Why does the peso-dollar exchange rate show a depreciation trend? The role of productivity differentials

Over the last three decades, Mexico's macroeconomic policy has been driven by a sound orthodox strategy: an open economy via many trade agreements signed since the mid-1980s, a nominal exchange rate under a flexible regime since 1994, central bank autonomy, and responsible fiscal policy, among other benchmarks. Nevertheless, the exchange rate has continued on a path of depreciation against the US dollar. In this paper, we show that although an equilibrium relationship exists between the exchange rate and prices in Mexico and the US (its main commercial partner), there are other forces affecting the former. The main factor in this relentless long-term depreciation is the loss of productivity in Mexico relative to the US. In addition, we show that the extraordinary liquidity supplied by the US during the 2008 crisis caused the Mexican peso to appreciate against the dollar.     

Credit constraints and productivity of SMEs: Evidence from Canada

To what extent firms are constrained by external credit is usually unobserved in commonly used firm-level data. We use a survey of financing among Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises to measure the likelihood of a firm being constrained by credit. We find that firm size, current debt-to-asset ratio and cash flow are robust indicators of being financially constrained, while long-term debt to asset ratio is not a significant indicator of credit constraints. We then estimate the firm-level total factor productivity, taking into account the measured credit constraints. Omitting credit constraints leads to an upward bias of productivity estimates, by 4 percent. In addition, we find no strong evidence that suggests credit constraints lead to slower productivity growth. Finally, we confirm that both investment and employment growth are negatively affected by the measured credit constraints.     

Working with monsters: counting the costs of workplace psychopaths and other toxic employees

We explore the role of ‘Workplace Monsters’ in the global burden of disease, including the $US1.15 trillion annual cost of depressive and anxiety disorders. We propose the productivity drain created by these individuals is a wicked problem, integrating several disciplines to position workplace monsters as significant corporate governance issues for organisations. Our discussion covers Monster prevalence, impacts on fellow workers and estimates of the costs incurred to business. We classify Monsters as ‘appreciating liabilities’ and call for future research to develop means of accounting for their inherent organisational costs in an effort to prompt action to address their destructive impacts.     

A two-sector Kaleckian model of growth and distribution with endogenous productivity dynamics

This study extends a two-sector Kaleckian model of output growth and income distribution by incorporating endogenous labour productivity growth. The model is composed of investment goods and consumption goods production sectors. The impact of a change in wage and profit shares on capacity utilisation and output growth rates at the sectoral and aggregate levels are identified. The study reveals short-run cyclical capacity utilisation rates and productivity growth dynamics. Even if the short-run steady state is stable, the capital accumulation rate in the consumption goods sector must decrease more than that in the investment sector for long-run stability. When simultaneous rises in profit shares in both the sectors affect long-run aggregate economic growth differently at a steady state, the distributional interests between the same class in different sectors may hamper the long-run economic growth. A policy message is that the effect of income distribution on industrial output growth is not always beneficial. These phenomena are specific to two-sector models and cannot be observed when using conventional aggregate growth models.     

东道国金融发展对中国企业对外直接投资的影响:二元边际与生产率门槛

文章基于中国上市企业2008-2015年对外直接投资数据，分析东道国金融发展在扩展边际和集约边际上对企业对外直接投资决策以及投资所需生产率水平的影响。研究发现，在不同生产率的企业中东道国金融发展的影响是异质性的。较高的金融发展水平会系统性地降低投资所需的生产率水平，进而促进中国企业对外直接投资的概率、次数和规模。进一步的研究还发现，在经济发展水平比中国高的东道国金融发展的生产率效应更显著，投资所需生产率下降得更多。尽管如此，高经济发展水平东道国的最低生产率门槛仍然高于低经济发展水平的东道国。控制了金融发展指标和企业全要素生产率的内生性后，结果依然稳健。     

R&D based knowledge capital and future firm growth: Evidence from China’s Growth Enterprise Market firms

Building upon a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model, this paper examines the role of knowledge-based capital (KC) in improving firms’ future growth in productivity. Based on the analysis of Chinese listed firms from 2006 to 2017 in the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM), we find KC often generates endogenous movements in productivity and earnings over the business cycles, suggesting that the nature of KC is pro-cyclical. Moreover, investment in KC is often classified as a corporate expense and is thus deducted from the current year’s profits. Therefore, firms with high R&D investments have significantly higher future productivity growth but lower current profitability than do those with lower R&D investments. Given these characteristics, KC’s benefits to productivity and future earnings are thus not immediate. For faster growth in the long term, firms should continue investing in KC even if they may face a short-term fall in corporate earnings as a result of internal knowledge investment, especially for fast-growing GEM firms.     

环境规制对制造业绿色转型的影响机制及实证研究

制造业绿色转型是大势所趋，环境规制作为实现环境效益的重要手段，其如何影响制造业绿色转型值得探讨。在阐述环境规制对制造业绿色转型直接影响和间接影响机制的基础上，使用2005—2017年中国（内地）省级面板数据，采用基于EBM-GML模型计算得出的绿色全要素生产率衡量中国制造业绿色转型程度，进而建立固定效应面板模型检验异质性环境规制对制造业绿色转型的影响。结果表明：我国制造业绿色转型程度整体保持上升趋势，增长速度呈现出明显阶段性特征。环境规制对制造业绿色转型具有非线性影响，命令控制型环境规制和自愿参与型环境规制超过一定限度后能直接加快制造业绿色转型进程，市场激励型环境规制的直接影响则不显著；环境规制能够通过技术创新、外商直接投资、产业结构间接促进制造业绿色转型，产业集聚的影响则不显著；市场激励型环境规制能够通过间接效应影响制造业绿色转型。     

Is heterogeneous capital depreciation important for estimating firm-level productivity? Evidence from Chinese manufacturing firms

This paper contributes to the existing literature on estimating firm-level production functions. Using Chinese manufacturing survey data, we employ the firm-level heterogeneous capital depreciation rate to measure firms’ investment and assess its role using Olley and Pakes (1996) (OP) production function estimation technique. Although there is some ongoing debate on the econometric soundness of the OP technique, we argue quantitatively that the heterogeneous depreciation rate muffles the measurement error associated with the key input demand investment. In our sample, it significantly narrows the gap of total factor productivity (TFP) estimates between the OP technique and a state-of-the-art estimation method that works without investment. We further reveal that the improved performance primarily originates from the dynamic evolution in the distribution of the capital depreciation rate.     

Job reallocation in Korean manufacturing: 1984–2014

This paper investigates the patterns of job reallocation in Korean manufacturing during the period 1984–2014. Utilizing establishment-level data from the Mining and Manufacturing Survey, we construct job flow measures and document the trend of job reallocation and test its efficiency. We first find that the pace of job reallocation has diminished since the Asian Financial Crisis. Although jobs were reallocated from less productive to more productive establishments overall, we find that the productivity-enhancing effect has also diminished over time. Although recessions are known to be periods of intense reallocation and restructuring, job reallocation was not particularly more efficient during recessions in Korea. It even decreased during the Great Recession of 2008 because the exit probability of low-TFP establishments was reduced.     

Productivity and efficiency of state-owned enterprises in China

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the variations in SOE efficiency and productivity from the perspectives of macroeconomic fluctuations and systematic reform in China during 1986–2003. We use Data Envelopment Analysis to measure SOE efficiency. Subsequently, we use the Malmquist Index of Productivity change to measure productivity growth. The empirical results show that SOE efficiency and productivity exhibited obvious improvements during periods of strong systematic reform and a prosperous economy. The systematic reform after 1998 had a clear-cut impact on SOE performance.