Trading away what kind of jobs? Globalization,trade and tasks in the US economy

Economists and other social scientists are calling for a reassessment of the impact of international trade on labor markets in developed and developing countries. Classical models of globalization and trade, based upon the international exchange of finished goods, fail to capture the fragmentation of much commodity production and the geographical separation of individual production tasks. This fragmentation, captured in the growing volume of intra-industry trade, prompts investigation of the effects of trade within, rather than between, sectors of the economy. In this paper we examine the relationship between international trade and the task structure of US employment. We link disaggregate US trade data from 1972 to 2006, the NBER manufacturing database, the Decennial Census, and occupational and task data from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. Within-industry shifts in task characteristics are linked to import competition and technological change. Our results suggest that trade has played a major role in the growth in relative demand for nonroutine tasks, particularly those requiring high levels of interpersonal interaction.     

Regional Comparisons,Spatial Aggregation,and Asymmetry of Price Pass-Through in U.S. Gasoline Markets

Spot to retail price pass-through behavior of the U.S. gasoline market was investigated at the national and regional levels, using weekly wholesale and retail motor gasoline prices from January 2000 to the present. Asymmetric pass-through was found across all regions, with faster pass-through when prices are rising. Pass-through patterns, in terms of speed and time for completion, were found to vary from region to region. Spatial aggregation was investigated at the national level and the East Coast with the aggregated cumulative pass-through being greater than the volume-weighted regional pass-through when spot prices increase. These results are useful to the petroleum industry, consumers, and policy makers by providing a basis to estimate the retail price effects that result from a change in spot price.     

深圳居民消费结构变化分析

一、深圳居民消费结构的变化状况1.深圳居民收入提高,消费增加居民消费结构的变化主要取决于居民的收入状况。居民的收入提高了,消费欲望才会增强。据深圳市统计局城调队抽样调查显示,深圳居民近年的可支配收入稳步上升,1999～2003年深圳居民的可支配收入分别为20240.40、21625     

论新经济时代的人力资本产权

一、人力资本要求产权具有客现性西奥多·舒尔茨最早创立了现代经济学人力资本理论,他是从探索经济增长和社会富裕的秘密而逐步踏上人力资本研究之路的。舒尔茨认为,单纯从自然资源、实物资本和劳动力的角度,不能解释世界各国生产力提高的全部原因,除了那些已知的经济增长要素外,一定还有重要的生产要素被“遗漏”掉了,这个要素就是人力资本。所谓人力资本,即为人们花费在教育、培训、保健等方面的开支所形成的资本,这种资本凝结和贮存在特定的人身上,体现为人的智力、知识和技能等。当代西方经济学认为:资本采取两种形式,即物力资本和人力…     

Luft zum Atmen

Mehr Sicherheit im Umgang mit Trachealkanülen - Pflegende, die Patienten mit einer Trachealkanüle betreuen, müssen den Kanülenwechsel sicher beherrschen. Denn bei Komplikationen kann das Warten auf den Arzt katastrophale Folgen haben. Daher muss der Umgang mit den Kanülen zur Routine werden.     

The role of foreign direct investment in the host-country firm selection process: firm-level evidence from Slovenian manufacturing

This paper examines the role of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) in firm selection processes in the Slovenian manufacturing sector in the 1994–2003 period. It adopts the firm dynamics framework that allows testing of selection effects directly by assessing the impact of foreign firms’ activity on the probability of exiting of local firms (crowding out). The results show that intra-industry productivity spillover effects offset only a minor part of the competition pressure which results from foreign firm entry, hence incumbent firms experience a drop in their survival probability upon a foreign firm’s entry within a particular industry. This result is driven by foreign firm entry of the greenfield type, as entry through the acquisition of existing firms has no significant effect. The strength of the crowding-out effect decreases with the incumbent firm’s export propensity. There is no significant evidence that inward FDI would stimulate the selection process through backward linkages in the upstream supplying industries, whereas foreign firms’ activity reduces the exit probability of downstream local customers (through forward linkages).     

The spatial effects of trade openness: a survey

This paper surveys the literature on the implications of trade liberalisation for intra-national economic geographies. Three results stand out. First, neither urban systems models nor new economic geography models imply a robust prediction for the impact of trade openness on spatial concentration. Whether trade promotes concentration or dispersion depends on subtle modelling choices among which it is impossible to adjudicate a priori. Second, empirical evidence mirrors the theoretical indeterminacy: a majority of cross-country studies find no significant effect of openness on urban concentration or regional inequality. Third, the available models predict that, other things equal, regions with inherently less costly access to foreign markets, such as border or port regions, stand to reap the largest gains from trade liberalisation. This prediction is confirmed by the available evidence. Whether trade liberalisation raises or lowers regional inequality therefore depends on each country’s specific geography.     

Not all trade restrictions are created equally

There has been great focus in the recent trade theory literature on the introduction of firm heterogeneity into trade models. This introduction has highlighted the importance of the entry/exit decision of firms in response to changes in trade barriers. However, it is typical in many of these models to use iceberg transport costs as a general form of trade barriers that can be interchangeable with ad valorem tariffs. I show that this is not always an appropriate conclusion. Specifically, I illustrate that profit for an exporter is more elastic in response to tariffs than iceberg transport costs, which affects the entry/exit decision of firms. This has implications for welfare analysis and empirical specifications.     

Should multivariate early warning systems for banking crises pool across regions?

Most extant work on prediction of banking crises has utilised global samples, which are in turn dominated by observations from middle-income countries, and rely on a single estimator. However, economic and financial structures as well as the pattern of shocks may differ substantially across regions, while a range of specifications is desirable to check robustness. Accordingly, in this paper we test the implicit pooling assumption in earlier multivariate work on Early Warning Systems using both logit and binary recursive tree specifications separately for crises in Asia and Latin America, as well as the pooled sample. Results suggest markedly different crisis determinants across regions, implying global samples are inappropriate.