Exploring the widening food gap: an international perspective

Using data for a long panel of 90 developed and developing countries, this article explores the effects of research and development (R&D) and fixed capital stock on agricultural land productivity over the period 1961–2012. Instruments are used for R&D to deal with feedback effects and measurement errors. The results show very high social returns to investment in R&D and to fixed capital stock, suggesting that increasing investment in these factors are promising ways of arresting the increasing food prices due to increasing demand for animal protein, population growth, desertification, salinization, soil erosion, climate change, and decreasing growth in land productivity.     

城市工业用地产出率影响因素及区域比较—— 地级城市面板数据分析

研究目的:发现城市工业用地产出率影响因素及其影响程度和区域差异,提出相应对策以促进工业集约用地。研究方法:根据土地功能理论和经济主体动力学关系导向原则构建城市工业用地产出率双向固定效应模型,利用地级城市面板数据估计并检验工业用地产出率影响因素及作用程度并进行区域比较。研究结果:城市工业用地投资强度、就业密度和全要素生产率对1999年来城市工业用地产出率增长的贡献率分别为21.3%、-7%和85.7%;它们对工业用地产出率的边际贡献由于东中西部工业用地集约度、产业类型、劳动素质不同而呈现出区域差异。研究结论:应遏制各地尤其是中西部工业新区建设中粗放用地行为、促进工业投资并加强工业区生活配套以提升投资强度和就业密度,应在工业用地配置和评价中更加重视全要素生产率指标,应推动中西部地区工业升级并在营商环境、基础设施等方面缩小与东部的差距。     

The Impact of Frictions in Routine Execution on Economies of Scope

Research summary: Based on a detailed database of a beverages producer‐distributor that expanded its product variety by leveraging its logistic network, we show that product diversification generates economies of scope and also higher operational costs. The result is an inverted‐U relationship between variety and productivity: When the firm offers few additional categories, productivity grows, but as the number of categories rises, the costs of executing the operational routines increase rapidly and productivity falls. The negative effect on productivity increases if the added product category is more dissimilar to previous ones, and decreases with learning from operational experience. Our results highlight how frictions at the operational level can limit the benefits of diversification, even in the absence of other sources of diseconomies, such as increased coordination needs. Managerial summary: One of the prevalent reasons for companies to expand to adjacent product lines is attaining economies of scope. However, such growth strategy also generates operational frictions, even if the day‐to‐day routines do not appear to change at all. Product diversity is disruptive for routine execution, as it requires coordination and exception handling, and may ultimately overcome any efficiency obtained from growth. We estimate the relevance of such operational friction using data from a beverages distribution network. When product variety is low, additional categories do generate efficiency, but after reaching a given threshold, friction prevails. We find that operational friction increases when products are more dissimilar, but is attenuated when workers learn from their own and other's experience. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Productivity growth and biased technological change: The case of Moroccan hotels

This paper proposes a procedure to analyze Moroccan hotels productivity, based on Luenberger productivity indicator to estimate and decompose productivity change into efficiency change and technological change. This paper enlarges the procedure and further decomposes technological change to study the sources of bias in technological change. Therefore, a clearer and more enlightening view of tourism productivity change emerges. Policy implications are developed.     

资源配置、全要素生产率与农业经济增长愿景

对2004~2010年我国不同地区农业的资源配置扭曲情况的分析表明:由于"二元经济"的影响,我国农业的资本和劳动存在着明显的跨部门配置扭曲。如能有效消除此类扭曲,我国农业TFP能提高6%~36%。各地区的资源再配置效应对农业TFP增长率有着显著影响,并且各地区的资源再配置效应存在明显差异。对全国各个地区而言,土地资源再配置效应都是影响农业资源再配置效应的主要因素,资本和劳动再配置效应则相对较弱。由此可见,促进城乡资本和劳动力市场一体化以及进一步完善农村土地流转市场是现阶段降低农业资源配置扭曲、促进农业TFP增长的主要途径。     

广东省流通服务业资本边际生产率变动趋势研究

为研究资本要素在广东省流通服务业中的使用和配置效率问题,首先运用永续盘存法估算出历年广东流通服务业中各行业以不变价计算的固定资本存量,再以收入法估算出历年行业的资本边际贡献份额,并计算了行业的不变价增加值,在此基础上估计出1993年~2003年10年间各行业的资本边际生产率。结果表明:这些行业的资本边际生产率在这10年间呈明显的上升趋势,即资本的使用效率在提高,但交通运输业的资本边际生产率偏低,且行业间的资本边际生产率差异增大,行业间资本的配置效率下降。     

新新贸易理论及其进展

21世纪初诞生的新新贸易理论突破了新古典贸易理论和新贸易理论以产业为对象的研究范畴,将分析变量进一步细化到企业,以异质企业的贸易投资作为研究重点.企业异质性有两种形式,由于产业内部不同企业生产率的差异而产生的异质性以及企业组织形式差异而产生的异质性,这两种异质性紧密相连.新新贸易理论通过异质企业贸易模型的建立,阐明了现实中只有部分企业选择出口和对外直接投资的原因;通过企业内生边界模型的建立和拓展,将产业组织理论和契约理论的概念融入贸易模型,很好地解释了公司内贸易模式,并在企业全球化生产研究领域进行了理论创新.     

Is there a slowdown in agricultural productivity growth in South America?

This article estimates agricultural productivity growth in 10 South American countries in 1969–2009 with the objective of investigating if the slowdown being measured in other countries is present in the region. Results show that productivity growth accounts for half of the three‐fold increase in agricultural output during this period and that performance is sensitive to R&D investments in the sector. The slowdown found for the 1990s to 2000s in the U.S. and some European economies does not seem to be present yet in South America. The region's total factor productivity (TFP) growth rate increased steadily from 1.07% during the 1970s to 2.29% during the 2000s. Given lags in adoption and the adaptive nature of innovations in these economies, we have yet to see the potential effects in South American agriculture of decreases in R&D in advanced economies.     

Spatial determinants of productivity growth on agri‐food Spanish firms: a comparison between cooperatives and investor‐owned firms

This study analyses the effect of the spatial factor, location, and interaction effects among peer companies, on the productivity growth of agri‐food companies in Spain. With this aim, we build a productivity growth index and apply a multiequational Seemingly Unrelated Regression on a sample of 344 Spanish cooperatives and investor‐owned firms for the period 2010–2012. Our findings show that agri‐food firms are influenced by spatial factors finding interesting differences between cooperatives and investor‐owned firms. With regard to the geographical location, cooperatives in the western of Spain show higher productivity growth rates, whereas investor‐owned firms in the northeast of Spain present better results. The interaction effect among closer peer companies is also a relevant factor to determine the productivity growth in agri‐food companies. This factor is more relevant for cooperatives than for investor‐owned firms.     

Knowledge diffusion and agricultural development

Low agricultural productivity remains the primary source of poverty in the developing regions and yet little is known about the influence on agricultural productivity of domestic and international accumulated R&D knowledge and the channels through which this knowledge is transmitted internationally. Following a large scientific literature, this article argues that R&D and R&D knowledge spillover are ecozone‐specific and, therefore, are transmitted internationally through ecozones, where ecozones are the broadest biogeographic division of the earth's land surface. Using data for a panel of 88 countries, it is shown that international knowledge spillovers are ecozone‐specific and have been an important contributing factor behind the marked widening of the income gap between developed and developing countries since 1983.