Politics of managing: the dialectic of control

Accounting influences the evolution of management identity by determining which aspects of performance are made visible. However, management do not technocratically apply accounting measurements. An organizational study is used to analyze how management use partisan performance measurements to control the labor process. Management's strategies are influenced by how technology, worker skill, and product competition affect worker capacity to resist. Management's dilution of capital's interest by accommodating labor's needs, or mobilization of the efficiency ethos, reflect the politics of dialectical control.     

Firm location choice in cities: Evidence from China,India, and Brazil

This paper contributes to the industrial location literature by examining why industry locates or refrains from locating in large, medium and small cities of India, China and Brazil using firm-level data from the World Bank. Results from ordered logistic regressions indicate that capital cities are not attractive for firms to locate, when they are large. In India and China, labor intensive firms do not locate in large cities. Proximity to inputs has a positive impact on firm location in China. While availability of inputs has a positive impact on firm location in India, the availability of raw materials has a negative impact on firm location in Brazil. Firms established in post-reform period in India tend to locate in large cities; in China, these firms avoid medium and large cities. The implications for urban governance in these countries are discussed.     

When trade hurts: Consumption indivisibilities and labor market distortions

We present a simple model where complementarities between wages and demand due to factor market distortions can make a transition economy worse off from trade. Prior to trade, a virtuous circle prevails: high wages in industry support a high demand for indivisible industrial goods, which in turn supports high wages. However, factor market distortions in the transition economy create a comparative disadvantage in industry. Opening up to trade results in the import of indivisibles and a fall in manufacturing wages, breaking this virtuous circle. Consequently, trade liberalization without structural reform can have serious adverse effects in a transition economy.     

Is protection really for sale? A survey and directions for future research

This paper critically and selectively surveys the literature on protection for sale and discusses directions for future research in this area. It suggests that the standard approach needs to be augmented to provide more compelling tests of this model.     

Skill acquisition,credit constraints,and trade

In this paper we develop a general equilibrium model where credit constraints limit the ability of agents with heterogeneous abilities and wealth to acquire skills. We identify a new effect, the induced Rybczynski effect, that works in the opposite direction from the normal supply response and may result in relative supply being downward-sloping. We analyze the effects of trade and show that under some conditions trade may reduce welfare. Finally, we study the effects of trade on income distribution and inequality.     

DETERMINANTS OF CITY GROWTH AND OUTPUT IN INDIA

To investigate what determines urban population and economic growth, the determinants of urban population growth and economic output in India are examined empirically. City growth and economic output regressions are estimated using several approaches. Since only growing areas are usually designated as towns, the urban population of districts that are larger geographical areas than cities are estimated. It is found that, at the district level, manufacturing has a positive impact on city size, and proximity to large cities causes nearby cities to be larger, reflecting agglomeration effects.     

Immiserizing Growth in a Closed Economy

We develop a model with three key features: a factor market distortion, monopoly power in the product market and indivisibilities in consumption. In this setting, multiple equilibria arise, one with high and the other with low equilibrium wages, incomes and output. It is also shown that even in a closed economy, growth may be immiserizing and, finally, that redistribution could be a “rich man's game”.     

Trade, investment and growth: nexus, analysis and prognosis

Patterns of causation between income, export, import and investment growth for 39 developing countries are examined using model selection techniques which are based on ex ante predictive ability criteria to identify the best predictive model for each country. In particular, we look at the incidence of causation and reverse causation between various economic variables which are commonly believed to lead economic growth and find that there is less reverse causation from income to these variables than previously thought. We also construct an index of global business cycle conditions and find that models of countries with high trade exposure, growth rates and investment rates tend to gain in predictive ability from the addition of this variable.     

If at First You Don't Succeed…: Profits,Prices, and Market Structure in a Model of Quality with Unknowable Consumer Heterogeneity*

Why are higher quality niches seen as intrinsically more profitable in business circles? Why do high quality products sometimes have a low real price, whereas it is unusual to see low quality products with high real prices? Can markets have quality differentiation as well as quality bunching? How does the rate at which fixed costs change with quality affect market structure? In this article we develop a new model of quality that casts light on such issues.