Urban Unemployment, Factor Accumulation, and Welfare

This paper shows that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, economic expansion (factor accumulation) may be immiserizing in the mobile capital Harris-Todaro model if scarcity of land is introduced in agricultural production. The effect of factor accumulation on the level of unemployment is examined, and precise conditions for the expected response are derived.     

Land and Urban Unemployment

This paper re–examines the effects of expansion of land itself on unemployment and welfare in the mobile–capital Harris–Todaro model with land in agriculture. We show the possibility of immiserization and the harmful effects on employment contrary to the conventional results.     

REVENUE SEEKING AND METZLER PARADOXES

Bhagwati and Srinivasan (1980) demonstrated the interesting possibility that once revenue seeking is introduced the Metzler paradox may arise even for a small country: that is, a tariff will decrease the output of the inportable good. In this note, we establish the conditions under which the Metzler production paradox will arise and discuss the relation between the importable-good and the exportable-good production paradoxes.     

A Simple Multi-Regional Input–Output Account for Waste Analysis

The present paper provides a simple multiregional input–output model for waste analysis with which to estimate intraregional and interregional effects of industrial wastes embodied in regional final consumptions. The empirical analyses using 1995 nine-regions input–output tables reveals the regional properties of the interregional linkage effects. The Kanto and Kinki regions remarkably control the industrial waste emissions and waste landfills within their own regions by importing waste-intensive intermediate goods and services from the other regions. The Chugoku and Shikoku regions greatly contributed to the production of the waste-intensive goods and services for the other regions, considering the waste emissions and waste landfills relative to the commodity production levels. We also find that the household consumption behaviour in other regions indirectly plays a more important role in waste emissions than the municipal waste disposal behaviour in the region in question at least in 1995.     

Industrial clusters with substantial carbon-reduction potential

To successfully reduce environmental emissions, companies need to expand the scope of their emissions accounting to include entire supply chains. A clustering approach has been used to find emission-intensive industry clusters. However, this approach did not include entire direct and indirect supply chains when forming high emission industry clusters. We propose a new method based on a modified normalized cut function with Leontief’s input–output model and basic clustering algorithms to find industry clusters with high levels of embodied within-cluster emissions that are well separated in the supply chain network. We use this method to identify 58 carbon-intensive clusters of Japanese industries and visualize the within-cluster supply chains in terms of embodied carbon flows. We recommend that companies collaborate within clusters to reduce environmental emissions. Our results provide new insights on where to target emissions reduction actions and technology development within industrial supply chains.     

Economic liberalization and wage inequality in the presence of labour market imperfection

This paper is purported to analyze the consequences of liberalized economic policies on the skilled–unskilled wage inequality in the developing countries using a three sector general equilibrium model reasonable for at least a few developing economies. The analysis of the paper has found that the wage inequality rises unambiguously due to a reduction of import tariff from the low-skill manufacturing sector. However, an inflow of foreign capital produces a favourable effect on the wage inequality under a reasonable factor intensity condition. Interestingly, contrary to the common wisdom, a policy of labour market reform may raise the competitive unskilled wage and improve wage inequality under reasonable condition.     

Tourism,Capital and Labor Inflows and Regional Development

International Advances in Economic Research - The paper considers an open rural region of a developed country with two sectors, an environmentally sensitive agricultural industry and locally...     

The role of primary processing in the supply risks of critical metals

This study seeks to understand the role of primary processing, i.e. the first post-mining stage, in supply risk, by means of a case study on three critical metals (neodymium, cobalt, and platinum) in the context of Japan. Applying the ‘footprint’ concept with a multiregional input–output model, we have quantified the direct and indirect vulnerability of the Japanese economy to such risks. Considering the supply risks associated with primary processors, we find that Japanese final consumers are exposed to relatively higher supply risks for neodymium as compared with cobalt and platinum. Our study shows that the primary processing stage of a metal’s supply chain may contribute significantly to the overall supply risks, suggesting that this stage should be taken into due account in understanding and mitigating supply-chain vulnerability through, e.g. supplier diversification and alternative material development.     

Identifying environmentally important supply chain clusters in the automobile industry

In this paper, we develop a new approach that combines the spectral clustering method and input–output analysis to detect environmentally important supply chain clusters. The newly developed method was applied to automobile manufacturing in Japan, and major clusters with high energy intensities in the automobile supply chain were identified. This paper proposes that the car manufacturers will be able to regularly publish their life-cycle assessment reports with a focus on the indirect energy consumptions within the critical supply chains and request key auto-part manufacturers in the cluster to reduce the indirect consumptions through the relevant supply chain engagement.     

INFLOW OF FOREIGN CAPITAL AND TRADE LIBERALIZATION IN A MODEL WITH AN INFORMAL SECTOR AND URBAN UNEMPLOYMENT

Abstract.  The paper has made an attempt to analyse the effects of liberalized trade and investment policies on welfare and open unemployment in a developing economy in terms of a three sector Harris-Todaro type general equilibrium model. Following empirical evidence it is assumed that there is wage rigidity in urban sectors, which leads to the simultaneous existence of open unemployment and an urban informal sector in the migration equilibrium. The paper deserves special attention for its interesting results which are completely opposite to those generated by the standard Harris-Todaro model.