International financial integration and risk sharing among countries: A production-based approach

This paper develops a production-based model for analyzing a role of asset trade in pooling risks among countries and provides new evidence for the international consumption-output puzzle and risk sharing among countries. Efficient risk sharing rules among countries are the same as the conditions for full financial integration. Input prices and interest rates as well as technology shocks are found to be the driving variables for cross-country output co-movements. The international correlation puzzle reflects an inability to account for production risk sharing among countries in previous studies. The degree of international risk sharing is substantial relative to earlier estimates, which is largely realized from pooling production risks rather than consumption risks among countries.     

Volatility of industrial production growth and characteristics of optimal currency areas in EU-12 countries

This paper investigates how the introduction of the euro in the EU-12 countries influenced the short-term volatility of output, measured by the volatility of industrial production growth. It assesses whether more favorable criteria of optimum currency areas keep the volatility of industrial production growth constant. Finally, it investigates the impact of the global financial crisis on the volatility of industrial production growth and on the characteristics of the optimum currency areas of the EU-12 countries. This paper uses the Chow breakpoint test and the Quandt-Andrews test to check for structural breaks in the volatility obtained from ARMA (p,q) and AR(p)-EGARCH(1,1) models. The results suggest that after the introduction of the euro, the volatility of industrial production growth has not significantly changed in Austria, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain. However, the volatility of industrial production growth did increase in Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg and Portugal after the adoption of the common currency. In Germany and Greece the volatility of industrial production increased after 2002 and 1997 respectively. This observation cannot be connected directly to the introduction of the euro. After the beginning of the financial crisis, the volatility of industrial production growth increased in all EU-12 countries except France and Greece. Criteria for optimum currency areas fail to explain why the volatility of some EU-12 countries remained unchanged after the introduction of the euro and after the start of the financial crisis. Those countries, where the volatility of industrial production has not changed significantly after the introduction of the euro, had a long history of fixed or pegged exchange rate regimes. This group of countries recovered faster after the financial crisis.     

贸易条件变动、技术进步与产业结构效益——基于跨国面板数据的分析

本文基于技术视角,将贸易产品从不同技术层级分为5类,并采取工业技术进步率和高技术工业产品出口竞争力衡量工业产业结构效益。同时,利用15个国家1987-2008年的相关数据,实证检验了不同技术层级产品贸易条件变动对工业产业结构效益的影响。结果表明:初级产品贸易条件改善对工业产业结构效益具有负效应;而资源性产品和高技术产品贸易条件改善对工业产业结构效益具有正效应;低技术产品贸易条件改善提高了工业技术进步率却削弱高技术工业产品出口竞争力;中等技术产品贸易条件改善对发展中国家及新型工业化国家工业产业结构效益具有正效应,但削弱了发达国家高技术工业产品的出口竞争力。     

Dynamic technological specialization,aggregated convergence and growth

This paper focuses on the contribution of dynamic technological specialization to aggregated growth and convergence. Certain theoretical approaches (Structuralism) maintain the view that being specialized in ‘correct’ technologies helps to achieve: i) sustainable rhythms of long-run growth; ii) accelerated catching up and higher rhythms of convergence in delayed countries. Using an endogenous growth model for a 23 countries sample between 1980 and 2010, the work contrasts those hypotheses by using static and dynamic approaches for technological specialization in comparison to other technological variables. Empirical results do not confirm that any ‘good’ specialization matters to growth and convergence at an aggregated level, neither under static nor dynamic approaches. The key elements to aggregated convergence and growth are more linked to spillovers of technological diffusion and to country-specificities (technological capabilities and capacities, domestic technical efforts, national innovation systems, industrial innovation processes, etc.) as it is pointed out by catching-up theories.     

Real Exchange Rates, Valuation Effects and Growth in Emerging Markets

We compare the relationship between net capital inflows, real exchange rate movements and growth for twenty emerging markets and twelve developed countries over the period 1985–2004. In developed countries low real exchange rates are associated with faster growth, but in emerging markets depreciations depress growth, even outside crisis periods, and are closely correlated with declines or reversals in net capital inflows. To investigate valuation effects of currency movements, we construct debt-weighted real exchange rate indices for emerging markets, which are more closely correlated with growth than trade-weighted indices.     

Determinants of manufactured export performance in low-income Africa: Kenya and Tanzania

This paper applies empirical trade theory to explaining the revealed comparative advantage in manufactured exports of Kenya and Tanzania. Exports are treated as a whole and also distinguished by destination (developed countries, developing countries and Africa). The undeveloped industrial and trade structures of these countries lead to low explanatory power of the equations, but the results for individual variables are generally expected and of interest.     

Exchange Rates and Trade Balance Adjustment: A Multi-Country Empirical Analysis

This study assesses the response of the trade balance to exchange rate fluctuations across a large number of countries. Fixed-effects regressions are estimated for three country groups (industrial, developing and emerging markets) on annual data for 87 countries from 1994 to 2010. The trade balance improves significantly after a real depreciation, and to a similar degree, in the long run for all countries, but the adjustment is significantly slower for industrial countries. Emerging markets and developing countries display relatively fast adjustment. Disaggregation into exports and imports shows that the delayed adjustment in industrial countries is almost entirely on the export side. The rate of adjustment in emerging markets is slowing over time, consistent with their eventual graduation to high-income status. The ratio of trade to GDP is also highly sensitive to the real effective exchange rate, with a real depreciation of 10 % raising the trade/GDP ratio across the sample by approximately 4 %. This result, which presumably reflects movements in the prices of tradables relative to non-tradables, raises questions about the widespread use of the trade/GDP ratio as a trade policy indicator, without adjustment for real exchange rate effects.     

Detrending and the Money-Output Link: International Evidence

An important policy question is whether nominal money is relatively more useful than interest rates in explaining movements in real output. Previous analyses usually rely only on U.S. data or other financially developed countries from a specific region, such as the EU. This study examines the empirical relation between money, interest rates, and output across a sample of 20 countries, including industrial countries from different regions as well as economically and financially less-developed countries. On the basis of estimating an unconstrained, four-variable VAR model, the weight of evidence indicates that rejecting money as a potentially informative tool in setting monetary policy is unwarranted.     

Variation in the Effects of Aggregate Demand Shocks: Evidence and Implications across Industrial Countries

Over a sample of nineteen industrial countries, more variable aggregate demand and/or higher mean inflation attenuates (augments) the effect of aggregate demand shocks on real output growth (wage and price inflation) while having no effect on the response of the real wage to such shocks. In all countries examined, aggregate demand shocks are positively (negatively) correlated with nominal variables (real output). Among explanations of the business cycle based on shocks to aggregate demand, this evidence favors the new Keynesian sticky wage explanation over the sticky price and the new classical imperfect information explanations.     

Tracing the regional dual value chains: Measurement on the production position and evidence from China

When there is insufficient internal and external impetus for developing countries’ economy, building a domestic and international dual circulation is conducive to promoting the regional industrial growth. On the basis of regional embedded international input-output tables, this paper extends the measurement framework of production position and proposes the concept of the dual value chain, which measure production position that unifies the national and global value chains from forward and backward industrial linkages. We decompose the national and global value chains into three categories and investigate the production position characteristics of China with a multi-dimensional perspective. Consistent evidence shows that a feasible path of technological progress in optimizing the production in value chains in which technological progress plays a crucial role on the pure national value chain across the high-tech manufacturing sector, the eastern and central regions. Their posterior probabilities are 0.96, 0.21and 0.86, respectively. Moreover, the impact on the dual production is nonnegligible that the posterior probability of technological progress on the eastern and central regions is 0.40 and 0.92. In addition, the impact of the Chinese economic stimulus program and technological progress on the economic crisis has a certain moderating effect. Our proposed evaluation framework sheds new light that national value chain production can boost economic growth，and further promote the coordinated of regional industries for developing countries.     

Key issues in regional growth and integration in Southern Africa

ABSTRACT

The decade to 2015 saw rapid growth in trade between Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. Much of this growth reflected South African exports to its neighbours of diversified manufactured goods to meet growing urban consumption and to supply inputs to mining and infrastructure. While most SADC countries, aside from South Africa, grew quite rapidly over this period, their exports remained oriented to a narrow range of minerals and agricultural commodities destined to go outside the region. Drawing from a series of sectoral studies, we assess key regional issues including the investment and production decisions of firms whose operations stretch across borders, and consider the implications for a bottom-up integration agenda that could build productive capabilities across countries. Our evaluation highlights the importance of the spread of supermarkets, the need to address transport and logistics, and value chains whose competitive advantages are inherently regional, as in the cases of poultry and mining.     

Financial Sector Reforms,Bank Performance and Economic Growth: Evidence from Zambia

Abstract: This paper investigates the effects of market‐based financial sector reforms on the competitiveness and efficiency of commercial banks, and economic growth, in Zambia. The results show that reforms adopted in Phase II (strengthening of regulatory and supervisory, payments and settlements, and financial operations frameworks) and Phase III (implementation of a comprehensive financial sector development plan) had significant positive effects on bank cost efficiency. Macroeconomic variables such as per capita GDP and inflation were insignificant. Further, using an endogenous growth model in which industrial production is a proxy for GDP growth, it was found that bank cost efficiency, financial depth, Phase II and III financial sector reforms, the degree of economic openness, and rate of inflation were significant determinants of economic growth. Phase II policies and the inflation rate have negative effects while the rest of the variables have positive effects on economic growth. Some plausible policy lessons are offered.     

A disaggregated analysis of the export performance of some industrial and emerging countries

The paper describes the evolution of export shares and quantifies the contribution of geographical and sectoral specialization as well as that of “competitiveness” of some industrial and emerging market economies between 1985 and 2003. While the strong growth of emerging countries as world competitors has lowered the market shares of all industrial countries, the results of a constant-market-share analysis indicate that the latter have benefited from positive specialization effects. Specifically, industrial countries gained from being specialized in fast-growing sectors (high-tech) or destinations (Asia). The magnitude of these effects, however, has been quite diversified across the main countries. Among the emerging economies, the striking export growth of China was determined by a strong rise in competitiveness that allowed the country to gain market shares across all sectors and destinations.     

环境规制、产业结构升级与经济增长——基于东盟国家的实证检验

利用2010—2017年东盟国家面板数据构建计量模型,考察环境规制、产业结构升级与经济增长三者之间的关系。结果表明：目前阶段,东盟国家环保关注度和环境政策措施与经济增长呈负相关关系,而环境政策级别与经济增长呈正相关关系。为了研究环境规制影响经济增长的路径,在基础模型的基础上,以产业结构优化升级为中介变量,构建中介效应模型,实证结果显示,产业结构优化升级在环境规制与经济增长的关系中起到部分中介作用。     

The growth of population in Norway 1735–1855

Abstract

The rapid growth of population in many underdeveloped countries during recent years has caused widespread concern. It has, not surprisingly, also helped to focus the attention of demographic historians upon the processes of population growth in western societies, during their pre-industrial and early industrial stages. Scandinavia has occupied a central place in the discussion; chiefly, because here, by a happy accident, the industrial revolution was preceded by an administrative revolution. As a result of this we have an unparalleled set of population statistics dating from the mid- eighteenth century. Sweden, in particular, has become something of a Mecca for demographic historians. Of all the nordic countries her statistics are the most comprehensive and through such studies as those of Swaine Thomas¹ Gille,² Heckscher³ and Utterström,⁴ the most thoroughly explored. Although less well known, the Danish, Norwegian, Finnish and Icelandic material is also of a very high order. Perhaps in the past some of it, in Norway at least, has been accepted too uncritically. Nevertheless, despite the one or two startling errors in the present Norwegian population statistics (they are discussed in the first part of this paper), Norway remains one of the few countries where it is possible to analyse pre-industrial population movements on a statistical basis.     

Economic development and rural industry in South Korea and Taiwan

This paper attempts to provide insights into the dynamics of rural industry by examining its historical performance in South Korea and Taiwan. The evidence suggests that with economic development, (i) industrial activity has shifted from the rural to the urban areas, but the shift has been much more dramatic in Korea than in Taiwan, and (ii) rural industry in the forms of secondary activity and non-factory production has declined while medium- and large-sized rural factories have become more important. The paper then explores the reasons for these changes and for the differences in rural industrial growth in the two countries.     

基础设施投资效率与经济增长间的关系研究

基础设施建设是发展中国家发展的基础和原动力，且基础设施投资效率的高低关系到国家经济增长的态势。以东南亚国家为样本，设计投入指标和以人均 GDP 为主的产出指标，结合 SSBM 模型测算分析各国基础设施投资效率和趋势，并利用ESDA 模型对空间耦合协调度进行分析。同时，通过定义被解释变量、解释变量和控制变量对进行基础设施投资效率与经济增长间的关系实证研究。研究结果表明，东南亚国家在 2010 年至 2020 年间的基础设施投资效率在波动中提升，彼此间的差异性不大，且呈现聚拢趋势。软硬件基础设施投入对经济增长的影响和显著性最大。     

International labour migration in the Asian-Pacific region: patterns,policies and economic implications

"This paper reviews the literature on international labour migration from and within the Asian-Pacific region. It deals with patterns and characteristics of migration flows, government policies towards labour migration, and economic implications of labour migration for both labour-exporting and importing countries in the region. The indications are that, despite gradual slowing down of labour flows to the western industrial countries and the Middle East, labour migration will continue to be a major economic influence on surplus-labour countries in the region. As an integral part of the growth dynamism in the region, labour migration has now begun to take on a regional dimension, with immense implications for the process of industrial restructuring in high growth economies and the changing pattern of economic interdependence among countries."     

政府支出规模、要素积累与产业结构效应

传统的产业发展阶段理论不能有效地解释各个国家产业结构的不同变迁模式。本文从政府支出规模、生产要素积累这一新的角度构建理论模型,并利用世界上20个国家的面板数据进行实证检验,其基本结论是,政府支出通过改变全要素生产率和各个产业的资本、劳动这两种生产要素积累,对第三产业的发展产生积极影响,而对第一产业尤其是第二产业产生消极影响。但是,一个国家产业结构体系形成的决定因素是要素的原始积累能力,政府支出只对其起到一定的推动作用。实证检验结论为我国产业结构的独特性提供了有力解释。