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This paper aims to describe the role of industrialization in poverty reduction in any country, especially developing countries, which are mainly based on agriculture. One of the essential purposes of economics is reducing poverty around the world, and our answer regarding the most effective way to do so is industrialization, which includes related services. Only industrialization offers a shortcut to poverty reduction. A problem left to address is how to achieve industrialization. As Reinert (2007) pointed out, the primary sector, including agriculture, has a structural problem of decreasing returns to scale, while the other industrial sectors have the characteristics of increasing returns to scale, which is the advantage of industrialization. The main factors of industrialization include labour mobility, the protection of infant industry, urbanization, the formation of industrial clusters and the prevention of environmental destruction.

We assess the effects of a major land policy change on farm size and agricultural productivity, using a quantitative model and micro-level data. In particular, we study the 1988 land reform in the Philippines, which was an extensive land redistribution program that imposed a ceiling of 5 hectares on all land holdings while at the same time severely restricting the transferability of the redistributed farm lands. We combine two sources of micro data to study the size and productivity effects of the land reform: (a) Decennial Agricultural Census Data, which offer a complete enumeration of farms, outputs, and inputs at the farm level in two separate cross sections, before and after the reform; (b) Philippines Cash Cropping Project, a panel of farm survey data, which tracks a much more limited number of rural households before and after the reform but offers a wealth of information at the parcel and farm level. We decompose the change in aggregate agricultural productivity, before and after the reform, into: (a) a reallocation effect, whereby farming activity is shifted from large farms to small farms and (b) a within-farm effect. The panel of farm surveys allows us to track a particular farmer over time and therefore to observe the source of the within-farm effect following the reform, such as a change in the crop mix or input mix. By focusing on a given country and tracking farmers over time, we control for farmer ability and for location since land quality and climate are constant. We develop a quantitative model with a non-degenerate distribution of farm sizes that features an occupational-choice decision for the farmer. The farmer chooses between two technologies: a ``cash crop'' and a ``food crop'' technology. The cash crop technology requires larger plots to be profitable, while the food crop technology can be operated at any scale. A land reform reduces aggregate agricultural productivity not only by reallocating resources from large/high productivity farms to small/low productivity farms, but also by altering the technology choice of farmers away from the more productive technology. We calibrate the model to the agricultural sector of the Philippines before the reform. We discipline the parameters of the technology choice from the farm-survey data on farm-cropping patterns. We then impose the land reform policy limiting farm size to 5 hectares and we study the consequences of this policy for average farm size, aggregate agricultural productivity, and the distribution of farm-level productivities. Contrary to the many empirical studies of land reforms that find inconclusive evidence of the policy on productivity, our preliminary results indicate that the land reform had a substantial negative impact on farm size and agricultural productivity.

This study extends (Baumol, 1967) two-sector (manufacturing and services) unbalanced growth model to analyze a situation in which, first, services are used for both final consumption and intermediate inputs in manufacturing production, and second, the productivity of the manufacturing and services sectors endogenously evolves. Using this model, we investigate how the employment share of services and economic growth rate evolve through time. Our results are summarized as follows. First, if the human capital accumulation function exhibits constant returns to scale with respect to per capita consumption of services, then we obtain a U-shaped relationship between the employment share of services and the economic growth rate. Second, if the human capital accumulation function exhibits decreasing returns to scale with respect to per capita consumption of services, we obtain an S-shaped relationship between the employment share of services and the economic growth rate: the economic growth rate decreases at first, begins to increase after some time, decreases again, and finally, approaches zero.

We study how monetary policy should respond to shocks which permanently alter the steady state structure of the economy. In such a case monetary policy affects not only the short run misallocations due to nominal rigidities, but also relative prices which stimulate reallocation of capital. We consider a permanent and negative shock to export revenues that requires a larger traded sector and a smaller non-traded sector in the new steady state. This reallocation calls for a change in relative prices during the transition, but may also lead to a period of high unemployment. We show how an appropriate monetary policy could mitigate the welfare costs of the transition by allowing the exchange rate to depreciate, and thereby allowing inflation to increase in the short run. Traditional monetary policy regimes, such as inflation targeting or a fixed exchange rate, would imply high unemployment and inefficiently slow transition. Stabilizing nominal wage growth, in contrast, would be close to the welfare-optimal monetary policy.

This paper quantifies the roles of increases in the demand for skill-intensive output, the efficient scale of service production, and female labor supply in the growth of services. We extend the Buera and Kaboski (2012a,b) model to a two-person household, incorporating a joint decision on home and market production, and allow for skill and sectoral biased technology progress. The rising scale of services, the rising demand for skill-intensive output, and skill-biased technical change all play dominant roles. Furthermore, the extended model explains the majority of the increase in female labor supply, which also plays a role in services growth.

Three dimensions of the performance of firms in Ghana’s manufacturing sector are investigated in this paper: their technology and the importance of technical and allocative efficiency. We show that the diversity of factor choices is not due to a non-homothetic technology. Observable skills are not quantitatively important as determinants of productivity. Technical inefficiency is not lower in firms with foreign ownership or older firms and its dispersion across firms is similar to that found in other economies. Large firms face far higher relative labour costs than small firms. If these factor market distortions could be removed substantial gains thorough improvements in allocative efficiency would be possible.

The removal of high levels of protection combined with substantial real devaluations has changed the environment in which Ghanaian manufacturing firms have operated in the 1990s. The changes in output, composition and productivity, which have occurred over this period, are examined in this paper. Survey evidence for the growth of the sector is shown to be consistent with data from sales tax returns. Analysis of the panel survey shows that, in a comparative context, the rate of job creation in Ghana’s manufacturing sector is high. This rate is highest in medium sized firms; small firms have not grown more rapidly than larger firms. There has been no underlying growth in technical efficiency and output growth has been matched by a commensurate growth in labour and capital inputs. Labour productivity differs substantially by firm size due primarily to differences in physical, not human, capital endowments.

How did Ghanaian manufacturing firms change in the period between 2003 and 2013? This paper presents results from a survey of 1000 firms in Ghana, conducted in 2013, which were randomly selected from the 2003 Ghanaian National Industrial Census. This survey allows us to track survival and exit of firms between 2003 and 2013. We find strong regional differences and also differences for small, medium and large firms. The exit rate of firms in Kumasi, the second city, is lower than in Accra, but the growth rate of firms in Kumasi was also lower. Small firms were more likely to exit than large firms. Overall, the picture we paint of manufacturing in Ghana is not a positive one: total employment by firms operating before 2003 decreased from 134 863 in 2003 to 74 319 in 2013. It remains a question to what extent this was compensated by new employment by firms that entered after 2003, who were not surveyed. We also consider the firm size distribution evolution, and show that selection plays some role in explaining the positive correlation between firm size and age, but that this is less strong than in earlier studies.

This study provides statistical evidence that Russian rural/urban wages diverged substantially during the industrialization of Russia in the late nineteenth century. However, over time both the variation declined and integration somewhat increased as rural labour responded to new opportunities. The patterns were moderately clear for nominal wages. This study supports Paul Gregory`s conclusion that relative advances in the productivity of land in agriculture were accompanied by far greater mobility of labour than is commonly thought in view of the constraints of Russia`s rural institutions.

Understanding the causes of the Industrial Revolution, namely the process of transition from a Malthusian equilibrium to modern economic growth, has been the subject of passionate debate. This paper contributes to insights into the process of industrialization and the demographic transition that followed. We present a model that proposes a mechanism behind the claim that landed elites had strong incentives to block education reforms. By applying the theory of interest groups to landownership, landowners could delay education. However, they could not prevent its introduction indefinitely since gains for the landed elites derived from education would at some moment surpass the costs associated with them. We also sustain that improvements in agricultural productivity prior to the Industrial Revolution may have induced a positive impact on the landowners’ decision to educate the population, which led to an earlier introduction of education reforms. The conclusions fit the patterns of the late boom of industrialization and demographic transition and help explain why some countries (e.g., Britain and The Netherlands) had accelerated education reforms and a faster process of industrialization than most continental countries. A theoretical model is presented, and numerical simulations are exhibited to illustrate our claims.

Corporate governance distortions delay or even halt a country's transformation into a modern innovation economy. We investigate the mechanism through a growth model that allows for agency issues within firms. Governance distortions raise the cost of investment and depress the incentives to set up new firms. Modest differences in governance account for large gaps in income: A 32 percent investment cost differential can explain the secular decline of Latin America income relative to that of the USA, and implies an industrialization delay of a third of a century. We obtain similar results for a large number of countries and macro-regions.

This paper uses a natural experiment to assess whether temporary protection from trade with industrial leaders can foster development of infant industries in follower countries. Using a new dataset compiled from primary sources, I find that in the short-run regions (départements) in the French Empire which became better protected from trade with the British for exogenous reasons during the Napoleonic Wars (1803-15) increased capacity in a new technology, mechanised cotton spinning, to a larger extent than regions which remained more exposed to trade. Temporary protection had long term effects. In particular, by exploiting the fact that the post-war location of the cotton industry was determined to a large extent by the historical accident of the wars, I first show that the location of cotton spinning within France was persistent, and firms located in regions with higher post-war spinning capacity were more productive 30 years later. Second, I find that after the restoration of peace, exports of cotton goods from France increased substantially, consistent with evolving comparative advantage in cottons. Third, I show that as late as 1850, France and Belgium - both part of the French Empire prior to 1815 - had larger cotton spinning industries than other Continental European countries which were not protected from British trade during the wars; this suggests that adoption of the new technology was far from inevitable.

The article assesses the work of Celso Furtado (1920–2004) in the 1970s, an ambitious attempt to redefine the field of development economics. Furtado’s work has recently been revisited by several authors in the history of economic thought. This text explores Furtado’s response to the perceived failure of development theory to explain the reality of underdeveloped nations in the late 1970s. Expanding the scope of analysis and assigning culture a pivotal role helped explain the dynamics of development and underdevelopment. This theoretical movement occurred as development economics was drifting out of the mainstream of economic theory. Unlike the discussion of underdevelopment in the 1950s, this discussion of creativity and dependence encountered an adverse intellectual landscape despite being one of Furtado’s most original contributions. This theoretical turning point is interestingly connected to Furtado’s second term at the University of Cambridge. Like the first discussion of underdevelopment during the 1950s, which was critical to the formulation of his historical-structural analytical method, the discussions of the 1970s also led to this Brazilian author’s vivid and interesting contributions to the field of development economics.

This research advances the hypothesis that natural land productivity in the past, and its effect on the desirable level of cooperation in the agricultural sector, had a persistent effect on the evolution of social capital, the process of industrialization and comparative economic development across the globe. Exploiting exogenous sources of variations in land productivity across (a) countries; (b) individuals within a country, (c) migrants of different ancestry within a country, and (d) individuals residing in regions within a country, the research establishes that lower level of land productivity in the past is associated with more intense cooperation and higher levels of contemporary social capital and development.

This paper presents empirical evidence that the growth of export manufacturing in Mexico during a period of major trade reforms (the years 1986 to 2000) altered the distribution of education. I use variation in the timing of factory openings across commuting zones to show that school drop-out increased with local expansions in export-manufacturing industries. The magnitudes I find suggest that for every 25 jobs created, one student dropped out of school at grade 9 rather than continuing through to grade 12. These effects are driven by less-skilled export-manufacturing jobs which raised the opportunity cost of schooling for students at the margin. (JEL F14, F16, J24, L60, O14, O19)

This paper assesses how structural transformation is affected by sectoral differences in labor-augmenting technological progress, capital intensity, and substitutability between capital and labor. We estimate CES production functions for agriculture, manufacturing, and services on postwar US data and compare them with Cobb--Douglas production functions with different and with equal capital shares. We find that sectoral differences in labor-augmenting technological progress are the dominant force behind changes in sectoral labor and in relative prices. As a result, Cobb--Douglas production functions with equal capital shares (which by construction abstract from differences in capital intensity and the elasticity of substitution) capture the main economic forces on the technology side behind postwar US structural transformation.

This paper argues that sectoral policy aimed at targeting production activities to one particular sector, can enhance growth and efficiency if it is made competition-friendly. First, we develop a model in which two firms can operate either in the same (higher growth) sector or in different sectors. To escape competition, firms can either innovate vertically or differentiate by choosing a different sector from their competitor By forcing firms to operate in the same sector, sectoral policy induces them to innovate ”vertically” rather than differentiate in order to escape competition with the other firm. The model predicts that sectoral targeting enhances average growth and productivity more when competition is more intense within a sector and when competition is preserved by policy. In the second part of the paper, we test these predictions using a panel of medium and large Chinese enterprises for the period 1998 through 2007. Our empirical results suggest that if subsidies are allocated to competitive sectors (as measured by the Lerner index) or allocated in such a way as to preserve or increase competition, then the net impacts of subsidies, tax holidays, and tariffs on total factor productivity levels or growth become positive and significant. We address the potential endogeneity of targeting and competition by using variations in targeting across Chinese cities that are exogenous to the individual firm.

The "emerging middle class" has become a force of economic importance in many consumer markets around the globe. A striking phenomenon in some of these markets is the growth of "generic," low-price brands that compete with established premium brands over the expanding consumer purchasing power. In this paper we examine the impact of a substantial rise in Brazil's living standards on the development of the country's large soft-drink market, during a six-year period that saw unprecedented growth in the share of generic soda brands. Our demand study draws on data sources that capture both social mobility and market outcomes. Our analysis suggests that the emergence of a price-sensitive, new middle class aided the growth of the fringe. Our estimated demand model rationalizes a drastic price cut by Coca-Cola that allowed it to contain the fringe's growth.

This article is intended to provide an updated discussion on a series of issues that the relevant literature suggests to be crucial in dealing with the challenges a middle income country may encounter in its attempts to further catch up to a higher income status. In particular, the conventional economic wisdom—ranging from the Lewis-Kuznets model to the endogenous growth approach—will be contrasted with the Schumpeterian and evolutionary views pointing to the role of capabilities and knowledge, considered as key inputs to foster economic growth. Then, attention will be turned to structural change and innovation, trying to map—using the taxonomies put forward by the innovation literature—the concrete ways through which a middle income country can engage in a technological catching-up, having in mind that developing countries are deeply involved in globalized markets where domestic innovation has to be complemented by the role played by international technological transfer. Among the ways that a middle income country can foster domestic innovation and structural change in terms of sectoral diversification and product differentiation, a recent stream of literature underscores the potentials of local innovative entrepreneurship, which will also be discussed bridging entrepreneurial studies with the development literature. Finally, the possible consequences of catching up in terms of jobs and skills will be discussed.

Researchers typically invoke theoretical assumptions to estimate mark-ups. Instead, we directly obtain mark-ups by surveying Pakistani soccer-ball producers. We document six facts: (i) Mark-ups are more dispersed than costs; (ii) Mark-ups and costs increase with firm size; (iii) The mark-up elasticity with respect to size exceeds the cost elasticity; (iv) Costs increase with size because larger firms use higher-quality inputs; (v) Larger firms charge higher mark-ups because they have higher production shares of high-quality balls that carry higher mark-ups, and because they charge higher mark-ups conditional on ball type; (vi) Correlations suggest marketing efforts are important for generating higher mark-ups.

The turbulent start of the new century has brought new challenges for firms, industries and countries. This paper investigates business and growth strategies of multinational companies within the precious metals jewelry retail industry. The main objective is to identify whether a company’s performance is determined by its growth strategy or not. The purposes for the research are: to understand what kind of business models and strategies global precious metals jewelry retailers pursue, what growth strategies global jewelry retailers pursue and if there is a link between a company’s growth strategy and its profitability. Least but not last, the findings are reviewed on their transferability to other industries. The findings regarding the business models and growth strategies pursued are that all of them are based on Porter’s generic strategies as well as internationalization and diversification but there is no specific preference given to any of the strategic elements.

What does gentrification mean under speculative urbanisation led by a strong developmental state? This paper analyses the contemporary history of Seoul’s urban redevelopment, arguing that new-build gentrification is an endogenous process embedded in Korea’s highly speculative urban development processes from the 1980s. Property owners, construction firms and local/central governments coalesce, facilitating the extraction of exchange value by closing the rent gap. Displacement of poorer owner-occupiers and tenants was requisite for the success of speculative accumulation. Furthermore, the paper also contends that Korea’s speculative urbanisation under the strong developmental (and later (neo-)liberalising) state has rendered popular resistance to displacement ineffective despite its initial success in securing state concessions. Examining the experience of Seoul in times of condensed industrialisation and speculative urbanisation helps inform the existing literature on gentrification by resorting to non-Western empirics.

Relative to backward firms, technologically-advanced firms source inputs from other advanced firms. These sourcing patterns lead to a magnification effect of technology adoption. A firm that adopts higher-technology increases the relative supply and demand for higher-technology inputs. As a result, it positively influences the technology of other firms in its production chain. Using data from a Colombian manufacturing survey, we provide evidence that advanced firms disproportionately value advanced inputs. More novel, we provide suggestive evidence that technological advancements in some firms increase the technology of other firms indirectly linked to them through a common input market.

What happens in the developing world when stringent regulations characterizing the investment climate meet weak government willingness or capability to enforce those regulations? How is business actually done? The Doing Business project surveys experts concerning the legally required time and costs of regulatory compliance for various aspects of private enterprise—starting a firm, dealing with construction permits, trading across borders, paying taxes, getting credit, enforcing contracts, and so on—around the world. The World Bank's firm-level Enterprise Surveys around the world ask managers at a wide array of firms about their business, including questions about how long it took to go through various processes like obtaining an operating license or a construction permit, or bringing in imports. This paper compares the results of three broadly comparable indicators from the Doing Business and Enterprise Surveys. Overall, we find that the estimate of legally required time for firms to complete a certain legal and regulatory process provided by the Doing Business survey does not summarize even modestly well the experience of firms as reported by the Enterprise Surveys. When strict de jure regulation and high rates of taxation meet weak governmental capabilities for implementation and enforcement, we argue that researchers and policymakers should stop thinking about regulations as creating “rules” to be followed, but rather as creating a space in which “deals” of various kinds are possible.

“Expo Milano 2015” confirmed the opening for an intercultural journey offering ideas and shared solutions, and “SHOP 2015” was challenging indeed to reflect at the retail space as a crucial factor influencing the customer’s feelings, at the necessary increased focus on integrating retailers’ various channels, while considering the impact of the converged lifestyle which has empowered consumers, and step by step better understanding the need of driving convenience, service, and relevant personalized experiences through the use of digital store technology. ” “SHOP 2015” was also a true opportunity to launch an invitation to work together to build the foundation for the “Road Map for the Store of the Future” Project.

Stať identifikuje změny zpracovatelské výroby ve vyspělých ekonomikách. Hlavním cílem je popsat a zhodnotit současnou diskusi na téma údajné renesance tohoto klíčového odvětví v USA. Jsou uvedeny hlavní argumenty pro a proti zpracovatelské revitalizaci. Článek zvažuje hypotézu vytvoření nových podmínek pro rozvoj určitých zpracovatelských segmentů v USA, jestliže roste jejich nákladová konkurenceschopnosti a zapojení progresivních technologií. Obnova odvětví však teprve začíná, je nejistá a selektivní. Proto jsou mnohé projevy zpracovatelského návratu zpochybňovány. Autor po zvážení argumentů uzavírá, že navzdory pozitivním výhledům americké ekonomiky nelze v dohledné době vyslovit zcela jednoznačný závěr. (The article identifies manufacturing changes in developed economies. The main aim is to describe and evaluate current discussion on the alleged renaissance of manufacturing in the USA. Pros and cons of the production revitalization are dealt with here. The article works with the hypothesis that new conditions have arisen for some U.S. manufacturig segments as a result of their improved cost-competitiveness and progressive technologies. However, the restoration of manufacturing has only started, and may seem uncertain and selective. As a result, many features of its comeback are questioned. Considering all the arguments the author summarises that despite positive U.S. economic expectations unambiguous conclusion cannot be made in a short period.)

This paper shows an analysis of tourism activity in the Mexican Republic States, where the most visited tourism destinations are located. The intention is to identify the economic structure related to tourism activity, employment specialization and the productivity index. We used the tourist statistics derivative from the Mexican Economic Census (2003 and 2008) and estimated a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), the Normalized Employment Specialization Index and the Employment Coefficient, for nine Mexican States where tourist employment is more than 20% of total employment and for each section of the tourism sector, according to the North America Industry Classification System (NAICS). The results show a heterogeneous behavior in the establishments, employment and characteristics of the tourism sector. These results contribute to design of the promotional and development public policies for tourism.

The aim of this study is to verify and assess the quality of lessons in traditional and electronic textbook on general standards of textbooks quality. The method of theoretical analysis and content analysis was used. For the purpose of analyzing the contents of the sample we took teaching unit Measures and measurement from two textbooks: the traditional and the electronic. The electronic textbook, which has been the subject of research, is of quality and meets the standards of textbook quality.

We marketed a training program for lower level managers (line supervisors) to large factories in the Bangladeshi ready-made garment industry. Take-up of the program (even for a free slot) was low, due to intense production pressures, fire-fighting and concerns over retention of trained workers. Take-up is quite insensitive to pricing. There was higher interest and demand in training modules aimed at improving production processes and quality, rather than human resources and social compliance. Since the program was priced close to a commercially viable rate, it might be possible to develop a market provided they could be proved to be effective.

There is no doubt that the citizen’s quality of life may be improved by properly understanding definite current challenges, and by continuously reflecting and applying the knowledge with wisdom. “Expo Milano 2015” represents a clear invitation for responsible and accountable way of doing business, confirming the opening for an intercultural journey offering ideas and shared solutions. In the generous perspective offered by “SHOP 2015”, it is challenging to reflect at the retail space as a crucial factor influencing the customer’s feelings, at retailers who should consequently develop a strategy that defines their ideal retail footprint, at businesses which need continuing putting increased focus on integrating their various channels, while considering the impact of the converged lifestyle which has empowered consumers. We are already in this converged lifestyle, a new phase of convergence, in which technology enables consumers to get what they want, when they want it, virtualization is disrupting power relationships between companies, customers, and employees, while convergence of technology will lead to convergence of competition. It is argued that, in the future, those retail stores that drive convenience, service, and relevant personalized experiences through the use of digital store technology will succeed. We dare to say that the Romanian retail market will also be an interesting “battlefield” in what concerns competing in offering customers consistent experiences whether they interact with a brand in-store, online or via mobile, by delivering them content fast and seamlessly across all these channels, while also not forgetting that the foundation of retailing is understanding what customers want and need, and consequently developing a deep understanding of the decision journey that the new shoppers undertake.

In this paper, we empirically investigate whether trade liberalization affects markup dispersion, a potential source of resource misallocation. The identification uses China's WTO accession at the end of 2001. We show that trade liberalization reduces markup dispersion within a narrowly defined industry. We also examine both price and cost responses to trade liberalization, as well as heterogeneous effects across firms and across locations. Our study contributes to the literature by identifying another potential channel through which free trade benefits a nation. (JEL F13, L11, O14, O19, P23, P31, P33)

Implementing negotiation support systems requires the commitment of significant amounts of resources within the host organization. This paper looks at the effectiveness of investments in these systems, looking at some standard indicators for economic efficiency and the impact of these systems on an organization’s overall activities. This article is part of a research project spanning over a period of 3 years, aimed at developing a successful model for computer assisted negotiations.

Economically, the County of Sibiu has been characterized, especially after 2007, by an accelerated speed of development, the recorded increase pushing our County among the most dynamic economies at regional and national level as well. The present paper aims at analyzing the specificity of the economic development of Sibiu County, namely to identify the resources of the obtained economic progress. The purpose of this study also consists in identifying new opportunities for the local economy, outlining new sources of development that are more important as competition, both at regional and national level, is tighter and tighter.

This study aims for a comparative analysis on the economic efficiency of the Confort Penssion located in a rural area and the Danacris Penssion from the urban area. The reason for choosing these two units is that the types of tourism they represent are significant areas of operation, namely leisure tourism ("Confort " Penssion) from Suceava area and business tourism ("Danacris" Penssion) from Bucharest. Based on the existing methodology in the specialized literature we computed specific indicators in order to highlight economic efficiency.Based on the analysis of the main financial standing indicators and the evolution of income and expenditure one may conclude that both companies are profitable.

Yaratýcý endüstrilere gösterilen ilgi son yýllarda hýzla artmaktadýr. Bu çerçevede, sosyal bilimciler yaratýcý kümelenmelerin oluþumunu açýklayabilmek için çaba sarf etmektedir. Bu çalýþmanýn amacý Türkiye’de yaratýcý endüstrilerin kümelenmesini iktisadi coðrafya perspektifinden araþtýrmaktýr. 81 ili kapsayan bir yoðunlaþma katsayýsý analizi aracýlýðýyla çalýþmada elde edilen sonuçlardan; yaratýcý endüstrilerin büyük þehirlerde kümelenme eðiliminde olduðu varsayýmýnýn Türkiye için geçerlilik taþýmadýðý yargýsýna ulaþýlmaktadýr.

El presente trabajo pretende hacer un análisis de la actividad turística en los estados de la República Mexicana donde se localizan los destinos más visitados, con el propósito de identificar la estructura económica regional asociada al sector, la especialización en el empleo y los índices de productividad. Para ello, a partir de información de las Estadísticas Turísticas de los Censos Económicos para 2003 y 2008, se estima un Análisis Envolvente de Datos (DEA), el Indice de Especialización de Empleo Normalizado y el Coeficiente de Empleo a nivel de ramas para las nueve entidades federativas cuya ocupación del empleo en el sector turístico es mayor al 20% del total de la ocupación estatal. Los resultados documentan la ausencia de un comportamiento homogéneo en el número de establecimientos y empleos, así como en relación a las ramas de actividad, éstos pueden coadyuvar al diseño de políticas públicas orientadas hacia la promoción del desarrollo del turismo con mayor eficiencia en el sector.

Fast foods are internationally expanding at an amazing pace. Because fast-food products are delicious, abundant, relatively cheap and available in any moment of the day, this type of restaurants are found almost everywhere, and in addition, these have home delivery options, are appreciated and consumed by all age categories, so that fast-food has become a worldwide appreciated phenomenon. In support of the previous mentions, we shall emphasize an economic analysis performed for the Burger King Plaza Restaurant during 2010-2011. The results of the analysis may be appreciated as for being satisfying, although there is a need for improvement if this unit is to cope to the current and future conditions.

US regional variation shows a positive correlation between the size of the service economy and female market hours, which is partially driven by different tax regimes. Based on this fact, this paper develops a multi-sector model to: (1) quantify the effect of different tax regimes in incentivizing woman to enter the labor force, and (2) estimate the feedback effect from women entering the labor force on the service sector size. Counterfactual results suggest that tax progressivity has a stronger effect than tax levels on married female market hours and the speed of structural transformation. In addition, married households react more to progressivity increases and single households are more sensitive to level changes. These results highlight that models ignoring tax structures (levels and progressivity) and household heterogeneity (dual versus single earning households) could lead to erroneous policy conclusions.

Empirical evidence suggests that the differences in rates of technical progress across sectors are time-variant, implying that the bias in technological change is not constant. In this paper, we analyze the implications of this non-constant sectoral biased technical change for structural change and we assess whether this is an important factor behind structural transformations. To this end, we develop a multi-sectoral growth model where TFP growth rates across sectors are non-constant. We calibrate our model to match the development of the U.S. economy during the twentieth century. Our findings show that, by assuming non-constant biased technical change, a purely technological approach is able to replicate the sectoral transformations in the U.S. economy not only after but also prior to World War II.

Compared to most countries, China’s value-added tax (VAT) system is not neutral and makes it less advantageous to export a product than to sell it domestically, as export - ers may not receive a complete refund on the domestic VAT they have paid on their inputs. However, the large and frequent changes to the VAT refunds which are offered to exporters have been led China to be accused of providing its firms with an unfair advantage in global trade. We use city-specific export-quantity data at the HS6-product level over the 2003-12 period to assess how changes in these VAT rebates have affected Chinese export performance. Our identification strategy relies on triple difference estimates that exploit an eligibility rule which disqualifies processing trade with sup - plied materials from these rebates. We find that changes in VAT rebates have significant export repercussions: eligible export quantity for a given city-HS6 pair rises by 6.5% following a one percentage-point increase in the VAT rebate. This magnitude yields a better understanding of the strong resistance of Chinese exports during the global recession, in which export rebates increased substantially.

The World is in a continuous change at the level of all its components including entrepreneurship, the most dynamic element of the business activity. Another direction of change comes from technologies called “key enabling technologies” and represents a revolution in using raw materials and shapes the entire industrial process, obtaining competitive advantages. This paper tries to find a realistic answer to the question: is it possible to follow the global trend of technologies and to foster them in Romania? A realistic picture supplied by statistical data correlated with elements of the national plan of research and development offers a more theoretical approach since practical examples are almost non-existent, but the potential to apply these ideas through entrepreneurship is promising. Meeting recommended goals from this paper, through cooperation between private companies, state and academies, creativity and innovation will boost new ideas for a better life in a healthier Romania.

A body of literature suggests that ethnic heterogeneity limits economic growth. This article provides microeconometric evidence on the direct effect of ethnic divisions on productivity. In team production at a plant in Kenya, an upstream worker supplies and distributes flowers to two downstream workers, who assemble them into bunches. The plant uses an essentially random rotation process to assign workers to positions, leading to three types of teams: (i) ethnically homogeneous teams, and teams in which (ii) one or (iii) both downstream workers belong to a tribe in rivalry with the upstream worker’s tribe. I find strong evidence that upstream workers undersupply non-coethnic downstream workers (vertical discrimination) and shift flowers from non-coethnic to coethnic downstream workers (horizontal discrimination), at the cost of lower own pay and total output. A period of ethnic conflict following Kenya’s 2007 election led to a sharp increase in discrimination. In response, the plant began paying the two downstream workers for their combined output (team pay). This led to a modest output reduction in (i) and (iii) teams—as predicted by standard incentive models—but an increase in output in (ii) teams, and overall. Workers’ behavior before conflict, during conflict, and under team pay is predicted by a model of taste-based discrimination. My findings suggest that interethnic rivalries lower allocative efficiency in the private sector, that the economic costs of ethnic diversity vary with the political environment, and that in high-cost environments firms are forced to adopt “second best” policies to limit discrimination distortions.

1. IntroductionThe textiles and garments (T&G) sector accounts for 48 percent of Pakistan's total exports, 30 percent of value-added in large-scale manufacturing, and 40 percent of industrial employment (Table 1). The sector is expected to continue doing well, given that Pakistan was recently granted GSP-plus status by the European Union (EU), which has opened up a large market for the country's T&G exports. Furthermore, rising labor costs in China and the increasing technological sophistication of its manufactured exports are likely to reduce the Chinese share (about 40 percent in 2012) of the world garments market.1 This will create an opportunity for other T&G exporters, including Pakistan, to expand their share of the market.Additionally, as incomes rise in the large, fast-growing economies of China and India, their demand for T&G will likely rise in tandem. This will further expand the sector's export potential for Pakistan if it builds on its close economic and political ties with the former and common overland border with the latter. Several recent developments thus point to the continued-even rising-importance of the T&G sector in expanding exports and employment in Pakistan over the next five to ten years. However, we argue that, for the sector to realize its potential, policies that shape the incentive structure facing the industry need to be realigned.This paper is divided into five sections.2 Section 2 describes the structure of the T&G sector and recent trends in T&G exports. Section 3 discusses the problems and weaknesses of the garments sector, particularly those arising from the policy environment. Section 4 explores the ways in which many garments manufacturers have successfully overcome the problems associated with Pakistan's weak industrial environment. Section 5 summarizes the recent initiatives undertaken by the Punjab government, which has made the development of this sector a key element of its industrial policy. Section 6 concludes the study.2. T&G Exports: Structure and TrendsSince independence in 1947, Pakistan has been a major producer of raw cotton: in 2012, it was the fourth largest producer, accounting for about 8 percent of the world's total cotton output (US Department of Agriculture, 2014). It is not surprising, therefore, that Pakistan has followed a cotton textiles-led industrialization strategy. The textiles chain in Pakistan consists of activities spanning cotton ginning, spinning, weaving, finished fabrics, textile made-ups (particularly towels and household linen), and garments (woven and knitted apparel). In the 1960s and 1970s, Pakistan also promoted the synthetic fiber industry by giving it fiscal incentives and a high level of protection.Initially, the textiles-led strategy was very successful and Pakistan was among the fastest growing economies in the world in the 1960s. Except for a brief interregnum during the Bhutto government's nationalization drive and heavy industry push in the 1970s, textiles remained at the forefront of Pakistan's industrialization strategy through the 1990s. The results of this strategy are evident from the continuing importance of the T&G sector to the economy.However, the industry's historical pattern of development and the resulting dominance of the spinning industry in textile policymaking as well as the presence of a highly protected synthetic fiber industry have become major constraints to the growth of the value-added components of the T&G sector since the 1990s. To some extent, this is evident from the differential performance of T&G exports in Pakistan and Bangladesh. In 2011, Bangladesh-which does not produce any cotton and had no cotton spinning mills at the time of its separation from Pakistan in 1971-had garments exports of almost US$ 20 billion, i.e., about two thirds more than Pakistan's total T&G exports that year. Although there are also other factors underlying this remarkable difference in the export performance of the two countries, we believe that the historical pattern of development of the industry has, in both cases, played an important role. …

In developing countries, informal firms account for up to half of economic activity. They provide livelihood for billions of people. Yet their role in economic development remains controversial. Some, like Hernando De Soto (1989, 2000), see informal firms as an untapped reservoir of entrepreneurial energy, held back by government regulations. In this view, unleashing this energy by reducing entry regulations or improving property rights would fuel growth and development. Others, like Levy (2008), take a more cynical view, stressing the advantages enjoyed by informal firms and workers from avoiding taxes and regulations. A report from the McKinsey Global Institute describes informal firms as parasites competing unfairly with law-abiding formal firms (Farrell 2004). In this view, informality should be suppressed, not unleashed. Still others follow the development tradition of Lewis (1954), Harris and Todaro (1970), and more recently Rauch (1991) and see informality as a byproduct of poverty. From this dual perspective, formal and informal firms are fundamentally different. Productive formal entrepreneurs pay taxes and bear the cost of government regulation to reach new customers, raise capital, and access public goods. These entrepreneurs are often educated and find it more profitable to run bigger formal firms rather than the smaller informal ones. In contrast, informal entrepreneurs are typically uneducated and unproductive, and they run small businesses producing low-quality products for low-income customers using little capital and

This paper analyzes the decision of a group of specialized workers to form a guild and block the adoption of a new technology that does not require their specialized input. The theory predicts an inverted-U relation between guilds and market size: for small markets, firm profits are insufficient to cover the fixed cost of adopting the new technology, and hence, specialized workers have no reason to form guilds; for intermediate sized markets, firm profits are large enough to cover the higher fixed costs, but not large enough to defeat workers' resistance, and so workers form guilds and block adoption; and for large markets, these profits are sufficiently large to overcome worker resistance and so guilds disband and the more productive technology diffuses throughout the economy. We show that this inverted-U relation between guilds and market size predicted by our theory exists in a dataset of Italian guilds from the 14th to the 19th century.

In this study, we examine the effects of exporting on the industry productivity following a two-step procedure using 4-digits industry level data of Turkish manufacturing sectors for the period 2003-2008. First, robust total factor productivity variable is obtained from a Cobb-Douglas production function following the semiparametric method of Olley and Pakes (1996), since productivity estimation by approximating the weighted sum of the inputs by OLS may suffer from simultaneity and selection biases. In the second stage of empirical analysis, the relationship between productivity and being net-exporter is estimated by fixed-effects panel data method. Results show that, productivity level for net-exporters is lesser than the level for net-importers indicating that industries are more prone to import and more competitive on import markets. We also show that when simultaneity and selection biases are not controlled for, the coefficient for the labor input is biased upward and the coefficient for the capital stock is biased downward.

We analyze the state of the art of indicators on eGovernment, eHealth, eProcurement and ePartecipation. We survey the main methodological properties of these indicators, and uncover the principal stylized facts and trends; at the same time, we highlight their heuristic limits and potential inconsistencies. Finally, we address empirically the issue of the explanation of the indexes scores – i.e. how the supply of the various eServices in each country is affected by political, institutional and socio-economic differences, and is followed by actual usage. The econometric analysis uncovers the importance of broadband penetration and higher education as drivers for most of the types of eServices and users (citizens and businesses). Moreover, a corruption-free and agile public sector shows up to be an important pre-condition for more effective supply and usage. Despite severe data limits and the complexity of the underlying diffusion phenomena, our study of eServices availability and usage across European countries is a first empirical contribution aimed at disentangling broad empirical trends – with their correlates - from unresolved methodological issues. As such, this work appears useful to inform the policy debate and practice, in a phase characterized by a prospective reorientation of public eServices provision.

The goal of this research is to estimate the effect of resource reallocation from the manufacturing to the real estate economic sector on exporting activity in Croatia, a small open post-transition country that experienced a real estate boom during the previous decade. This paper follows the work by Égert and Kierzenkowski (2014) as we test the hypothesis that the real estate boom had an adverse impact on country’s export performance. For that purpose we use quarterly data ranging from 1Q1998 to 3Q2013, and estimate export equations using maximum likelihood and dynamic ordinary least squares estimators of cointegration. Our results indicate that the distortion of relative prices in favor of non-tradable sectors (construction and real estate), which is a direct by-product of the real estate boom, has had stifling effects on export performance. Our results also suggest that ailing cost competitiveness and governments’ inability to implement policies promoting private sector economic development adversely influenced export performance during the period analyzed. The basic conclusion of our research is that the expansion of a non-tradable sector in a country with limited supply of production factors can have a detrimental effect on the ability of the tradable sector to increase its output and compete in international markets.

The sector of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is one of the key instruments for the development of an economy. The literature emphasizes its capacity for both increasing productivity and generating new sources of income and wealth ( Colecchia and Schreyer, 2002 , Jorgenson and Stiroh, 1999 among others). Traditionally studies on the ICT sector have focused on the analysis of its economic impact, but not on its capacity as a “bridge” for information and knowledge flows across the economic network. Following Burt's approach ( 1992 ) on structural holes, the organization of the economic network defines where and for whom new opportunities lie. The structural hole methodology allows to analyze the capacity of the ICT sector as an enabler of technological diffusion and innovation. The results show that the European ICT sector not only is important for its intermediary role in the flow of information across the economic network, but also for its low level of dependency on other sectors.

From the point of view of the consequences of European integration, similarities of economic structures of member states are of high relevance. The main objective of the paper is to analyse how those similarities looked like in the period of 1970-2006 for EU15 and in 1995-2006 for EU25 countries. The analysis consists of two stages and refers to the similarities in employment composition between three sectors of economy, and also between subsectors of manufacturing and services– distinguished on the basis of their technological advancement and knowledge intensity. In the first step, on the basis of the EU-KLEMS database, a measure of structural similarity, Krugman specialization index, was calculated for all pairs of EU countries. Observation of its values points to an ongoing homogenization of EU15 economies and of their manufacturing structures, but also to an increase in differences of knowledge intensity in services. In the broader sample of EU25, despite an ongoing economic transition, no significant homogenization of structures was observable. As the second step, a cluster analysis was conducted, which allowed for identification of development patterns in the sample of European countries.