Struggle for Survival in the Deregulated Market: Re-commodification and Informalisation of the Taxi Sector in Stockholm

This paper investigates the process of the informalization of the Swedish taxi industry, focusing on how this process has been manifested in Stockholm’s taxi market. This process has been analysed partly in its particular, local and sector-specific context, as it has been affected by the deregulation of the taxi sector, and partly in its relationship to the broader context of economic and political changes to which all contemporary capitalistic (welfare) states are exposed. This study raises questions about actual common sense discourses on the issue of irregularities in the taxi industry, and offers an alternative perspective both on the ongoing process of informalization, and on the role of various economic actors in that process, including the state.     

The Right to Organize in the Philippine Business Process Outsourcing Industry

Abstract

There has been some concern over the past few years that nations with emerging economies are sacrificing human dignity over economic progress. An emerging market such as the Philippines has to deal with a host of economic, social, and political issues as its economy develops. One of the issues that concern those who are involved in human rights advocacy is labor rights. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the labor rights issues surrounding the Philippine business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, specifically the right to organize. It also aims to investigate how the changing structure of the Philippine economy has affected the labor rights of its people. This paper will use the BPO industry in the Philippines as a case study. This paper will also try to compare the Philippine experience with those of other countries in order to put its findings in context. Finally, the paper shall examine the effects of globalization on workers’ ability to organize and advocate for their rights.     

Visible Hands – Invisible Women: Garment Production in Turkey

Abstract

The economic liberalization policies that started in the early 1980s marked a turn in Turkey's growth strategy by shifting it from import substitution to export orientation. Since then, the garment industry has been one of the top exporters, drawing on women as the main suppliers of informal labor for the industry through subcontracted and home-based piecework. Based on fieldwork, this paper examines the gender inequalities that underlie the export success of the garment industry, in which the organization of production and workplace relations embed and reproduce gender ideology and norms. Women's engagement in garment production is ensured through the articulation of women's subordinate position with the social organization of garment production and the mobilization of kinship relations. The continued expansion of garment exports and the ongoing informalization of nonagricultural employment, according to official estimates, suggest that these arrangements are becoming more extensive over time.     

工业化中政府作用的动态经济学分析

中国工业化进程中政府起到了重要作用。本文立足于新中国工业化历程,在动态经济学框架内,讨论政府通过对劳动密集型产业征税而对资本密集型产业扶持来推动工业化的问题。在理论模型的基础上,通过数值模拟,分析了稳态下税率与各经济部门的资本、产出以及社会总资本、总产出存在的倒"U"型关系,并且对税率与政府税收之间的倒"U"型关系进行了讨论。本文认为政府对劳动密集型产业过度提取不仅不利于劳动密集型产业发展,也不利于经济总量与政府税收的增长,甚至不利于资本密集型产业的可持续增长。本研究与结论部分解释了历史上我国优先发展重工业难以维系的原因,并部分揭示了当前亟需调整经济结构的内在机理。     

X-inefficiency and regulatory regime shift in the UK

Concern over economic efficiency has increased in recent years in the UK and has been one of the major driving forces behind the regulatory reforms and privatisation measures which have been initiated since 1979. The amount of detailed work on economic efficiency, and especially on X-efficiency, in the UK is, however, relatively limited. The first part of the paper surveys the previous UK work in this field and explores the implications of the findings in terms of industry wide studies and industry specific studies. The second part of the study looks specifically at the issue of privatisation and the impact that this has had on X-efficiency in the context of the electricity supply industry.     

The Determinants of Firm’s Growth in the Telecommunication Services Industry: Empirical Evidence from India

The growth and evolution of the industry has an important bearing on the economic development of a country. The extant literature on firm growth provides valuable insights into firm behavior and factors influencing the evolution of the industry over time. The topic becomes even more relevant in the context of the telecommunication industry because of its positive impact on economic growth and productivity, which has been well documented in both the developed and developing country context. Based on the firm-growth literature, this study analyzes the factors influencing the growth of the Indian telecommunication industry using an unbalanced panel of 204 firms across two decades from 2000 to 2020. Dynamic Panel estimation technique (System GMM) is used to take care of endogeneity issues caused by the dynamic nature of firm growth models. Results indicate that the growth of firms in the Indian telecom services industry is explained by systematic factors like size, age, profitability, financial leverage, and trade orientation. The study finds that the larger firms grow at a decreasing rate compared to small firms. The firm's age negatively impacts the growth rate of firms, i.e., younger firms have a faster growth rate than the older ones supporting the case of convergence of firm growth in the Indian telecom services sector. Factors such as lagged R&D intensity, financial leverage, and profitability negatively impact the firms’ growth rate. Export intensity is found to have a negative and significant impact on the growth rate of the firms. The findings have important policy implications in the context of the growth of the telecommunication industry in India, which has witnessed intense competition, steep decline in profitability, and high debt structure over a period of time.

     

Upgrading in China’s apparel industry: international trade,local clusters and institutional contexts

This article focuses on the concept of upgrading, and seeks to move away from a firm-centred approach of industrial upgrading towards a framework that recognises not only a firm’s integration into global value chains, but also its embeddedness within local networks and the context of wider institutional arrangements. Based on one firm-level database, this article measures upgrading in China’s apparel industry at the firm level, which allows us not only to evaluate the extent of upgrading in the industry as a whole and to compare its extent among individual firms and selected groups of firms, but also to differentiate and measure different types of upgrading. Empirical results confirm that the heterogeneity of firms, global and local linkages and the wider historical, political, institutional and economic context have all played a critical role in the process of upgrading, suggesting that a focus on dynamics of firm upgrading alone is insufficient.     

How a rapid modal convergence into a universal automated taxi service could be the future for local passenger transport

The world is changing rapidly. Yet a common assumption is that cars, buses, and taxis will remain the dominant local passenger transport modes in the coming decades. This concept paper draws on literature sources and on discussions with industry stakeholders to look anew at the local passenger transport sector in the light of broader societal trends to suggest an alternative future, and to offer insights to practitioners and policy-makers. The paper finds that the traditional modes of car, bus and taxi are slowly beginning to lose market share to intermediate modes such as shared taxis, lift-sharing schemes, demand-responsive transport services and car clubs whilst numerous technological and market trends are combining to accelerate this process of ‘modal convergence’. Taken together, these trends could revolutionise how we move about, with one possible outcome being the emergence of a single dominant passenger mode of an automated universal taxi system or dial-a-pod.     

我国区域信息产业发展与经济增长质量关系研究

在综述相关理论和研究方法的基础上,建立我国区域信息产业和经济增长质量的评价指标体系,并利用我国30个省级相关数据,对各区域的信息产业发展水平和经济增长质量水平进行了测度。根据测算所得到的面板数据实证考察我国区域信息产业与经济增长质量之间的关系及其演化规律,揭示了我国区域信息产业的发展对经济增长质量提升的影响作用。     

海洋产业集聚与经济增长的耦合关系实证研究

经济一体化背景下,集聚已成为现代海洋产业组织的基本形式。以物理学中的耦合关系作为研究切入点,以北部湾经济区为实证对象,把耦合关系运用于海洋产业集聚与区域经济的研究中,利用耦合度和耦合协调度方法分析海洋产业集聚与区域经济的耦合协调关系,对北部湾经济区海洋产业集聚同区域经济增长的协调程度和状况进行分析,为海洋产业的合作和资源的合理配置提供可行性和针对性的建议。     

资源型产业集群的风险分析与对策研究

产业集群作为一种极具特色的产业组织形式,对区域经济的发展具有重要的驱动作用,已成为各国各地区发展经济的重要政策工具.然而产业集群也同其他事物一样存在产生、发展、衰退的过程.特别是资源型产业集群由于其特殊的结构形式,更容易出现衰退从而给本地区经济带来损失.从多方面分析了资源型产业集群存在的风险,并提出了延缓资源型产业集群衰退,促进资源型产业集群可持续发展的对策建议.     

Riding the 'J' Curve—Tourism and Successful Transition in Estonia?

This article is concerned with the function of the service industries in the transition from a Soviet planned economy to a market-oriented Western type of economy. In particular, it will examine the role of the tourism industry in economic transition in Estonia between 1985 and 1995. The economics of transition have hitherto been largely viewed within the context of a macroeconomic orthodoxy—an orthodoxy which has made use of the 'success story' of the Estonian economy to underline the validity of its point of view. This contribution will offer an alternative view of a successful instance of transition from a microeconomic perspective, and will suggest that the service sector—including tourism—was perhaps the transition catalyst. A large part of the content is based on personal research conducted in Estonia in the period 1992, 1995 and 1996.     

Competitive advantages of the mobile phone operators in the Asia Pacific region: analysis from the strategic groups approach

This paper studies the existence of strategic groups in the mobile phone industry. The analysis has been conducted in an international context characterised by major differences in regional wireless infrastructures, types of customers, government regulations and economic development, such as the Asia Pacific region. The purpose is to find the competitive advantages of the groups identified and the strategies that have led them to achieve them. The empirical research was carried out using data from a sample of the 28 largest firms of the industry in 2013. The results reveal the existence of three different strategic groups pursuing different strategies. The main determinant variables of the competitive advantages are price and size. The differences in environmental characteristics in this industry might explain the formation of strategic groups.     

Towards a systemic development approach: Building on the Human-Scale Development paradigm

Since its inception, the scope of inquiry within modern economics has been overall reduced to the chrematistic, market-centred dimension of the economic process. This has been reflected in the very way it shaped the modern idea of development which, more and more, has been represented in monetary terms to the point of being equated to chrematistic growth altogether. This reductionism has been severely criticized for various reasons, mostly related to the ignorance of the complex, multidimensional, social, cultural and psychological motives and aspirations of human beings, ignoring as well crucial environmental and ecological dimensions within and by means of which the economic process unfolds. One fundamental early contribution to the re-conceptualization of the economic development process in terms of well-being from a systemic perspective came about with the Human-Scale development approach (H-SD) in the 1980s. Central to this paradigm is a systemic re-conceptualization of human needs and an attempt to place this discussion at the centre of the development debate. It suggested a recovery of the oikonomy in its original classical meaning, as a means for achieving better well-being beyond the chrematistics narrow scope. This theory presents a very wide outlook for its theoretical and practical applications and in this paper we will try to build on H-SD's original contribution. We begin this by briefly outlining what can be termed the chrematistic turn within both modern economics' theory and practice at the dawn of modern capitalism. In the second section the main aspects of the H-SD approach are briefly presented and discussed. The last sections are devoted to propose some methodological extensions to the original H-SD version suggesting innovative ways of enlarging its scope through the development and improvement of its evaluation tools. Thereby we hope to enhance its application within its traditional context as well as indicating means for applying it to other fields as development policies, strategies or eventually, appraisal of new technologies.     

我国经济转型期间的劳动力市场分割:从所有制分割到行业分割

本文对我国改革开放以来劳动用工单位的劳动力市场分割进行了全面分析.主要观点为:(1)实证分析显示我国劳动力市场中存在所有制分割与行业分割.(2)上世纪90年代中期,劳动力市场中所有制分割向行业分割演化.(3)劳动力市场分割的演化,是经济转轨过程中的特有现象,也是我国经济改革不断深化,市场力量日趋强大的过程.     

The Single Market and Geographic Concentration in Europe

The stylized fact that regional concentration is lower in Europe than in the USA has led to the prediction that the creation of the Single Market might increase spatial concentration in Europe. This has raised some fears that the social and political burden of rapid change might counterbalance the economic gains, that the core might win to the detriment of the periphery, and that concentration of industry might make countries more vulnerable to asymmetric shocks in the Monetary Union. This paper uses a new disaggregated dataset to substantiate whether spatial concentration increased during the 1990s. Most other studies have not extended beyond the early 1990s or have used less comprehensive and detailed datasets. The main result is that geographic concentration did not increase, but rather decreased during the 1990s. Industrial patterns of geographic concentration and its dynamics partly conformed to the hypotheses provided by economic geography, trade theory, and industrial organization.     

Neoliberalism and Class Reproduction in India: The Political Economy of Privatisation in the Mineral Sector in the Indian State of Orissa

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed a process of integration of the Indian Union within the new international economic order, characterised by the ascendance of neoliberalism. Orissa, historically one of the Indian states mostly affected by severe poverty and economic stagnation though richly endowed with natural resources, has enthusiastically endorsed the neo-liberal project, implementing all the relevant national policies related to it. In the last 15 years, while the economic policy of the State of Orissa has been thus increasingly shaped according to the neoliberal guidelines recommended by the Centre, the disturbing socio-economic scenario of the State has not changed significantly. This paper aims to highlight how specific power relations in the State of Orissa are reproducing themselves in the course of the transition of the Indian Union towards the neoliberal order. This paper aims to consider as an example of this process the privatisation policies in the mining sector, namely the main economic sector of Orissa. Moving from the fundamental role historically played by Orissa within the Indian Union as a supplier of raw materials to the pan-Indian market, the paper intends to highlight the rentier character of the Orissan dominant class, traditionally capable of performing a basic intermediary function in the provision of raw materials to the Indian market. Once taken into account the socio-economic role historically played by the local dominant class in Orissa within the context of the wider capitalist dynamics at work at the all-Indian level, the paper will focus on the scenario which came into being since the start of the neoliberal economic reforms in 1991. The major shifts in the mineral policy at the central level since 1991 will be taken into account and, within this context, the implementation of privatisation policy in the mineral sector in Orissa will be analysed, with special reference its socio-economic implications. The paper aims to highlight the way in which the State of Orissa has broadened its traditional role, becoming an important supplier of raw material not only to the all-Indian market, but to the international market in general. It will be argued as well that, in continuity with the past, the intermediary function of the local dominant class in this process has remained fundamental. Therefore the paper aims to argue that the current scenario supports the proposition that the unfolding of neoliberal dynamics in Orissa opened the way for the creation of new spaces of social reproduction for the local dominant class and, with them, for the reproduction of old relations of power and social domination in the State.     

Technology progress in the Chinese construction industry under the iron-fist of government

Government policies and actions in transitional economies have far-reaching consequences for technology progress. Many studies suggest the important role of governments in providing policies and finance to facilitate technology innovations. The Chinese government has often been seen to exemplify this. This article probes government actions in practice, the way it is conducted and the negative consequences for innovation. We focus on one of China's most important and successful sectors – construction. An analytical framework based on ‘complex systems industry’ is used and a causal map developed to examine the role of the Chinese government acting as client, regulator and administrator of industrial and professional bodies and their impact on innovation in the construction sector. This paper confirms that innovation is industry specific and social and economic context dependent. While recognising the powerful role of the Chinese government, it argues that in reality the ‘Chinese government’ is not a uniform entity, but rather consists of various entities acting in accordance with their varied vested interests at a specific time and under particular circumstances.     

基于SWOT的黑龙江省服务外包行业选择的研究

在经济全球化加速发展和全球产业结构调整不断深化的背景下,国际生产分工体系日益完善。国际服务外包已经成为了当今世界上许多国家和地区发展经济,实现产业升级、优化外向型经济结构和提升服务贸易的战略选择。服务外包具有信息技术承载度高、附加值大、资源消耗低、环境污染少、吸纳就业能力强、国际化水平高等特点。在分析了黑龙江省发展服务外包产业的优势、劣势、面临的机遇和挑战的基础上,提出了黑龙江省发展服务外包重点行业选择的方法。     

我国中小企业资本结构影响因素研究——基于上市中小企业的实证检验

企业资本结构影响因素研究对企业融资具有重要意义,中国中小企业的特殊性决定了其资本结构与一般企业存在差别。通过对影响中小企业资本结构的因素进行逻辑分类,用稳健回归方法分析了各个因素与中小企业资本结构的关系。研究发现行业因素、中小企业的企业规模、盈利能力、竞争能力、成长性、非债务税盾和资产担保价值对中小企业的资本结构选择影响显著。研究证明西方理论对中国中小企业的部分适用性,同时也发现中国市场环境下中小企业资本结构具有一定特殊性。