Entry costs, industry structure, and cross-country income and TFP differences

Entry costs vary dramatically across countries. To assess their impact on cross-country differences in output and TFP, we construct a model with endogenous entry and operation decisions by firms. We calibrate the model to match the U.S. distribution of employment and firms by size. Higher entry costs lead to greater misallocation of productive factors and lower TFP and output. In the model, countries in the lowest decile of the entry costs distribution have 1.32 to 1.45 times higher TFP and 1.52 to 1.75 times higher output per worker than countries in the highest decile. As in the data, higher entry costs are associated with lower entry rates and business density.     

Adult nutrition and growth

We provide microeconomic foundations for the commonly assumed subsistence constraint on consumption and demonstrate that the theory is consistent with several important features of development. In principle, subsistence is consistent with different combinations of food consumption, energy expenditure, body weight, and health. In practice, caloric intake has remained remarkably constant over the course of development, giving the appearance of a minimal subsistence constraint in consumption alone. We argue that the trendless nature of caloric intake results from a positive income effect on food consumption being offset by a reduction in the need for food as the energy requirements of work decrease with development. The theory helps explain the observed patterns in body mass, fertility, and economic growth rates for more than two centuries.     

Channels of interprovincial risk sharing in China

This paper decomposes consumption risk sharing among provinces in China over the 1980–2007 period. We find that 9.4% of the shocks to gross provincial product are smoothed by the interprovincial fiscal transfer system. This system also cushions a relatively large fraction of the province-specific shocks in the coastal provinces of China. Using a variety of indicators, we explore non-fiscal channels of consumption risk sharing. We find that the migration of rural labor to urban areas and the remittance of migrant wages play important roles in promoting interprovincial consumption risk sharing in the inland provinces of China. In contrast, the extent of risk sharing through financial intermediaries and the capital markets is very limited. These factors have resulted in a low degree of risk sharing among Chinese provinces, especially over the last decade.     

Cyclical wage movements in emerging markets compared to developed economies: The role of interest rates

This paper documents that, at the aggregate level, (i) real wages are positively correlated with output and, on average, lag output by about one quarter in emerging markets, while there are no systematic patterns in developed economies, and (ii) real wage volatility (relative to output volatility) is about twice as high in emerging markets compared with developed economies. We then present a small open economy model with productivity shocks and countercyclical interest rates. The model incorporates a working capital requirement and the Jaimovich and Rebelo (2009) preference that allows for flexible parameterization of the strength of income effects on labor supply. The model can account for the high volatility of wage and consumption relative to output and countercyclical trade balances that characterize emerging-market economies. During economic downturns, rising interest rates in emerging markets induce relatively large income effects on labor supply, so households would not reduce their labor input as much even though wages drop significantly.     

Knowledge appropriability, firm size, and growth

Empirical evidence shows that the number of patents per R&D dollar declines with firm size. In this paper, we propose a Schumpeterian growth model that accounts for this evidence. We analyze an economy with firms that engage in cost-reducing innovation resulting from the accumulation of both codified and tacit knowledge: the former occurs through the purchase of patents, while the latter is the result of R&D conducted in-house by firms. We study the relation between knowledge appropriability and market structure, and we show that a shift from patents to in-house research occurs as firm size gets larger. Since innovation statistics concentrate mainly on patents, this process of research reallocation results into an under-estimation of innovative activity and is responsible for the declining ratio of patents to R&D expenditure. Survey data on UK-based firms provide support to our results.     

A revealed preference test of rationing

This paper derives a revealed preference test for utility maximization under rationing and can detect, for which goods rationing is binding without specifying a functional form or imposing rationing constraints prior to estimation. For UK data from 1920–55, we find evidence of utility maximization under rationing with rationing binding for food and other services. Estimated virtual prices exceed observed food prices by 16.5% in 1947 and observed prices of other services by 10.9% in 1952.     

Growth, income taxes and consumption aspirations

In a Barro-type economy with exogenous consumption aspirations, raising income taxes favors growth even in the presence of lump-sum taxes. Such a policy is compatible with the behavior of private consumption, income taxes and growth rates observed in actual economies.     

Mobile termination rates and the receiver-pays regime

The European Commission has recently invited national regulatory authorities to decrease access charges to the cost of an efficient operator. Some large operators warned regulators and users that cutting access charges could result in the US style business model, where mobile users pay for both making and receiving calls. I show that mobile operators charge for incoming calls when the access charge is below cost even if receivers can hang up. In such a case profits are neutral with respect to the level of the access charge. I further show that ‘bill and keep’ is a constrained social optimum when the call externality is strong, even if receivers pay and can hang up. Finally, I discuss the policy implications of these results.     

The effects of human capital composition on technological convergence

This paper empirically investigates whether the contribution of human capital to productivity growth depends on the composition of human capital and proximity to the technology frontier in a panel of 87 sample countries over the period 1970–2004. It tests the hypothesis that primary and secondary education is more suitable for imitation whereas tertiary education is more appropriate for innovation. The results show that the growth enhancing effects of higher education increase with proximity to the technology frontier only for high and medium income countries.     

Home bias, distribution services and determinants of real exchange rates

This paper examines empirically how exogenous changes in the terms of trade affect the real exchange rate through the relative price of traded goods with Canada–US data. The relative price of traded goods is constructed using prices at the dock and retail prices. The first measure emphasizes the importance of home bias in consumption of traded goods. The second measure highlights the importance of distribution services required for consumption of traded goods. It is found that terms of trade shocks affect the relative price of traded goods using both measures. A possible interpretation of empirical findings is that home bias and distribution services are important for understanding the relative price of traded goods.     

A note on quantitative trade restrictions, income effects and wage inequality

This paper examines the effects of conversion of one type of physical trade restrictions into another on the intra-country wage inequality in a standard 2 × 2 × 2 Heckscher–Ohlin–Samuelson model. It shows that a conversion of an import-quota into an equivalent voluntary export restraint raises wage-inequality in the country importing the unskilled-labor intensive good and lowers the wage-inequality in its trading partner. This result does not depend on whether the unskilled-labor intensive good or the skilled-labor intensive good was initially subject to an import quota. Conversion of the import-quota into an equivalent import tariff, on the other hand, may lead to a rise in wage inequality in both countries. The driving force behind these results is the real income effect that conversion of one type trade restriction instrument into another results in.     

TRIPs, trade and growth: When comparative advantages break down

In this paper we combine a model of Ricardian comparative advantages as in Dornbusch et al. (1977) with Grossman and Helpman's (1991) quality ladder model and derive the consequences of asymmetric IPRs protection for the pattern of trade and the world rate of growth through innovation. Our analysis differs from that already made by Taylor (1994) in that final goods and research technologies do not go exactly along together, so the impossibility of doing licensing under asymmetric protection will here bring forth an infringement of comparative advantages which we call “the invasion effect”.     

Piece rates for professors

Using panel data, we demonstrate a 50% increase in research productivity following a dramatic increase in the piece rate paid for articles by a major Chinese University. The increased productivity comes exclusively from those who were already research active.     

Capital controls and welfare

This paper computes welfare levels under different degree of capital controls and compares them with the welfare level under perfect capital mobility by using the methodology of Schmitt-Grohé and Uribe (2007). We show that perfect capital mobility is not always optimal and that capital controls may enhance an economy’s welfare level. There exists an optimal degree of capital-account restriction that achieves a higher level of welfare than that under perfect capital mobility, if the economy has costly financial intermediaries. The results of our analysis imply that as the domestic financial intermediaries are less efficient, the government should impose stricter capital controls in the form of a tax on foreign borrowing.     

Financial development in adversarial and inquisitorial legal systems

This paper aims to understand why common law countries have more developed financial markets than civil law countries. One difference between these two legal origins is the procedure of evidence collection for a trial: It is adversarial in common law and inquisitorial in civil law. The adversarial system delegates the collection of evidence to a larger extent to lawyers than the inquisitorial system does. The paper presents a model of law and finance in which investors use courts to enforce their financial contracts with entrepreneurs. Investors are willing to lend more if courts collect evidence more efficiently. Financial markets are more developed in the adversarial than in the inquisitorial system if investors are richer than entrepreneurs or if lawyers are more productive than judges. Manipulation of evidence by lawyers has an ambiguous impact on finance.     

Patents and quality growth in OLG economy

This paper shows how heterogeneity in patent ownership across generations and lifecycle saving considerations qualitatively change the conventional implications of patent policy for quality growth. We study a close Overlapping Generations economy that grows through sequential quality improvements (“quality-ladder”), to show that for plausible values of the Inter-temporal Elasticity of Substitution (a) shorter patent length enhances growth (b) under exogenous innovation size loosening patent breadth protection spurs R&D investment and quality growth and (c) the effect of loosening lagging breadth protection on R&D investment and quality growth under endogenous innovation size depends on patents length. Our findings explore a new channel through which strong patents may hinder innovation and emphasize the importance of coordination in patent-policy across the different dimensions of the patents system.     

Barriers to entry, deregulation and workplace training: A theoretical model with evidence from Europe

We study the impact of regulatory barriers to entry on workplace training. We develop a model of training in imperfectly competitive product and labour markets. The model indicates that there are two contrasting effects of deregulation on training. As stressed in the literature, with a given number of firms, deregulation reduces the size of rents per unit of output that firms can reap by training their employees. Yet, the number of firms increases following deregulation, thereby raising output and profit gains from training and improving investment incentives. The latter effect prevails. In line with the predictions of the theoretical model, we find that the substantial deregulation in the 1990s of heavily regulated European industries (energy, transport and communication) increased training incidence.