Environmental complexity related information for the assessment of country logistics environments: Implications for spatial transaction costs and foreign location attractiveness

With on-going fragmentation and distribution of production and consumption across geographical space, information about national logistics systems is becoming increasingly important to decision makers in internationally operating firms and organisations. While continuing research on country logistics assessment generates some of this information, its relevance for the decision makers, and relationship to their unpredictability from foreign national logistics systems remains indefinite.This paper identifies and categorises the relevant, available information on country logistics environments by using a content analysis approach. We demonstrate the immensity and nature of this information, are able to confirm the changing spatial transaction cost structures, and to reflect upon the overall conditions of information-related complexity and globalisation in the environment. Besides making a contribution to the further development of the spatial impedance factors and measures that form the basis for decision maker unpredictability, the paper offers an alternative approach for measuring the importance of transportation costs in industrial location, and offers a useful lens to distinguish between the emerging literatures on national logistics systems. Finally the paper also offers practical implications on location attractiveness for investment promotion agencies and other public sector agencies for business development and cluster growth.     

Brands that ‘sell their soul’: offshoring,brand liquidification and the excluded consumer

ABSTRACT

Fuelled by open markets and globalisation, offshoring has become a common business practice for firms in industrialised countries. However, consumer research investigating offshoring in a larger macroeconomic and political context is scant. Using a naturalistic, contextualised approach, the current research investigates how a predominantly working/middle-class consumer segment perceives production offshoring for durable goods. The findings show how consumers can develop a sentiment of being excluded or left behind, even when they do not belong to traditionally disadvantaged segments in society defined by income, gender, education, appearance or sexual preference. Perceived brand liquidification, discussed through the marketplace mythologies of corporate greed and the opportunistic consumer, perceived brand de-contagion and patriotism/nationalism, leads to sentiments of exclusion and a longing for re-solidification. Exploring these relationships helps to understand current consumer sentiment towards offshoring in the larger context of neoliberalism and labour arbitrage.     

The economics of the welfare state in today’s world

This article is concerned both with the substantive policy issue of the implications of the European welfare state in a global setting and with the way in which economists analyse the welfare state. Economics has made a major contribution to our understanding of the welfare state through the provision of formal models. These have allowed us to see the implications of social protection for countries increasingly open to international competition. These models, however, leave out essential elements, and the standard Heckscher–Ohlin 2-good, 2-factor, 2-country assumptions impose too tight a straitjacket. We do not observe full factor price equalisation. The paper considers how we might relax this straitjacket to incorporate elements that are important in the public debate, while preserving tractability. The resulting 3×3×3 model is used to investigate the impact of globalisation on the welfare state, contrasting Europe and the US. The first version of this paper was written while I was visiting the Economic Research Department of the Bank of Italy. I am most grateful to the Research Department for their hospitality, but make clear that the contents of the paper are solely my responsibility. The paper was presented at the April 2006 Netspar Conference in the Hague. I thank the discussants, André de Jong and Cees Oudshoorn, and the conference participants, for their helpful comments. The revision has benefited from the valuable suggestions of the referees and editors, and the final version has been greatly improved as a result of a conversation with Peter Neary. None of the above are to be held responsible for the remaining shortcomings of the paper.     

Human appropriation of natural capital: A comparison of ecological footprint and water footprint analysis

The water footprint concept introduced in 2002 is an analogue of the ecological footprint concept originating from the 1990s. Whereas the ecological footprint (EF) denotes the bioproductive area (hectares) needed to sustain a population, the water footprint (WF) represents the freshwater volume (cubic metres per year) required. In elaborating the WF concept into a well-defined quantifiable indicator, a number of methodological issues have been addressed, with many similarities to the methodological concerns in EF analysis. The methodology followed in WF studies is in most cases analogous to the methodology taken in EF studies, but deviates at some points. Well-reasoned it has been chosen for instance to specifically take into account the source and production circumstances of products and assess the actual water use involved, thus not taking global averages. As a result one can exactly localise the spatial distribution of a water footprint of a country. With respect to the outcome of the footprint estimates, one can see both similarities and striking differences. Food consumption for instance contributes significantly to both the EF and the WF, but mobility (and associated energy use) is very important only for the EF. From a sustainability perspective, the WF of a country tells another story and thus at times will put particular development strategies in a different perspective. The paper reviews and compares the methodologies in EF and WF studies, compares nation's footprint estimates and suggests how the two concepts can be interpreted in relation to one another. The key conclusion is that the two concepts are to be regarded as complementary in the sustainability debate.     

Spatial dynamics of major infectious diseases outbreaks: A global empirical assessment

We explore the space–time and mortality dynamics of recent infectious diseases outbreaks which have occurred in a large number of developed and developing countries. We fully acknowledge the heterogeneity of infectious diseases. We find that many outbreaks exhibit spatial dependence, due to the international movement of people and goods. All countries are exposed to these negative cross-border health externalities, which can be triggered by climate shocks. The mortality consequences are much more severe in developing countries. Paying attention to spatial dependence has important implications for economic research and international policymaking.     

Translocality on the real estate market: A new extended approach

Growing levels of socio-economic development around the world have induced globalisation processes that generally diminish the role of local communities and local processes. However, the intensification of global processes has led to an unexpected turn towards locality. This process is referred to as glocalisation. Globalisation leads to the generalisation of locality (universalisation), and glocalisation processes localise globality (indigenisation). Globalisation and glocalisation are integrated through translocality which supports evaluations of the co-existence of both processes. This study proposes a general concept of translocality (TR) and a methodology for measuring translocality (MTR). In this approach, translocality reflects the degree of tension/adaptation between globalisation and glocalisation. The results of the study indicate that translocal processes on regional markets in Poland proceed gradually, and that they are accompanied by the emergence of convergence clubs of translocal regions and the progressing inter-regional stratification in translocality levels.     

Linking agricultural policies with obesity and noncommunicable diseases: A new perspective for a globalising world

In light of the shift in policy paradigm in agriculture from state intervention to market liberalisation and globalisation, this paper develops a series of hypotheses on the relationship between agricultural policies and consumer diets. The first hypothesis is that the paradigm shift has led to greater specialisation of production, so changing the ability and incentive for producers to supply certain foods relative to others. Second, the shift has affected farmgate prices (both up and down), so creating opportunities for the industries which purchase farm commodities (the food consuming industries – FCIs) to substitute lower priced ingredients, thereby influencing the nutritional quality and content of foods available in the marketplace. Third, it has increased the ability of the FCIs to “add value” through product innovation and marketing, creating a market characterised by highly differentiated products targeted to individualised preferences, thus increasing the acceptability of a wider variety and quantity of food products.     

Monetary analysis and the global financial cycle: An Asian central bank perspective

Emerging Asia has seen a transformation of its monetary policy environment over the past two decades. By far, the most relevant change has been the maturing of its financial systems and the growing relevance of the global financial cycle: financial inclusion has spread, financial markets have deepened and financial globalisation has linked domestic markets closer to international markets. One consequence of the maturing of the financial systems has been the weakening of the traditional case for the monetarist view of the roles of monetary aggregates in the conduct of monetary policy. In addition, the maturing of the financial systems has elevated concerns of financial stability, as both a source of shocks and a responsibility of central banks. These developments have been further complicated by monetary policy spillovers from the advanced economies. All this points to the need to consider alternatives to conventional inflation targeting frameworks. This paper lays out a policy framework based on a multi-pillar monetary policy approach as a potentially attractive alternative for EM Asia. The three pillars are based on economic, financial and exchange rate stability, respectively. This framework not only offers an alternative conceptual framework but also implies institutional reforms to ensure central banks take a longer term perspective when setting policy.     

Exploring the financial consequences of the servitization of manufacturing

Commentators suggest that to survive in developed economies manufacturing firms have to move up the value chain, innovating and creating ever more sophisticated products and services, so they do not have to compete on the basis of cost. While this strategy is proving increasingly popular with policy makers and academics there is limited empirical evidence to explore the extent to which it is being adopted in practice. And if so, what the impact of this servitization of manufacturing might be. This paper seeks to fill a gap in the literature by presenting empirical evidence on the range and extent of servitization. Data are drawn from the OSIRIS database on 10,028 firms incorporated in 25 different countries. The paper presents an analysis of these data which suggests that: [i] manufacturing firms in developed economies are adopting a range of servitization strategies—12 separate approaches to servitization are identified; [ii] these 12 categories can be used to extend the traditional three options for servitization—product oriented Product–Service Systems, use oriented Product–Service Systems and result oriented Product–Service Systems, by adding two new categories “integration oriented Product–Service Systems” and “service oriented Product–Service Systems”; [iii] while the manufacturing firms that have servitized are larger than traditional manufacturing firms in terms of sales revenues, at the aggregate level they also generate lower profits as a % of sales; [iv] these findings are moderated by firm size (measured in terms of numbers of employees). In smaller firms servitization appears to pay off while in larger firms it proves more problematic; and [v] there are some hidden risks associated with servitization—the sample contains a greater proportion of bankrupt servitized firms than would be expected.

A disaggregated analysis of EU imports: the implications for the study of patterns of trade and technology

This paper examines trends in the unit prices of manufacturedimports into the European Union (EU) in the period 1988–2002.This is undertaken at a high level of disaggregation, and itis this decomposition which we believe has important implicationsboth for a range of bodies of economic analysis and for policy.The analyses undertaken in this paper confirm that disaggregationmatters in helping to identify unit-price trends. We have alsoshown that unit-price trends vary with the type of economy exportinginto Europe and the type of product being exported, and thatthese results are robust at high levels of disaggregation.