Conclusions The necessary and sufficient condition suggested by Hillman [1980] for the index of RCA, when used in cross-country comparisons,
to provide a one-to-one relationship between pre-trade comparative advantage and revealed comparative advantage is fulfilled
for the great majority of the “commodities” traded in 1985 by 118 developing economies. Given the low level of data aggregation
(the lowest for which statistical information is currently available), the large sample of countries and the high percentage
of developing economies’ total exports captured in this research, we can conclude that Balassa’s export-performance index,
for cross-country comparisons, is a good indicator of comparative advantage as reflected by pre-trade prices. In other words,
Hillman’s condition is a useful indicator of the presence of monotonicity in indices of RCA: we have observed that at a 5-digit
level of commodity aggregation, increases in Balassa’s export performance index of RCA are likely to correspond to increases
in export levels. Aggregation of commodities at a 3-digit and at a 1-digit level suggests that Hillman’s condition is unlikely
to be violated if the cause for values of the Hillman’s Index less than one is due to export specialization; on the contrary,
the number of cases of a Hillman Index smaller than one due to a large share of world markets is expected to be negatively
related to the level of aggregation. Our results suggest that Hillman’s index should be calculated in any empirical investigation
trying to assess the long-term implications of trade liberalization negotiations using an export-performance index of RCA.
There is evidence that, if used at a disaggregated level, the HI is a tool that may help flag cases in which the RCA index
can be a misleading indicator of countries’ comparative advantage, even in cross-country comparisons. It may also help reduce
disagreements regarding the most appropriate coefficient of RCA.
Further research should be directed toward enlarging the sample of countries to include the entire world and to incorporate
at least three years of trade so as to be able to eliminate the possible influence of cycles. 相似文献
Governmental stabilization policies take account of the underlying risk aversion of its voters. A utility function for the
government is defined, one which includes variances of national income changes with respect to its policy instruments—here
the budget variable, the bond rate of interest, and the currency-exchange rate. The consequence of this for the optimal set
of policies is a target level of national income less than what a risk-neutral government aims at. This applies to an open
economy when this is a key-currency country, as it need attend to balance-of-payments effects only insofar as they affect
national income. The non-key-currency country, by contrast, must take account directly of balance-of-payments effects and
their variance, so it reaches a lower level of utility than the key-currency country. 相似文献
This paper constructs a number of possible core measures of inflation using singular spectrum analysis (SSA). Annual changes in monthly inflation are decomposed into its trend, oscillatory and noise components in order to develop an understanding of the trend and cyclicality in South African headline inflation. Three cyclical components with differing amplitude and frequency are identified. The trend and cyclical components of inflation are found to be a good approximation of core inflation, the inertial part of inflation. These core measures are compared with other candidate core measures based on the properties of a good core inflation measure. Generally, the SSA measures outperform commonly used measures of core inflation based on both in‐ and out‐of‐sample performance. 相似文献
This paper addresses the topic of business network dynamics. Starting with a review of the IMP literature, it aims to shed light on potential relational paths by which a firm may reconfigure its business network. To this end, two main emerging paths are described: integration and substitution. Methodologically, the paper presents and discusses the data collected during a longitudinal case analysis of four Italian textile producers. The main implications for business networks stemming from these emerging relational paths are described. In particular, the main findings from the cases analyzed suggest that business network dynamics should be interpreted in terms of the processes of both business network change and consolidation. 相似文献
Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination - We provide experimental and empirical evidence on the role of information distribution and accuracy in solving market inefficiency and the related... 相似文献
The paper investigates the determinants of banking profitability and banking market conditions in Austria. We conduct a panel econometric analysis which allows for testing the hypotheses which have become the most prominent in the literature on bank profitability: the structure–conduct–performance hypothesis, the efficient‐structure hypothesis and the relative market‐power hypothesis. Further, we test whether Austrian banking markets are, on average, contestable. A newly compiled dataset covering more than 700 Austrian banks ranging over the period from 1995 to 2002 is used to carry out these econometric analyses. The empirical findings support the view that the Austrian banks do exert, on average, some local market power. However, the gains in terms of excess profits are rather minor as a result of low deterrence powers of the incumbent banks. 相似文献
This paper uses data envelopment analysis to assess the operational performance of 28 Italian airports during the period of 2000 through 2006. Recent developments in bootstrapping techniques are used to correct total factor productivity estimates for bias and to assess the uncertainty surrounding such estimates. This study found that the Italian airport industry experienced a significant technological regress, with few airports achieving an increase in productivity led by improvements in efficiency. Moreover, the paper shows that the form of ownership (public majority vs. private majority) of an airport management company does not significantly affect performance. In contrast, this type of the concession agreement has positive and significant effects on airport productivity. Finally, the paper highlights the existence of a productivity gap between airports located in the North-Central part of the country and those located in the south. 相似文献
This paper outlines and analyses the major changes in work-force organization that have been introduced by British and German steel producers in the past decade, against a backcloth of retrenchment in the industry, new product development and technological change. Including multiskilling, a reduction in demarcation and team–working, these changes have had a major effect upon the composition of the work–force and the nature of work undertaken at the shopfloor level. While these changes have had a common broad trajectory, they have been introduced at a different pace and in different forms. The contrasts are provided not only at the international level, but between plants in the same countries. The paper further outlines the response of trade unions to these changes and the implications for industrial relations at the shopfloor level. 相似文献
The worldwide financial crisis of 2007–2008 raised serious concerns about the soundness of banks’ activities and about the extent to which banking regulation should supervise banks’ investment decisions. We contribute to this topic by examining the Spanish case, which has been emblematic of the bubble and burst dynamics in the credit market. In particular, we study the allocation of bank credit among Spanish companies from 1999 to 2014, showing that larger companies accumulated greater amounts of bank loans per unit of total assets, thus leading to a notable concentration. We also find that, during the Spanish boom period, bank loans shifted from the manufacturing to the construction industry, and in particular to the largest companies of the latter sector. This happened in spite of the high leverage of large construction firms, which was increasing also due to their growing debt. We argue that the higher operating benefits, reflecting the increase of the housing price during the boom period, overvalued construction firms as potential borrowers. The bankruptcy of several large construction companies during the Spanish crisis supports the need for monitoring and regulation, to avoid an excessive concentration of bank credit to a few large companies, especially if they belong to a specific sector.