Technological Change in Australian Manufacturing

In the modern era, the extent and character of technical change features prominently in discussions of productivity growth and movements in the competitiveness of manufacturing. While technical change is pervasive in modern manufacturing, it occurs unevenly. In this study, technical change is estimated by fitting dual cost functions for each of 38 sectors of Australian manufacturing over the 32 year period, 1968–69 to 1999–2000. The estimates show that technical change is heavily labour-saving in all industries, but that the overall rate of change, as measured by a rate of cost diminution, and the degree of bias towards saving labour, rather than capital or material, varies substantially across industries.     

Cross-Sectoral Patterns of Efficiency and Technical Change in Manufacturing

This article uses data from 11 countries for 19 years to investigate the forces driving output change in 6 manufacturing sectors. A flexible model is adopted that allows for the decomposition of output changes into three types of change: technical, efficiency, and input. This framework allows, among other things, for the investigation of (1) the relative roles of the three components of output growth in each sector, (2) the manner in which efficiency change moves over the business cycle, and (3) potential technical spillovers from one sector to another.     

The Role of Government Assistance in Structural Change in Manufacturing: Australian Evidence

By the 1970s the Australian manufacturing sector was, by OECD standards, small, fragmented and inward looking. Successive Australian Federal Governments have since responded by progressively reducing levels of assistance to manufacturing in an effort to promote structural change. In this article we investigate whether these lower levels of assistance have accelerated the pace of structural change by estimating an empirical model using a pooled cross-section time-series data set. Our results suggest that reduced levels of assistance to manufacturing have had a positive impact on the pace of structural change in the Australian manufacturing sector. In addition, we find that taxes on factor inputs can be expected to impede structural change, and it would appear that structural change proceeds at a faster pace in more specialised manufacturing sectors.     

Profitability and Concentration in Australian Manufacturing Industries:A Reply

This brief note takes the adjusted profitability data series suggested by Leech and Grant, and shows that the weak and generally not strongly significant effect which concentration has on such profitability data (as shown by Leech and Grant) becomes even weaker and less significant when the model is more appropriately specified to include a capital-output variable.     

The Cost of Monopoly in Australian Manufacturing

This article looks at the deadweight loss arising from monopoly elements in Australian manufacturing under various assumptions and its relationship with the level of concentration.     

The Determinants of Firm Profitability in Australian Manufacturing

This study provides new evidence on the determinants of the profitability of Australian manufacturing firms by analyzing a unique firm-level data set of firm performance over the period 1984-93. The panel nature of the data permits the estimation of dynamic profitability models over the business cycle, to test both the persistence and cyclicality of firm profitability. Econometric results suggest that lagged profitability is a significant determinant of current profit margins, and that industry concentration is positively related to firm profit margins. Also, profit margins are found to be procyciical in concentrated industries but counter-cyclical in less concentrated industries.     

中国区域制造业结构同构的变化及分析

根据各省(区、市)制造业分行业的总产值和增加值数据,从区域分工和专业化的视角出发,计算区域产业结构同构系数和区域产业专业化指数,分析我国区域间产业结构同构程度变化的历史轨迹发现,区域产业同构程度不断下降,区域专业化程度不断提高。2012年我国区域产业结构同构程度与美国20世纪80年代末相当,可见我国区域产业结构同构程度仍然高于美国。为降低不合理的区域产业同构和促进区域产业的专业化发展,应降低区域间交易成本,加快改革步伐,提高对外开放质量。     

Directed Technical Change

For many problems in macroeconomics, development economics, labour economics, and international trade, whether technical change is biased towards particular factors is of central importance. This paper develops a simple framework to analyse the forces that shape these biases. There are two major forces affecting equilibrium bias: the price effect and the market size effect. While the former encourages innovations directed at scarce factors, the latter leads to technical change favouring abundant factors. The elasticity of substitution between different factors regulates how powerful these effects are, determining how technical change and factor prices respond to changes in relative supplies. If the elasticity of substitution is sufficiently large, the long run relative demand for a factor can slope up.
I apply this framework to develop possible explanations to the following questions: why technical change over the past 60 years was skill biased, and why the skill bias may have accelerated over the past 25 years? Why new technologies introduced during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were unskill biased? What is the effect of biased technical change on the income gap between rich and poor countries? Does international trade affect the skill bias of technical change? What are the implications of wage push for technical change? Why is technical change generally labour augmenting rather than capital augmenting?     

中国制造业区域转移的机理与实证分析

针对改革开放以来中国制造业区域转移的巨大变化,本文探讨了制造业区域转移的作用机理,并基于19个两位数制造业数据进行了实证分析.研究结果表明,运输成本对制造业选择邻近市场的区位具有重要意义.出口导向战略、国内需求不足以及经济发展对国际市场的依赖凸现了沿海地区的区住优势,推动了制造业区域转移;随着制造业逐步集聚,集聚经济外部性也发挥了相当作用,经验证据支持马歇尔外部性和波特外部性的积极影响,雅各布外部性的证据则较弱;由于富有弹性的劳动力供给,工资调整并没有对制造业集聚产生抑制作用.此外,地区间市场化差异也对制造业区域转移产生了影响.     

Adjustment of Profits: Evidence from Australian Manufacturing

Studies of industry profitability generally deal with long-run equilibrium models, making no allowance for slow adjustment to equilibrium. In this study, a cross-sectional analysis is carried out against a sample of Australian manufacturing industries at the Australian Standard Industrial Classification (ASIC) four-digit level between 1977–78 and 1984–85. Firstly, a profit model is estimated in equilibrium form as well as allowing for both uniform and variable adjustment rates across industries. The variable adjustment model is superior, with either model implying at least half adjustment to equilibrium within the seven-year sample period. Secondly, results are examined for the impact of firm homogeneity of firms within industries. Homogeneity of firms is found to have substantial impact,increasing both the estimated profits-concentration relationship and the estimated speed of adjustment.     

Cyclical and Competitive Influences on Pricing in Australian Manufacturing

Dynamic pricing equations are estimated using an error correction model, with data on a panel of 89 Australian manufacturing industries for the 14 years, 1971172 through 1984/85. The overall pattern is consistent with prices approximately following a fixed mark-up rule in low concentration industries, while the mark-up factor in high concentration industries is strongly pro-cyclical. Also, in high concentration industries that are heavily exposed to import competition, the mark-up factor increases with prices of foreign competing products and with the general price level for domestic manufactures.     

中国高技能-低技能劳动的技术进步偏向性及其估算

利用世界投入产出数据库(WIOD)中的中国分行业高、低技能劳动数据,推算了1995—2009年中国高、低技能劳动力的劳动投入和劳动报酬,并基于该数据测算了中国省域层面的高技能-低技能劳动技术进步偏向性。结果表明:中国所有省区的技术进步在大多数年份是偏向于高技能劳动的。     

The Duration of Industrial Disputes in Australian Mining and Manufacturing

Using a unique dispute-level database of industrial action in Australian mining and manufacturing industries, this paper investigates the determinants of the duration of industrial action. For the first time in the Australian literature, the duration of individual disputes is analysed within a hazard function framework that estimates conditional settlement probabilities over the duration of the dispute. Further, the analysis is conducted for both strikes and non-strike forms of industrial action such as bans on working overtime. A range of parametric and semi-parametric specifications are estimated in order to determine the sensitivity of the results to alternative econometric techniques. The duration of both strikes and work bans are found to be affected by a range of factors, including the state of the labour market, industry characteristics, past union experiences and the cause of the dispute. The conditional settlement rate of both strikes and bans are found to be upward sloping, implying that the longer that a dispute has already lasted, the more likely that it is to end. However, failing to control for unobserved heterogeneity results in bias toward declining conditional settlement rates.     

The Pattern and Determinants of Intra-Industry Trade in Australian Manufacturing

This paper presents the pattern and determinants of intra-industry trade (IIT) in Australian manufacturing since the late 1970s. The results point to a sharp rise in IIT from the mid 1980s which appears to be linked with an outward-oriented policy. Industry-level analysis indicates that industries which experienced a sharp fall in protection are the industries with the higher levels of IIT. These include textiles, garments, rubber products, and machinery and equipment. An increasing trend in IIT suggests that the short-term adjustment costs associated with trade liberalisation are likely to be lower, and that liberalisation can proceed without huge short-term adjustment costs. Using a logit model the determinants of IIT are investigated. Results indicate that IIT is positively related to product differentiation and scale economies, and negatively related to the levels of protection and foreign ownership in the pre-liberalisation period. In the post-liberalisation period, however, scale economies explain the inter-industry variations in IIT. R&D intensity and close economic integration appear to have no impact on IIT regardless of the nature of the policy regime.     

我国地区产业结构转换力及其结构效益分析

建立产业结构转换力模型 ,研究了我国地区产业结构转换力的地区分布。借助产业结构偏离度 ,分析了产业结构效益的地区分布差异。利用相关分析和回归分析方法揭示了产业结构转换力、结构效益与地区经济发展水平之间的相互关系。其结果显示我国地区产业结构转换力和产业结构效益的地带性差异十分明显 ,并且和地区经济发展水平高度相关。而产业结构转换力与产业结构效益、产业结构效益与经济发展水平之间线性关系不强 ,但总体上 ,它们都有着近似的地带性分布规律。     

人力资本结构对重工企业技术效率的影响研究

基于2002-2010年上市重工公司面板数据,采用随机前沿法(SFA)研究了人力资本结构与企业技术效率的关系。研究发现技术效率较低,全部样本企业的各年度的总平均值为0.594,存在较大的提升空间。从演化过程来看,效率值呈现上升态势,企业间的效率差异较大且具有较强的波动性。人力资本结构对企业技术效率存在显著影响,提高本科和专科教育程度员工的比例,能够显著改善技术效率,增加中学以下教育程度员工的比率抑制技术效率。重工企业具有规模收益递增的特性,人力资本比物质资本对产出的贡献略高。建议企业增加人力资本投资与开发,优化人力资源配置,促使企业发展方式从依赖物质资本转向依靠人力资本的内涵式增长。