A macroeconomic analysis of the public investments in European combined transport

Intermodal transport has been recognized as a priority by the European Union, that has defined different budget allocations of investments to improve the shifting from road to intermodal transport, which is more sustainable. In this context, the main aim of the paper is to discuss the macroeconomic effects, in terms of economic growth, welfare and trade, of these public investments for combined transport, which aspects have been neglected in literature. A multi-country computable general equilibrium model has been used. The main results have been that the European Union benefits from these investments, but at international level, USA and Japan would lose in terms of welfare. Furthermore, the welfare change has been decomposed in its components and the results show that the trade effects are higher than the allocative effects. The robustness of the results has been tested over time and by a sensitivity analysis of the exchange rate.     

外商技术转移、创新激励与东道国引资政策——走自主创新道路,我们能依靠外国技术吗？

文章在累积创新框架下建立一个附加拍卖的动态博弈模型,研究东道国企业利用外商技术转移实现技术升级的微观机制,以及东道国政府旨在改善社会福利的引资政策。研究后发现:对于核心技术,外商总有激励进行技术封锁;对于一般技术,外商愿意将其技术许可给东道国以赚取垄断利润;东道国企业只有坚持自主创新才能获得技术模仿的机会并最终突破外商对核心技术的封锁;若东道国政府能使外商将核心技术授权给本国企业,本国企业将绕过自主创新从而直接进行模仿创新,若不能有效控制外商技术转移方式但可对仅转移设备等"硬"核心技术的方式采取有效限制,可降低潜在技术模仿成本从而减少东道国激励本国厂商进行创新的补贴成本。最后,文章讨论了我国利用外资推动技术升级的方式。     

Foreign Investment and the Mediation of Trade Flows

How does foreign direct investment affect the trade between nations? While many theories of the multinational firm are based on the premise that foreign production and trade are substitutes, most empirical studies of foreign investment and trade uncover a complementary relationship. This paper shows that the mismatch between theoretical work and empirical findings is a byproduct of data aggregation. When the unique country–industry patterns of mostly OECD country foreign investments in the US are analyzed, predicted substitution patterns are revealed at the data level that roughly corresponds to broad products. The complementary effects of foreign investment on trade emerge at higher levels of aggregation.     

Globalization,product differentiation,and wage inequality

Abstract This paper develops a two‐country, general equilibrium model of oligopoly in which the degree of horizontal product differentiation is endogenously determined by firms’ strategic investments in product innovation. Consumers seek variety and product innovation is more skill intensive than production. Stronger import competition increases innovation incentives, and thereby the relative demand for skill. An intra‐industry trade expansion following trade liberalization can therefore increase wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers. As long as some industries remain shielded from international competition, the welfare implications of globalization are found to be generally ambiguous.     

THE DYNAMIC EFFECTS OF MULTILATERAL TRADE POLICY WITH EXPORT CHURNING

This article examines the relationship between export churning and the aggregate response to trade policy. I show that export churning—the share of bilateral exports by new or exiting exporters—varies systematically across export destinations and build a multicountry model with destination-specific investments in exporting capacity that is consistent with churning patterns. The model then predicts that trade liberalizations with minor export destinations deliver higher bilateral export growth than liberalizations with major export destinations, and the data support this prediction. Furthermore, the aggregate effects of trade policy depend critically on the pattern of export churning in the model.     

林业引资与林产品贸易的可持续发展

林业引进外资不仅关系到林业产业的发展前景，也关系到林产品贸易的可持续发展问题。实证研究表明，林业引进外资与林产品贸易呈正相关关系．对林产品的出口有着极大的推动作用。因此，加大林业引资对于今后改善我国林业进出口的不平衡，缓减林产品贸易进口依存度过高的问题都将有深远的影响。     

Structural change and international competitiveness in Canada: an alternative approach

The neoclassical theory of international trade says little of relevance about the dramatic shifts in world trade patterns in the postwar period. Much of the weakness of the Hecksher-Ohlin-Samuelson model has been attributed to its assumption of globally uniform technology and thus the instantaneous international diffusion of technological innovation. In this paper we relax these assumptions, focusing instead on the role of innovation in the determination of international trade flows. We develop a disaggregated, dynamic Ricardian trade model (based on Pasinetti's 1981 growth model), in which the sectoral rate of process innovation is important in relation to the average innovation rate in the economy. The level of this ratio compared to that of foreign rivals drives long-run trends in international competitiveness. This is called the Pasinetti Trade Hypothesis (PTH). Ricardian comparative cost considerations form the logical foundation for the PTH in that they establish the conditions under which dynamic considerations are relevant. The model is tested for the case of Canada, during the period 1961–72, with the USA serving as a proxy for Canada's international competition. The rate of process innovation in a sector is measured as the rate of change in the vertically integrated labour coefficient in that sector. The results support the PTH in its pure and modified form and provide much weaker support for the static Ricardian hypothesis, indicating that in a world in which more than one country exports each good, the dynamics of structural change - process innovation - may be as important as static comparative cost considerations as a determinant of a sector's international competitiveness. The focus on international differences in technology and innovation rates gives support to government policies aimed at boosting sectoral innovation in relation to foreign rivals. At the least, a laissez-faire response to such ‘industrial tinkering’ by foreign competition may be extremely costly.     

Inside innovation persistence: New evidence from Italian micro-data

This paper contributes the analysis of the persistence of innovation activities, as measured by different innovation indicators and explores its past and path dependent characteristics. The study provides new insights on the role of R&D investments in innovation persistence and analyses differentiated patterns of persistence across product and process innovation, by accounting for complementarity effects between the two types of innovative behaviour. The empirical analysis is based on a sample of 451 Italian manufacturing companies observed during the years 1998–2006. Results highlight the relevance of innovation persistence. The highest level of persistence is found for R&D-based innovation activities, witnessing the actual presence of significant entry and exit barriers. Moreover, we obtain more robust evidence of persistence for product innovation than for process innovation when complementarity effects between the two types of innovation are accounted for.     

Regional integration and innovation offshoring with occupational choice and endogenous growth

We study the effects of regional integration on patterns of production and offshoring in a two-region model of occupational choice and endogenous growth. The distribution of asset wealth and allocation of heterogenous workers into innovation and production determines relative market size. When trade costs and knowledge dispersion are high (low), the asset wealthy (poor) region has a larger market and greater shares of innovation and manufacturing. For low to intermediate levels of trade costs, innovation and manufacturing offshoring flows toward the larger region, but when trade costs and knowledge dispersion are high, offshoring flows from the larger asset wealthy region to the smaller asset poor region. Economic growth is unaffected by the shifts in innovation and production that coincide with changes in relative market size.     

Knowledge investments, business R&D and innovativeness of countries: A qualitative meta-analytic comparison

The relationship between knowledge investments, innovation and competitiveness is an important topic in both academic research and economic policy and has been studied extensively over the past decades. Nowadays, investments in private and public R&D are believed to make up the heart of a modern knowledge economy. The present paper adopts an evolutionary economics perspective and investigates whether, in addition to private R&D activities, also institutional support systems and policy interventions play a role in inducing innovation initiatives and creating impacts on the performance and competitiveness of industries. We aim to find support for the hypothesis that the competitiveness of industries in the international arena is sustained by the dynamic interaction between national, regional and sectoral innovation systems. This may provide stakeholders with a better understanding of the context in which they operate. Since according to the evolutionary metaphor, the growth of an innovation system follows complex dynamics that cannot simply be analysed within a static quantitative equilibrium framework, we use here an alternative approach based on qualitative pattern recognition analysis originating from artificial intelligence analysis. Besides R&D expenditures, human capital expenditures are regarded as the major input in the knowledge creation process in our analytical framework. To this end, in our paper a qualitative causal model that maps out conditional relations between key factors in national innovation systems will be described. The focus of our investigation is on systematic patterns in the competitiveness of the EU Member States, using statistical information on innovation input and output data from the European Innovation Scoreboard. In our analysis we find support for the hypothesis that there are indeed significant interactions between distinct institutional levels, which may provide guidance to the strategic orientation of nations and the European Union in terms of the emphasis on competitiveness vis-à-vis cohesion.     

The value of youth: equalizing age differentials in marriages

The objective of this paper is to present a model of constrained utility-maximizing behaviour which is able to explain serveral features of marriage. The model predicts that individuals meet in the marriage market and trade characteristics, in which they are relatively well endowed, to obtain characteristics in which they are less well endowed. The model implies a positive age differential in favour of the husband due to biological differences. This differential is shown to be attentuated by differences in earnings capacity and human capital investments. The model also has implications for dynamic aspects of marriage and provides an explanation for the secular increase in female' age of first marriage and the difficulty experienced by females in the post thirty-year age group in finding suitable partners. An examination of unit record data on residents of metropolitan California from the 1980 United States Census reveals systematic patterns in the data are consistent with the theory.     

The value of youth: equalizing age differentials in marriages

"The objective of this paper is to present a model of constrained utility-maximizing behaviour which is able to explain several features of marriage. The model predicts that individuals meet in the marriage market and trade characteristics, in which they are relatively well endowed, to obtain characteristics in which they are less well endowed. The model implies a positive age differential in favour of the husband due to biological differences. This differential is shown to be attentuated by differences in earnings capacity and human capital investments. The model also has implications for dynamic aspects of marriage and provides an explanation for the secular increase in females' age of first marriage and difficulty experienced by females in the post thirty-year age group in finding suitable partners. An examination of unit record data on residents of metropolitan California from the 1980 United States Census reveals systematic patterns in the data are consistent with the theory."     

Firm innovation and productivity in Europe: evidence from innovation-driven and transition-driven economies

This article examines the links between firm innovation and firm productivity performance across a range of European economies, and in particular, we explore the differences between countries which are in transition from efficiency-driven to innovation-driven with those which are primarily innovation-driven economies. We employ an endogenous-switching technique to explore micro-economic survey-based data from both innovating and noninnovating firms. The model allows us to construct counterfactual scenarios which overcome problems of self-selection in the data. Some of the findings provide support for the traditional patterns previously found in the innovation literature, in which innovation efforts and investments in physical and human capital are found to be important for product and process innovations in manufacturing and service firms and across economy types. Our counterfactual analysis also allows us to outline a rationale for policy intervention towards noninnovating firms as well as innovating firms depending on where the transitional heterogeneity effects are greatest.     

A Schumpeterian North–South Growth Model of Trade and Wage Inequality*

The paper presents a dynamic general‐equilibrium model of interindustry North–South trade that is used to analyze the effects of trade liberalization on the Northern wage distribution. Both countries have a low‐tech sector where consumer goods of constant quality are produced by use of unskilled labor. The North also has a high‐tech sector that employs skilled labor and features a quality‐ladder model structure with endogenous growth. Both innovation and skill acquisition rates are endogenously determined. In a balanced trade equilibrium, it is found that Southern‐originated (Northern‐originated) trade liberalization leads to an increase (decrease) in Northern wage inequality both between skilled and unskilled workers and within the group of skilled workers. The endogenous change in the Southern terms of trade determines the direction of change in unskilled wages in both the North and the South.     

Import Penetration and Domestic Process Innovation

This paper develops a model of R&D competition between domestic and foreign firms that explicitly incorporates the effect of the market structure. We focus on how differences in costs modify the effects of increases in the number of foreign firms on R&D investments of domestic firms. We show that an increase in the number of foreign firms may have a positive effect on a domestic firm's R&D investment and also show that two trade policies, tariffs or quotas, could have different effects on R&D investments of domestic firms. A welfare analysis shows that greater cost advantages increase social welfare.     

Venture capital,innovation, and growth: evidence from Chinese metropolitan data

Using panel data from 282 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2015, we estimate the impact of venture capital (VC) on innovation, employment, and payroll in metropolitan areas. Controlling for endogeneity, VC investments are significantly positively related to metropolitan innovation, employment, and payroll in a fixed effects panel regression and dynamic GMM estimation. Using the number of IPOs (Initial public offerings) in the city as an instrumental variable to again control for endogeneity, VC remains significant. Our results show that VC is significantly contributing to the metropolitan economy as a whole by supporting innovation, creating jobs, and generating wealth in the local cities.     

Patterns of expectations for emerging sustainable technologies

Innovation is characterized by uncertainties, high risks, large investments and late returns on investment which make it a complex process. This is particularly true for sustainable innovation where market forces alone cannot be relied upon to realize the desired transitions. Insight in the dynamics of such innovation processes is necessary in order to influence technological change toward a more sustainable direction. However, few instruments and indicators are available to assess the performance of emerging technological innovation systems. In this phase competition often takes place based on expectations rather than on technological performance. This paper therefore focuses on the expectation patterns of technological innovation systems in the exploratory phase through the analysis of the expectation dynamics of three emerging technologies in the field of sustainable mobility within the Netherlands: biofuels, hydrogen as a transport fuel and natural gas as a transport fuel. These technologies do not only compete with the current fossil-fuel based system but also with each other. We have collected over 5000 expectation events regarding these technologies for the period 2000–2008 and discuss the insights generated by the comparison of the observed expectation dynamics to theoretical patterns.     

产业内贸易对我国制造业自主创新能力影响的实证研究

从产业内贸易的形成机理出发,利用1997—2010年我国29个制造业的相关数据,利用面板数据变截距模型分析了我国制造业整体的产业内贸易对其自主创新能力的影响,利用面板数据变系数模型分析了29个制造业行业的产业内贸易对其自主创新产出的间接影响效应和直接影响效应。实证结果表明:不同的制造业行业的产业内贸易对其自主创新能力的影响有所差异;在自主创新能力高的制造业行业中,产业内贸易对其自主创新的影响比较显著;在自主创新能力中等的制造业行业中,除了医药制造业、黑色金属冶炼及压延加工业的产业内贸易对其自主创新能力有显著影响外,其他制造业行业的该影响均不显著。     

中国海外直接投资中的贸易保护因素实证研究

贸易保护因素历来是企业进行海外直接投资的重要动因。研究表明,国外关税壁垒的升级导致了近年来中国海外直接投资的增加;反倾销、反补贴及特保措施等贸易救济措施均使得中国加大了对贸易壁垒较少的中低收入国家的直接投资;中国的对外直接投资与东道国市场规模、中国对东道国的出口规模成正比,但没有更多地流入欧盟、东盟及北美自由贸易区等区域贸易组织的成员国中。因此在当前中美及中欧等贸易摩擦频繁的背景下,中国企业应对欧美等发达国家加大直接投资的力度,借此化解国外的贸易保护压力。