Capital accumulation and ground-rent in Brazil: 1953–2008

The paper measures the size of primary-sector surpluses in the form of ground-rent appropriated by social subjects other than landowners in Brazil, and assesses their weight in supporting the process of capital accumulation during the period 1953–2008. For that purpose, the paper identifies the mechanisms through which state policies channelled a portion of ground-rent to capital, especially in the industrial sector, assessing their individual impact. The paper finds that transferred ground-rent has complemented surplus-value normally available for appropriation by capital and thus helped sustain its process of accumulation throughout most the period analysed here, including the post-1990 ‘neoliberal’ era.     

Mapping potentials for input–output-based innovation flows in industrial clusters – an application to Germany

Our paper pursues two aims: first, it presents an approach based on input–output innovation flow matrices to study intersectoral innovation flows within industrial clusters. Second, we apply this approach to the identification of structural weaknesses in East Germany relative to the western part of the country. The case of East Germany forms an interesting subject because while its convergence process after unification began promisingly in the first half of the 1990s, convergence has since slowed down. The existing gap can now be traced mainly to structural weaknesses in the East German economy, such as the absence of strong industrial cluster structures. With this in mind, we investigate whether East Germany does in fact reveal the abovementioned structural weaknesses. Does East Germany possess fewer industrial clusters? Are they less connected? Does East Germany lack specific clusters that are also important for the non-clustered part of the economy?     

Intersectoral size differences and migration: Kuznets revisited

That researchers look for the inverted-U shape in inequality in the arbitrary periods of arbitrary countries underlies the divergent empirical evidence across studies. To point to the right context for the pattern, this paper establishes a formal mechanism in line with Kuznets' explanation that relates to the industrialization-cum-urbanization phases of closed trade regimes. The mechanism involves an interaction among urban–rural sectoral size differences, agricultural tastes/income, and migration, and predicts an inverted-U shape in inequality in the following way: (i) widening differences in the sizes of urban and rural sectors due to exogenous shocks affect negatively the agricultural tastes/income, worsening inequality; (ii) increasing sectoral size differences and decreasing agricultural tastes/income jointly foster intersectoral migration; (iii) migration acts, in turn, as an equilibrating effect, improving the income distribution. Empirically testing these predictions, non-Sub-Saharan developing countries' data support the mechanism, while data from developed and Sub-Saharan African countries provide little support, as per our prior expectations. This highlights a contrasting evidence on the inverted-U shape across country groups of differing development stages.     

Assessing Effects of Mitigation Strategies for Global Climate Change with an Intertemporal Model of the U.S. Forest and Agriculture Sectors

A model of product and land markets in U.S. forest and agricultural sectors is used to examine the private forest management, land use, and market implications of carbon sequestration policies implemented in a" least social cost" fashion. Results suggest: policy-induced land use changes may generate compensating land use shifts through markets; land use shifts to meet policy targets need not be permanent; implementation of land use and management changes in a smooth or regular fashion over time may not be optimal; and primary forms of adjustment to meet carbon policy targets involve shifting of land from agriculture to forest and more intensive forest management in combinations varying with the policy target.     

'Urban Bias', Intersectoral Resource Flows and the Macroeconomic Implications of Agrarian Relations: The Historical Experience of Japan and Taiwan

It is argued that agrarian relations play a critical role in the pattern of intersectoral resource flows and the way in which the agricultural sector shapes the macroeconomy in developing countries. The notion of 'urban bias' used by GKI is defective in its abstracting from the pre-existing agrarian system and from the prevailing institutions and in focussing on one simple set of influences outside the agricultural sector itself, i.e. government policy bias. This is illustrated with reference to the historical experience of two countries regarded as exemplary by GKI: Japan and Taiwan. Their experience shows that high rates of taxation and surplus extraction from agriculture are not incompatible with maintaining profitability and production incentives in agriculture, as long as agrarian relations and other enabling conditions can ensure a fast enough rate of technological progress and productivity growth in the sector. The macroeconomic implications of different agrarian relations are much more complex than the urban bias story told by GKI would suggest.     

Input–output linkages and the propagation of domestic productivity shocks: assessing alternative theories with stochastic simulation

Relatively small sectoral productivity shocks could lead to sizable macroeconomic variability. Whereas most contributions in the literature analyze the issue of aggregate sensitivity using simple general equilibrium models, a novel approach is proposed in this paper, based on stochastic simulations with a global computable general equilibrium model. We find that the variability of the GDP, induced by sectoral shocks, is basically determined by the degree of industrial concentration as measured by the Herfindahl index of industrial value added. The degree of centrality in inter-industrial connectivity, measured by the standard deviation of second-order degrees, is mildly significant, but it is also correlated with the industrial concentration index. After controlling for the correlation effect, we find that connectivity turns out to be statistically significant, although less so than granularity.     

An Input–Output Analysis: Linkages versus Leakages

Resorting to input–output analysis, the relationships between production sectors are investigated. For such assessment, the distinction between imported and domestically supplied inputs, which has been disregarded so far in empirical analysis, is crucial. Besides an accurate measurement of domestic linkages, it also allows us to evaluate the importance of international trade in the production process. Moreover, the interaction between domestic linkages and leakages resulting from international trade can also be analysed. The study of such links improves our knowledge on the economic production structure and how it has evolved over time, which is essential for policy making. Using as a case study a small open European economy, the Portuguese one, we assess sectoral interdependence and trade effects for individual sectors as well as for the economy as a whole.     

When Soloists Form a Choir: Communication Requirements of Sustainability Networks

SUMMARY

In this paper sustainability-oriented intersectoral collaboration is studied with a focus on communication aspects. In contrast to earlier contributions in literature, the major perspective here is not how the marketers involved can use such a partnership as an effective communications tool. Rather the sustainability network itself is seen as pluralistic actor who strives for optimizing its comunication both to internal and external target audiences. Drawing on results from a qualitative case study of a sustainability network, requirements of intersectoral communication are determined. These sets of demands comprise the basis for the elaboration of a network communication design in the future.