INDUSTRIAL POLICY IN LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

The idea of industrial policy is to cure perceived market failures of various sorts. This also has been the meat of development economics for decades. Moreover, strong similarities exist between the specific goals of industrial policy advocates for developed countries and goals of governments in less developed countries. Both groups seek to pick industrial winners, deal with externalities, improve the balance of trade, and attract high-tech industries. Given that markets appear not to operate as well in developing countries as in their developed counterparts, we would expect industrial policy to work particularly well in LDCs since many important market failures should be relatively easy to identify and the gains from correcting them should be great. Moreover, because LDCs tend to intervene more than their developed counterparts, we would expect them to exhibit particularly strong effects of this intervention. Thus, the experiences of LDCs constitute a well endowed laboratory to study the effects of industrial policies in practice, and to yield lessons relevant for both industrial and developing countries. This paper explores these experiences, and closes with some lessons for the design of sensible industrial strategy.     

NATIONAL ACCOUNTING AS A PLANNING TOOL IN LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES: LESSONS OF EXPERIENCE

This paper is directed at the following question: How far is the national accounting system as developed in the industrially advanced countries and recommended by the United Nations applicable and useful to countries at an early stage of development? In order to examine the suitability of this tool, the nature of economic policy decisions and their dependence on macro-statistical constructs are analysed, the emphasis being on planning as actually undertaken in the field or going to be undertaken in the near future and not on planning activities as possibly ought to be attempted. The conclusion reached, based upon personal experience in Africa, the Caribbean area, Brazil and Venezuela, both as “producer” and “user” of data, is that planning is mainly limited to the public sector. Comprehensive plans, prepared with the assistance of foreign consultants, were generally forgotten soon after publication, the driving force behind those plans being external pressure by bilateral donors and international agencies and propaganda-prestige motives. Real over-all economic management or consistent medium term planning of the whole economy never appeared to be an important factor in the decision-making process, possibly because those concepts are far too abstract and do not have short-term impact. The role of national accounting should therefore be limited to the provision of a general framework and factual support for public sector planning activities. In practice the United Nations system has been found far too complicated and ambitious, not sufficiently development planning oriented, and not suitable to the limited statistical resources available in the developing countries. The paper recommends the publication of several detailed “case studies” in national accounting, hoping that those studies might help to identify types of accounting systems appropriate to different existing constellations. In the meantime a drastic scaling down of the United Nations system should be undertaken; we should try to equate demand and supply of relevant information. In the final part, the paper considers planning requirements (timetable and flexibility, information required for a general assessment of the economy, crucial role of the publicsector, relative precision), statistical requirements (resources, data available, priorities, international reporting) and decision-makers’requirements (compactness, simplicity, background information, wishes of external aid donors) and recommends, as an interim measure, a simplified system of national accounts consisting of eight main tables.     

PROBLEMS OF DETERMINING AND MEASURING THE RELIABILITY OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Most developing countries have compiled national accounts on a regular basis only for the last few years. It has not yet been possible for them to collect many of the statistics necessary to obtain good coverage of their economic activities by methods which would generally be accepted as reliable. Consequently the checks on reliability imposed by the framework of the national accounts are often absent, and the accounts prepared contain many estimates of doubtful quality. These doubts can usually only be removed as statistics collected by better methods become available. This is proving to be a slow process, partly because of the shortage of trained statistical staff and the competing demands of social and demographic statistics and partly because of the inherent difficulties in collecting good statistics from small businesses and traditional households. The need to define traditional households as producers as well as consumers leads to our demanding extra information from this difficult sector. In addition it is often difficult for the national accounts statistician, and even more so for the user, to find out in the time available exactly how some of the statistics with which he is presented were obtained. When this cannot be done it is impossible to assess their reliability. Thus assessing the overall reliability of national accounts in developing countries for even a limited range of uses is at present largely a matter of personal judgment. The information necessary to make more objective assessments rarely exists and hence the problems which developed countries face in using such information are not yet within the experience of most developing countries.     

INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL FLOWS: PRIVATE VERSUS PUBLIC FLOWS IN DEVELOPING AND DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

Empirically, net capital inflows are procyclical in developed countries and countercyclical in developing countries. Private inflows are procyclical and public inflows are countercyclical in both groups of countries. The dominance of private (public) inflows in developed (developing) countries drives the difference in net inflows. We rationalize these patterns using a two-sector model of a small open economy facing borrowing constraints. Private agents overborrow because of the pecuniary externality arising from these constraints. The government saves to reduce aggregate debt, making the economy resilient to adverse shocks. Differences in borrowing constraints and shock processes across countries explain the empirical patterns of capital inflows.     

世界经济发达国家出口问题初探

本文深入研究了世界经济发达国家出口商品经济活动的原因机制。并且认为经济发达国家出口工农矿初级产品、技术密集型产品行为构成了其出口商品活动的重要特征即经济双维贸易性特征。而且这是经济发达国家出口商品活动中极力追求的目标。     

ON TRENDS IN THE GAP BETWEEN RICH AND POOR IN LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES: WHY WE KNOW SO LITTLE

This paper considers the problems involved in measuring trends over time in inequality in less developed countries. After considering some of the conceptual problems involved in choosing a measure of economic welfare, the period it should cover, and the statistical units to which it should be applied, the paper goes on to draw up a list of minimum data requirements for reaching reliable conclusions about such trends. It concludes that in many countries the available information falls well short of the minimum list, and it explores various sources of indirect evidence on trends in distribution. The central argument is that the available data permit no easy tests for trends in the level of economic inequality in less developed countries. At present, the best bet is to complement evidence on income distribution with available data on consumption distribution and on wage trends and production aggregates by occupational and sectoral groups. Inconsistencies will highlight problem areas, and their reconciliation should provide a firmer foundation on which to draw conclusions about distributional trends.     

STUDYING INEQUALITY IN INCOME DISTRIBUTION OF SINGLE-PERSON HOUSEHOLDS IN FOUR DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

The increasing frequency of single-person households has become a major economic phenomenon, and is likely to become an important political force. This paper focuses on differences related to inequality of income distribution among single-person households in Europe's four largest economies, i.e. France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. Income distribution was modeled in terms of individual characteristics using a parametric model with heterogeneous model parameters. Poverty differences were also broken down using the results of Biewen and Jenkins (2005 ) in order to understand the relationship between poverty and individual characteristics among countries.     

FOREIGN CAPITAL AND EFFICIENCY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

This paper uses stochastic frontier methodology to analyse foreign direct investment, imported capital goods and human capital as channels for increased efficiency in less‐developed countries. Empirical investigation reveals that developing countries differ with respect to the efficiency with which they use frontier technology. Foreign direct investment and human capital play a significant and quantitatively important role in explaining these differences.     

中国企业对发达国家的逆向投资:创造性资产的分析视角

缺乏垄断优势的中国企业为什么要对发达国家进行逆向投资?这在现有的跨国公司理论中很难得到合理的解释。中国企业对发达国家的逆向投资是以寻求创造性资产为特定目标的战略性投资。在动态的全球竞争条件下,以寻求创造性资产为目标的海外投资并不以垄断优势为前提条件,具有局部竞争优势的中国企业可以通过逆向投资,采取在发达国家当地建厂、设立技术监听站和跨国并购等形式,寻求并获得未来竞争的关键性资源——创造性资产,并通过全球化来利用这些资产构建新型的资源和能力基础。     

EXCHANGE RATE PROBLEMS IN NATIONAL ACCOUNTING OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES*

Developing countries which typically have import surpluses and inflationary pressures because of insufficient savings are prone to use indirect taxes on imports (Tm) and subsidization of exports (Sx) in order to prevent deterioration of the balance of trade. If these substitutes for devaluation are included in the net indirect tax component of product at current market prices (Ym) the import surplus is likely to be understated, and Ym upward biased. This distortion will be avoided if imports and exports are measured at effective exchange rates (ER), that is, at official rates (OR) plus Tm and Sx respectively, and if (Tm - Sx) is deducted from the net indirect tax component of Ym. Only in this manner become imports and exports consistent with the other uses and resources at market prices and can be articulated with them. At base-year prices the volume index of product at OR diverges from that of ER to the degree that the composition of imports and exports in regard to tax and subsidy rates computed ad valorem significantly changes. Such a case is similar to that of the price indexes of imports and exports moving in diverging proportions: the trade balance at base-year prices will differ from that at current prices. The resulting discrepancies in national accounts have led to proposals of deflating, for example, exports by the price index of imports. Suchlike approaches are incompatible with the principle of national accounting that prices are supposed already to measure substitution values. Deflating exports by import prices means reintroducing substitution values, as does, for example, deflation of incomes by a consumer price index. Correspondingly, since the trade balance at ER conceptually expresses the value of imports at domestic market prices as compared to the corresponding domestic market value of exports, and if at ER the trade balance diverges from that at OR, the former balance has an important meaning (as has the trade balance at base-year prices as compared to that at current prices) and the resulting discrepancy between the two measures should not be removed merely for the sake of accounting smoothness. In contrast to the market price approach, the measurement of product at base-year factor cost is indifferent to the measurement of the trade balance at ER and at OR. It is, therefore, proposed in countries in which part of import taxation and export subsidization substitutes for devaluation, to record imports and exports in the national accounts at effective exchange rates, and to correct the net indirect tax component of product correspondingly. Imports and exports at official exchange rates should be shown within the balance of payments, and the latter separately as a memorandum item.     

欠发达农区产业集群的网络组织结构及其区域效应分析

基于河南农区三个不同网络类型集群129家企业的调查,运用社会网络分析法,通过对比三个集群中的衍生网络、情感网络、咨询网络以及合作网络的网络特性,鉴别出欠发达农区集群网络中的核心节点、重要关系及不同网络组织类型的区域效应.研究发现:先导企业是集群衍生的孵化器,亲属或厂属关系是区域产业繁衍的关键渠道;大企业是技术创新和扩散的中心,供需关系和技术工人流动是区域学习的重要路径;中等企业是情谊联系的活跃点,长期合作关系能培养区域信任;中介组织与服务机构、"生产组织者"是企业间合作的"桥梁",上下游的经济联系对区域合作影响巨大.从集群的网络组织类型来看,混合性的转包网络和互补性的垂直网络比竞争性的水平网络对区域内的网络学习、信任培养、合作行动以及区域发展能带来更好的效果.     

MEASURING THE VALUE OF THE CAPITAL STOCK BY DIRECT OBSERVATION

In the Netherlands the Central Bureau of Statistics (C.B.S.) carried out two experimental investigations into the possibility of observing the actual value of the capital stock by means of enquiries at enterprises.
This article reports on the investigation into the cigar-industry. The intention is to carry out enquiries in one branch of industry after another. In due course (for instance after 10 years) it will again be the turn of the first branch of industry and so on. There are also branches of industry which have a fair amount of information regarding capital assets available at their disposal, so that enquiries are not necessary. In the long run the method described will supply statistical data on the value of the capital stock for all branches of industry together.
The gross actual value at current and constant prices is calculated for the cigar-industry, broken down by type and vintage. The enquiry was carried out in two steps. Questionnaires were not sent to the enterprises but they were visited in order that C.B.S. staff could derive the data required from the accounts available. Within the C.B.S. this information was processed, C.B.S. staff making estimates for lacking data. It may be concluded that this method of enquiry for the capital stock is difficult but useful. The results of the enquiry are comparable throughout, the valuation having been carried out in the same way for all enterprises and care having been taken that in each enterprise all means of production were asked for.
In the future this new technique of enquiry will provide good detailed information on the capital stock in the Netherlands.