rapid contraction in the 1990s. Building on a series of interviews conducted in London and Tokyo in the period 1999-2001, the paper examines how this impacted on the careers and expectations of both Japanese and non-Japanese managers. The paper argues that the organizations have been fundamentally changed by these experiences and have become in varying ways ‘transnational social spaces’. The idea of multinationals as transnational social spaces is developed as a general way of linking flows (of people, practices and ideas) inside the firm to broader processes in the development of global political economy.     

Academic Linkages in Latin America:

SUMMARY. This paper reports results of a suryey on perception on industry/acadernia cooperatwe linkages, in particular, partner selection and managerial expectations from such partnership, and also potential diffculties involved in developing mtemgamzational alliances. The swey, conducted in Latin America, shows that intemational sbategic alliances are considered as a viable approach for academia to develop progrm leading to joint research, human resources exchange, and academic exchange, while for industry the cooperation represents the opportunity to build competitive advantage especially in domestic markets. However. the results also suggest that a number of obstacles need to be overcome.     

Latin America: economic and business context

This article offers a detailed view of key drivers for the wide-ranging economic reforms in the region during the 1990s, chiefly the Washington Consensus and the increased political stability. It highlights the key developments and results of the reforms in the areas of privatization (across industries), foreign investment and trade liberalization. It further provides insight into how the opening up of the regional economies resulted in multinationals penetrating and thereafter increasing their ownership of business across sectors, how, as a result, the public-sector share shrank during the period and how the local businesses adapted to this changed environment. The article also touches upon some key structural changes in the labour market as a result of the developments of the 1990s. This is followed by an exploration of the key themes and challenges facing the regional economies in the years ahead – economic, social and geo-political.     

Declining suburbs in Europe and Latin America

Suburban shrinkage, understood as a degenerative urban process stemming from the demise of the Fordist mode of urbanism, is generally manifested in a decline in population, industry and employment. It is also intimately linked to the global restructuring of industrial organization associated with the rise of the post-Fordist mode of urbanism and, more recently, the thrust of Asian industrialization. Framed in the discourse of industrial urbanism, this article examines the first ring of industrial suburbs that developed around large cities in their most rapid Fordist urbanization phase. These industrial suburbs, although they were formed at different times, are today experiencing specific mutations and undergoing profound restructuring on account of their particular spatial position between the central area and the expanding peripheries of the post-Fordist metropolis. This article describes and compares suburban decline in two European cities (Glasgow and Paris) and two Latin American Cities (S?o Paulo, Brazil and Guadalajara, Mexico), as different instances of places asymmetrically and fragmentarily integrated into the geography of globalization.     

Dollarization in Latin America: seigniorage costs and policy implications

This paper examines the seigniorage costs of official dollarization in 15 Latin American countries. We show that the total costs can be decomposed into two components: seigniorage transferred to the U.S. and seigniorage lost due to greater financial stability in the dollarized country. Results indicate that seigniorage costs and their components are significant, yet differ considerably across countries. A cluster analysis is performed to sort countries into homogenous sub-groups. At a stage with five sub-groups we find groups with increasing seigniorage burdens. At a stage with two sub-groups we can identify candidates for possible seigniorage revenue-sharing agreements with the U.S.     

China's Growing Influence in Latin America

This article examines China's growing influence in Venezuela and other parts of Latin America as it seeks to secure a steady supply of cheap oil and new export markets. In recent years, China has offered loans to cash-strapped nations in the region on better terms than those offered by the United States and other multilateral lending institutions. China's growing influence worries the United States and other global observers who fear the spread of anti-democratic and anti-capitalist views. China maintains that its only interest in the region is economic. The current political turmoil in Venezuela offers China the opportunity to assuage these fears by supporting the presidency of Juan Guiado.     

History Repeats Itself: Child Labor in Latin America

Child labor occurs on almost every continent in the world. Very few countries seem to escape this exploitative phase as they develop into fully industrialized countries. Child labor began during the eighteenth century in Great Britain and it continues in the twenty-first century in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Honduras. This paper offers an explanation for the persistence of child labor through history. The increase in the employment of children during industrialization is caused by an increase in the supply of children from poor and working-class families and an increase in the demand for child labor by the factory owners. Parents trapped in poverty have no other choice but to send their children off to work to contribute to the family income. Children’s wages, moreover, often make the difference between starvation and survival. Employers are happy to oblige the parents because children are more productive than adults in the new industrial regimen. As the principle of the division of labor has been applied to the production process, unskilled children replace skilled adults in factories, mills, and mines. Children are preferred to adults because they are cheap, submissive, uneducated and nimble. These economic forces are so strong that neither child labor laws nor mandatory schooling legislation are an effective deterrent against employers or families. Since history is repeating itself in the developing world by industrializing on the backs of children, alternative policies are recommend to cut this stage short so that the future generations of Latin America will become educated instead of exploited.

Credit rationing and macroeconomic adjustment in Latin America

This research attempts to provide an answer to the important question of whether sovereign borrowers of developing countries are credit rationed in international capital markets. After defining the type of credit rationing to be tested an econometric technique is developed and tested with the results casting doubt on the extent of credit rationing for 12 of 13 Latin American developing countries over the sample period 1965–1988. The test is limited in that it will not detect credible threats of credit rationing followed by macroeconomic adjustments to bring about an equality of domestic investment and national savings. This form of ex ante credit rationing could still be pervasive. Nevertheless it would appear that on the whole, Latin American countries are quickly able to adjust to anticipated shocks by a combination of policies to reduce the investment-savings gap.     

Urban class conflict in Africa and Latin America

Cet article adopte une perspective mondiale sur la base des travaux d'Amin, Frank et Wallerstein pour comparer les aspects de la lutte des classes urbaines en Afrique et en Amérique Latine. Le développement de pays spécifiques (Mexique et Nigéria) est décrit, avec une discussion plus détaillée des villes de Monterrey et de Kano. L'analyse est faite sur une base historique et cherche à établir que la nature de la lutte des classes urbaines s'explique dans une grande mesure par la façon dont une région est incorporée à l'économic mondiale. Les changements de relations entre les états semi-périphériques et une capitale multinationale située dans un état-noyau peuvent s'opérer avec succès de point de vue de ce dernier, mais ils entraǐnent une intensification de la lutte des classes qui gomme les avantages gagnés par les classes locales alliées ainsi à la capitale.     

Circular economy in Latin America: A systematic literature review

The purpose of this study is to identify circular economy concept trends of Latin America with regards to Europe, in which a systematic review of literature (SRL) was made using Scopus data in order to define the search, to select the relevant articles, and to analyze the results. Seventy‐one articles from Scopus were reviewed, and the analysis was complemented by the analysis with 57 documents from other scientific Web browsers such as Mendeley, Scopus, Academic Google, ScienceDirect, and SciELo which sum a total of 128 documents which the majority have come from Europe. Main concepts were identified, barriers and trends. The main conclusion was which the current concept is not very clear; in spite of Europe knows that limitation, Latin America is making the same mistake implementation.     

Characteristics of high-growth entrepreneurs in Latin America

Scholars and governments presumed that growing the rate of entrepreneurs would naturally result in economic and job growth, and entrepreneurship has widely been viewed as an important tool for developing economies. Yet recently scholars have questioned the empirical evidence regarding the actual contribution of entrepreneurship to economic development. Recent contributions to the field suggest that not all entrepreneurial activity has a positive effect on economic growth in developing regions. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) provides a unique lense in assisting the predictive capability of entrepreneurial motivation. In this research, we focus on what factors influence the motivation of some entrepreneurs to seek a high-growth model as these growth oriented entrepreneurs, usually associated with opportunity-motivated firm founding, are the most likely to actually create jobs in developing countries. We utilize motivation for founding, five entrepreneurial competencies and three firm characteristics to predict growth expectations of entrepreneurial growth expectations. Leveraging responses to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey from more than 100,000 entrepreneurs in 19 Latin American countries, we discovered the existence of a triple interaction effect amongst opportunity-based entrepreneurs with higher levels of education and an export orientation and their growth expectations. In discussing the results, we reflect on the public policy implications for promoting the desired types of entrepreneurship in developing regions.     

Fertility and female labor supply in Latin America: New causal evidence

We study the effect of fertility on maternal labor supply in Argentina and Mexico exploiting a source of exogenous variability in family size first introduced by Angrist and Evans [Angrist, J., Evans, W., 1998. Children and their parents' labor supply: evidence from exogenous variation in family size. American Economic Review 88 (3), 450–577] for the United States. We find that the estimates for the US can be generalized both qualitatively and quantitatively to the populations of two developing countries where, compared to the US, fertility is known to be higher, female education levels are much lower and there are fewer formal facilities for childcare.