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72. How Does the Border Affect Productivity? Evidence from American and Canadian Manufacturing Industries
- Author:
- Robert J. Vigfusson
- Publication Date:
- 12-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
- Abstract:
- This paper studies how much of productivity fluctuations are industry specific versus how much are country specific. Using data on manufacturing industries in Canada and the United States, the paper shows that the correlation between cross-border pairings of the same industry are more often highly correlated than previously thought. In addition, the paper confirms earlier findings that the similarity of input use can help describe the co-movement of productivity fluctuations across industries.
- Topic:
- Economics, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States, Canada, and North America
73. Sponsors, Communities and Standards: Winning in the Local Area Networking Business
- Author:
- Martin Kenney and Urs von Burg
- Publication Date:
- 07-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
- Abstract:
- Economics has treated technological standards creation as an outcome of network externalities and decisions on the demand side. They pay little attention to the supply side, where firms make strategi choices on which standard to support. These choices can ignite a contest between adherents to the different proposed standards. This case study examines the contest btween the Ethernet and Token Ring standards for local area networking. We find that the critical difference in explaining the success of Ethernet vibrancy was the nature and strategy of the standard's sponsors in assisting the growth of a community of firms supporting the standard.
- Topic:
- Economics, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States
74. Went for Cost, Stayed for Quality?: Moving the Back Office to India
- Author:
- Rafiq Dossani and Martin Kenney
- Publication Date:
- 07-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
- Abstract:
- Will the next great wave of globalization come in services? Increasingly, components of back-office services, such as payroll and order fulfillment, and some front-office services, such as customer care are being relocated from the U.S. and other developed countries to English-speaking, developing nations especially India, but also other nations such as the Phillipines. Though moving service activities offshore is not entirely new, the pace has of late quickened. The acceleration of this offshoring is intertwined, though not synonymous, with another phenomenon, namely an increasing willingness by firms to outsource what formerly were considered core activities. The importance of the fact that a substantial number of service activities might move offshore is that it was service jobs that were thought to be the future growth area for developed country economies as manufacturing relocated to lower labor cost regions offshore. This is especially important, because these services commonly known as "business processes" (BPs) are among the fastest growing job categories in the US (Goodman and Steadman 2002). Should these jobs begin to move offshore, a new tendency may be underway in the global economy that will be as important or more important than the relocation of manufacturing offshore, and might necessitate a rethinking of government policies across a wide spectrum.
- Topic:
- Economics, Globalization, and Industrial Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States, South Asia, and India
75. Steel Policy: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
- Author:
- Gary C. Hufbauer and Ben Goodrich
- Publication Date:
- 01-2003
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics
- Abstract:
- While the US steel industry has been in distress for decades, the “steel crisis” of 1999-2001 was particularly acute. More than 30 steel producing and steel processing firms fell into bankruptcy between 1997 and 2001, and most of the failures occurred after President Bush took office. During his presidential campaign, Bush promised steelworkers that he would not neglect them. As the crisis worsened, the steel industry and the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) pressed the Bush administration to make good on its campaign promise.
- Topic:
- Government, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
76. Outsourcing and Inequality
- Author:
- Paul Brenton, Bob Anderton, and Eva Oscarsson
- Publication Date:
- 10-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for European Policy Studies
- Abstract:
- This paper brings together and analyses the results of empirical analyses which, in contrast to most other studies, find that trade has been a significant cause of labour market inequality in various industrialised countries. The approach is based upon the concept of outsourcing – whereby the low-skill parts of the production chain are 'outsourced' to low-wage countries. A distinguishing feature of the empirical work is the use of highly detailed trade data, which allow imports from high- and low-wage countries to be separately identified at the industry level. Using cost minimisation framework, we show that imports from low-wage countries have made a significant contribution to the decline in the wage-bill share and/or relative employment of less-skilled workers in the UK, the USA, Sweden and Italy. We also show how the country-specific characteristics of outsourcing can lead to quite different inequality outcomes in different countries. In line with other studies, we also find that technology has played an important role in causing the increase in inequality in many countries. However, there is also some evidence that some of the rapid increase in the application of new technologies in recent decades has been trade-induced through mechanisms such as 'defensive innovation'.
- Topic:
- Economics, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States and United Kingdom
77. U.S. Climate Policy After Kyoto: Elements for Success
- Author:
- Daniel Bodansky
- Publication Date:
- 04-2002
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- With the U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol and the agreement's likely entry into force, it appears that the United States and the rest of the world will go their separate ways on climate change. The United States now faces a stark choice: Do nothing, join Kyoto, or come up with a policy of its own. The first option would be unwise, environmentally and politically. The second would require an embarrassing flip- flop by the Bush administration. This leaves the third option: proposing a credible U.S. approach separate from Kyoto.
- Topic:
- Energy Policy, Environment, Globalization, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States
78. How Shareholder Reforms Can Pay Foreign Policy Dividends
- Author:
- James J. Shinn and Peter Gourevitch
- Publication Date:
- 06-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Corporate governance—the rules that govern the relationship between managers and shareholders—belongs on the foreign policy agenda of American decision-makers. The vigorous debates underway about corporate governance, both at home and abroad, present an opportunity for the United States to advance its foreign policy goals of enhancing free trade and financial stability.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Economics, Government, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States
79. Factor Endowments and Industrial Structurev
- Author:
- Trevor A. Reeve
- Publication Date:
- 07-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
- Abstract:
- What determines industrial structure? Do sector-specific characteristics such as unionization, regulation, and trade policy dominate production patterns? One is inclined to believe so based on countless industry-level studies and the many political battles that are continually fought over trade and industrial policy. In contrast, standard neoclassical trade theory suggests that industrial structure is primarily driven by relative factor supplies. This paper demonstrates that aggregate factor endowments explain much of the structure of production—independent of industry idiosyncrasies—and quantifies the extent to which shifts in industrial structure in a cross section of countries are driven by the broad forces of factor accumulation. This result has important implications for policy. In particular, investment in physical capital and education may have as great an impact on the pattern of production as sector-specific trade and industrial policies. Thus, general equilibrium effects should not be ignored in efforts either to understand industrial structure or to form policies that attempt to alter it. These conclusions are reached through an empirical application of the factor proportions model of production.
- Topic:
- Economics, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States
80. Recent U.S. Macroeconomic Stability: Good Policies, Good Practices, or Good Luck?
- Author:
- Beth Anne Wilson, Shaghil Ahmed, and Andrew Levin
- Publication Date:
- 07-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
- Abstract:
- The volatility of U.S. real GDP growth since 1984 has been markedly lower than that over the previous quarter-century. In this paper, we utilize frequency-domain and VAR methods to distinguish among several competing explanations for this phenomenon: improvements in monetary policy, better business practices, and a fortuitous reduction in exogenous disturbances. We find that reduced innovation variances account for much of the decline in aggregate output volatility. Our results support the “good-luck” hypothesis as the leading explanation for the decline in aggregate output volatility, although “good-practices” and “good-policy” are also contributing factors. Applying the same methods to consumer price inflation, we find that the post-1984 decline in inflation volatility can be attributed largely to improvements in monetary policy.
- Topic:
- Economics, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States