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Does Freer Trade Really Lead To Productivity Growth
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Book Synopsis Does Freer Trade Really Lead to Productivity Growth? by : Lauren Bresnahan
Download or read book Does Freer Trade Really Lead to Productivity Growth? written by Lauren Bresnahan and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Manufacturing is intensive in the use of reproducible factors and exhibits greater technological dynamism than primary production. As such, its growth is central to long-run development in low-income countries. African countries are latecomers to industrialization, and barriers to manufacturing growth, including those that limit trade, have been slow to come down. What factors contribute most to increases in output and productivity growth in African manufacturing? Recent tradeindustrial organization theory suggests that trade liberalization should raise average total factor productivity (TFP) among manufacturing firms (Melitz 2003). However, these predictions are conditional on maintained assumptions about the nature of industries, factor markets, and trade patterns that may not be appropriate in a developing-country setting. Manufacturing firms are heterogeneous, so the analysis demands disaggregated data. We use firm-level data from the World Banks Regional Program on Enterprise Development, covering Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania for 19912003. Among other things, the data distinguish exports by destination (Africa and the rest of the world), which is important due to the spread of intra-African regional trade agreements (RTAs). Econometric results confirm well-known relationships, such as a positive association between export intensity and TFP, which implies that more productive firms are more likely to select in to exporting. However, we also find the destination of exports to be important. Many exporters have experienced declining TFP growth rates, which have occurred at different rates depending on the country and the export destination. The evidence for learning by exporting is thus mixed. These results add a new dimension to controversies over the development implications of trade liberalization and the promotion of intra-African RTAs.
Book Synopsis Does Freer Trade Really Lead to Productivity Growth? by : Lauren R. Bresnahan
Download or read book Does Freer Trade Really Lead to Productivity Growth? written by Lauren R. Bresnahan and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Long-Run Economic Growth by : Steven Durlauf
Download or read book Long-Run Economic Growth written by Steven Durlauf and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most enduring questions in economics involves how a nation could accelerate the pace of its economic development. One of the most enduring answers to this question is to promote exports -either because doing so directly influences development via encouraging production of goods for export, or because export promotion permits accumulation of foreign exchange which permits importation of high-quality goods and services, which can in turn be used to expand the nation's production possibilities. In either case, growth is said to be export-led; the latter case is the so-called "two-gap" hypothesis (McKinnon, 1964; Findlay, 1973). The early work on export-led growth consisted of static cross-country com parisons (Michaely, 1977; Balassa, 1978; Tyler, 1981; Kormendi and Meguire, 1985). These studies generally concluded that there is strong evidence in favour of export-led growth because export growth and income growth are highly correlated. However, Kravis pointed out in 1970 that the question is an essen tially dynamic one: as he put it, are exports the handmaiden or the engine of growth? To make this determination one needs to look at time series to see whether or not exports are driving income. This approach has been taken in a number of papers (Jung and Marshall, 1985; Chow, 1987; Serletis, 1992; Kunst and Marin, 1989; Marin, 1992; Afxentiou and Serletis, 1991), designed to assess whether or not individual countries exhibit statistically significant evidence of export-led growth using Granger causality tests.
Author :Daniel Trefler Publisher :Cambridge, MA. : National Bureau of Economic Research ISBN 13 : Total Pages :45 pages Book Rating :4.:/5 (248 download)
Book Synopsis The Long and Short of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement by : Daniel Trefler
Download or read book The Long and Short of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement written by Daniel Trefler and published by Cambridge, MA. : National Bureau of Economic Research. This book was released on 2001 with total page 45 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) provides a unique window on the effects of trade liberalization. It was an unusually clean trade policy exercise in that it was not bundled into a larger package of macroeconomic or market reforms. This paper uses the 1989-96 Canadian FTA experience to examine the short-run adjustment costs and long-run efficiency gains that flow from trade liberalization. For industries subject to large tariff cuts (these are typically low-end' manufacturing industries), the short-run costs included a 15% decline in employment and about a 10% decline in both output and the number of plants. Balanced against these large short-run adjustment costs were long-run labour productivity gains of 17% or a spectacular 1.0% per year. Although good capital stock and plant-level data are lacking, an attempt is made to identify the sources of FTA-induced labour productivity growth. Surprisingly, this growth is not due to rising output per plant, increased investment, or market share shifts to high-productivity plants. Instead, half of the 17% labour productivity growth appears due to favourable plant turnover (entry and exit) and rising technical efficiency
Book Synopsis The Role of Trade in Ending Poverty by : World Bank Group
Download or read book The Role of Trade in Ending Poverty written by World Bank Group and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trade will have an important role at the global level in generating the growth necessary for reducing extreme poverty to 3 percent and boosting prosperity for the poorest 40 percent by 2030. To identify the most important challenges that exist in maximizing the positive impact of trade on poverty, we need to understand who the poor are, where they are, and what economic activities they undertake. To this end, the study highlights particularly relevant dimensions of poverty: rural poverty in remote areas, informality, fragile and conflict situations, and women. For each of these issues, this study considers the main traderelated barriers and challenges, along with policy responses to address them. It shows the importance of the multilateral trading system and of the Doha Round, as well as the important role of the WBG and WTO in promoting coherence and implementing trade policies in a way that delivers the greatest possible benefits for the poor.
Book Synopsis What's Wrong with Protectionism by : Pierre Lemieux
Download or read book What's Wrong with Protectionism written by Pierre Lemieux and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-08-27 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Putting tariffs on imported goods or setting other barriers to international trade can be tempting for politicians. They assume that many of their constituents believe that free trade is not fair trade and that other countries aren’t playing by the rules. This belief makes it easy for industry leaders to demand protection for their businesses and their workers—to “put America first.” But Americans should resist the siren calls of protectionism. In this highly relevant protectionism primer, Pierre Lemieux shows what can happen if they don’t. As the author demonstrates, trade between any two countries is fair for the same reasons as exchange between two individuals: it is to the benefit of both. Lemieux carefully refutes the arguments of those who would curtail Americans’ access to the benefits of international commerce—from the claim that we can boost economic growth by reducing imports to the belief that free trade leads to “shipping jobs overseas.” Yes, manufacturing jobs are declining in this country and have been since the 1950s. But, as Lemieux points out, that’s in large part because Americans are making more advanced products more efficiently—that’s our comparative advantage. And this is happening as less-developed countries are producing more labor-intensive, low-tech goods—that’s their comparative advantage. All parties to a trade benefit. Lemieux shows how free trade improves the lives of American consumers, especially the poor. The narrow agenda of the protectionists—to protect a small minority of producers at the expense of millions of their fellow Americans—is the wrong path for an increasingly diverse and complex economy. This concise primer shows you why.
Book Synopsis International Trade and Sustainable Development by : Bob Milward
Download or read book International Trade and Sustainable Development written by Bob Milward and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contemporary orthodox view of world trade has centred, generally unchallenged, on the ideas of free trade, based on the theoretical construct of comparative advantage. This book will engage in a critique of the orthodox position based on the underlying theoretical economic construct, the historical development of the now developed economies and the morally unsustainable position of the free-trade regime. The author examines alternatives such as Most Favoured Nation and Preferential Trading Agreements before making the argument in favour of Asymmetric Trading, where the underdeveloped economies can develop behind tariff barriers and quotas, whilst the triadic nations maintain a lack of barriers to the exports of these economies. He outlines how such a trading regime would be mutually beneficial in the long term, in the sense that development through industrialisation takes place and the increase in GDP per capita would allow markets for exports to be sustainable, thus widening the market for the goods and services of the developed economies. However, the author demonstrates that free trade actually increases the development gap by maintaining the status quo in terms of the underdeveloped economies specialising in and exporting low value-added primary products and importing high value-added manufactures. The book analyses contemporary and historical data to illustrate how an alternative trading regime can be truly advantageous to both the developed and underdeveloped regions of the world: a global trading regime that is capable of increasing GDP in a sustainable manner without transferring a surplus from the poor to the rich nations and without a long-term commitment on the part of the developed nations to altruism.
Book Synopsis Fiscal Consolidation and Firm Level Productivity: Evidence from Advanced Economies by : Maxwell Tuuli
Download or read book Fiscal Consolidation and Firm Level Productivity: Evidence from Advanced Economies written by Maxwell Tuuli and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2022-07 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Productivity dispersion across countries has led to several studies on the determinants of firm level productivity and the role of macroeconomic policies in determining productivity. In this paper, we investigate the effect of fiscal consolidation on firm level productivity in 12 advanced economies by combining an updated dataset of fiscal consolidation measures with firm level productivity. We find that fiscal consolidation (i.e., discretionary tax hikes and spending cuts), is detrimental to firm level productivity in advanced economies. We also find that high levels of fiscal consolidation are particularly harmful to firm level productivity compared to lower levels of fiscal consolidation. Furthermore, we find that tax based fiscal consolidation hinders firm level productivity more compared to spending based fiscal consolidation. This implies that the size and composition of fiscal consolidation matter in understanding the relationship between fiscal consolidation and firm level productivity.
Book Synopsis Trading Promises for Results by : Mauricio Mesquita Moreira
Download or read book Trading Promises for Results written by Mauricio Mesquita Moreira and published by . This book was released on 2019-11-07 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Boosting Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa by : Cesar Calderon
Download or read book Boosting Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa written by Cesar Calderon and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2021-12-17 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic growth in the Sub-Saharan Africa region has been plagued by a series of shocks—wars, political instability, natural disasters, epidemics, terms-of-trade deterioration, and sudden stops in capital inflows—that have had lingering effects on productivity and growth. Within the overall productivity gap of the region are substantial differences across the sectors of economic activity and production units. Boosting Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa: Policies and Institutions to Promote Efficiency documents the productivity trends in Sub-Saharan Africa in three different dimensions, assessing productivity at the aggregate level, the sectoral level, and the establishment level. It characterizes the evolution of productivity in the region relative to other countries and regions, as well as country groups in Africa, classified by their degree of natural resource abundance and condition of fragility. The volume suggests that the persistence of the productivity gap in Africa vis-à -vis the technological frontier can be attributed to the slow accumulation of physical and human capital relative to the region’s growing population, as well as the poor allocation of these resources. These allocative inefficiencies are the outcome of policies and institutions that introduce distortions in the decision-making process of individuals. Hence, the volume assesses the implications of production decisions across agricultural farms and manufacturing firms. It presents evidence on aggregate productivity from the perspective of production units, using recent household surveys for farmers and firm-level surveys for select countries, as well as frontier estimation techniques. It documents the extent of severe resource misallocation across agricultural and manufacturing production units. These distortions decelerate the growth of the production units, disincentivize their adoption of productivity-enhancing technologies, and reduce the ability of their peers to learn new techniques. Boosting Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa highlights the adoption of digital technologies to reduce some of these market frictions. Mobile money has increased financial inclusion in several countries, and digital financial technologies have given individuals access to savings instruments and loan products. Enhancing access to credit can help individuals invest in schooling and overcome the costs of formality. The volume discusses further avenues of research that may provide additional insights on the productivity dynamics across countries in the region, and it identifies the different channels of policy transmission to enhance productivity. The empirical work presented can help to guide the design of policy in the region.
Book Synopsis Does What You Export Matter? by : Daniel Lederman
Download or read book Does What You Export Matter? written by Daniel Lederman and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2012-06-18 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does what economies export matter for development? If so, can industrial policies improve on the export basket generated by the market? This book approaches these questions from a variety of conceptual and policy viewpoints. Reviewing the theoretical arguments in favor of industrial policies, the authors first ask whether existing indicators allow policy makers to identify growth-promoting sectors with confidence. To this end, they assess, and ultimately cast doubt upon, the reliability of many popular indicators advocated by proponents of industrial policy. Second, and central to their critique, the authors document extraordinary differences in the performance of countries exporting seemingly identical products, be they natural resources or 'high-tech' goods. Further, they argue that globalization has so fragmented the production process that even talking about exported goods as opposed to tasks may be misleading. Reviewing evidence from history and from around the world, the authors conclude that policy makers should focus less on what is produced, and more on how it is produced. They analyze alternative approaches to picking winners but conclude by favoring 'horizontal-ish' policies--for instance, those that build human capital or foment innovation in existing and future products—that only incidentally favor some sectors over others.
Book Synopsis Trade and Development Report 2018 by : UNCTAD
Download or read book Trade and Development Report 2018 written by UNCTAD and published by United Nations. This book was released on 2019-01-16 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This flagship publication examines different aspects of the nature and role of international trade in the era of hyperglobalization and considers related policy challenges that will need to be addressed if trade is to contribute to a more stable and inclusive global economic order. Research provides authoritative data and analysis on trade, investment, finance and technology. UNCTAD offers solutions to the major challenges facing developing countries, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable nations. Beyond tailored analysis and policy recommendations, UNCTAD research also generates global standards that govern responsible sovereign lending and borrowing, investment, entrepreneurship, competition and consumer protection and trade rules.
Book Synopsis Measuring Food Policy Research Capacity by : Suresh Chandra Babu
Download or read book Measuring Food Policy Research Capacity written by Suresh Chandra Babu and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2013-04-10 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addressing emerging global poverty, hunger, and malnutrition challenges requires prudent evidence-based policymaking at the country level. Capacity for generating evidence remains a major constraint in the policy process in developing countries. We surveyed 30 countries to measure the capacity of their individuals, organizations, and policy process system to undertake food and agricultural policy research. Our Food Policy Research Capacity Index, constructed using measures of human capacity (PhD full-time equivalent researchers per million rural residents), human capacity productivity (publications per PhD full-time equivalent researcher), and strength of institutions (the government effectiveness pillar of the Worldwide Governance Indicators), showed substantial variation across countries, with the Republic of South Africa, Colombia, and Ghana scored far higher than countries with similarly sized rural populations such as Liberia, Laos, Burundi, and Afghanistan. Initial analysis showed that the index is strongly positively correlated with the Global Food Security Index and negatively correlated with the Global Hunger Index. Further work is planned to refine the indicators, particularly with regard to the effects of country size (population) and quality of the underlying data.
Book Synopsis Who Talks to Whom in African Agricultural Research Information Networks? by : Klaus Droppelmann
Download or read book Who Talks to Whom in African Agricultural Research Information Networks? written by Klaus Droppelmann and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sector-wide approach currently dominates as the strategy for developing the agricultural sector of many African countries. Although it is recognized that agricultural research plays a vital role in ensuring success of sectorwide agricultural development strategies, there has been little or no effort to explicitly link the research strategies of the National Agricultural Research System (NARS) in African countries to the research agenda that is articulated in sectorwide agricultural development strategies. This study fills that gap by analyzing the readiness of Malawis NARS to respond to the research needs of the national agricultural sector development strategy, namely the Agriculture Sector Wide Approach (ASWAp) program. Results of a social network analysis demonstrate that public agricultural research departments play a central coordinating role in facilitating information sharing, with other actors remaining on the periphery. However, that analysis also shows the important role other actors play in relaying information to a wider network of stakeholders. These secondary information pathways can play a crucial role in ensuring successful implementation of the national agricultural research agenda. Policymakers and managers of public research programs are called upon to integrate other research actors into the mainstream national agricultural research information network. This is vital as other research actors are, at the global level, increasingly taking up a greater role in financing and disseminating research and research results, and in enhancing the scaling up and out of new agricultural technologies.
Book Synopsis World Development Report 2020 by : World Bank
Download or read book World Development Report 2020 written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global value chains (GVCs) powered the surge of international trade after 1990 and now account for almost half of all trade. This shift enabled an unprecedented economic convergence: poor countries grew rapidly and began to catch up with richer countries. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, however, the growth of trade has been sluggish and the expansion of GVCs has stalled. Meanwhile, serious threats have emerged to the model of trade-led growth. New technologies could draw production closer to the consumer and reduce the demand for labor. And trade conflicts among large countries could lead to a retrenchment or a segmentation of GVCs. World Development Report 2020: Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains examines whether there is still a path to development through GVCs and trade. It concludes that technological change is, at this stage, more a boon than a curse. GVCs can continue to boost growth, create better jobs, and reduce poverty provided that developing countries implement deeper reforms to promote GVC participation; industrial countries pursue open, predictable policies; and all countries revive multilateral cooperation.
Book Synopsis The Policy Landscape of Agricultural Water Management in Pakistan by : Noora-Lisa Aberman
Download or read book The Policy Landscape of Agricultural Water Management in Pakistan written by Noora-Lisa Aberman and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2013-04-13 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Irrigation is central to Pakistans agriculture; and managing the countrys canal, ground, and surface water resources in a more efficient, equitable, and sustainable way will be crucial to meeting agricultural production challenges, including increasing agricultural productivity and adapting to climate change. The water component of the International Food Policy Research Institutes Pakistan Strategy Support Program (PSSP) is working to address these topics through high-quality research and policy engagement. As one of the first activities of this program, the PSSP undertook this assessment of the policy landscape for agricultural water management in Pakistan, to better understand how to engage with stakeholders in the landscape, and to assess possible opportunity points for improving water conservation. The authors use the Net-Map method, an interview tool that combines stakeholder mapping, power mapping, and social network analysis, to examine the relationships between various institutions influencing the water sector in Pakistan. Group interviews were conducted with national stakeholders in Islamabad and with provincial stakeholders in Lahore to establish separate influence maps at the different scales. Interviewees were asked about four types of network relationships: formal authority, informal pressure, technical information, and funding. Network data was analyzed using social network analysis software and notes from interviews add further depth to the network observations. Concluding discussion focuses on the distribution of power and influence in the network and on the opportunities and challenges of recent governance reforms and implications for stakeholder engagement.
Book Synopsis Understanding the Role of Research in the Evolution of Fertilizer Policies in Malawi by : Michael Johnson
Download or read book Understanding the Role of Research in the Evolution of Fertilizer Policies in Malawi written by Michael Johnson and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines the role of research in agricultural policy making in Malawi at a time when the Africa Union and the New Partnership for Africas Development have been seeking to promote greater evidenced-based decision making in agriculture. Drawing on both theory and actual past experiences documented in the literature, results are intended to improve our understanding of the extent to which research has played any role in influencing policy change in Malawi. This is done in the context of the evolution of the countrys fertilizer subsidy policies. Results point to some general lessons. First, strengthening the Ministry of Agricultures capacity for policy analysis and becoming more proactive in the policy process proved critical in the earlier years of Malawis long history of fertilizer subsidies. Second, the governments experience of bargaining with donors may have actually strengthened its own ability to position and assert its legitimacy in shaping policies. Third, while research may have played a historically marginal role, researchers have been able to influence policy choices whenever a window of opportunity arose for technical inputsuch as at times of crisis. However, researchers would also benefit from engaging more with the policy debates and policymaking process. Finally, while the paper draws on existing theoretical frameworks to understand the role of research in the policy process more generally, a better framework still needs to be developed in describing the standard experiences and realities of the African agricultural policy landscape.
