factor use and productivity change in the alcoholic beverage industries 1 introductiondemands for wine beer and spirits are in view of their substitutable nature often studied in conjunction with one another heien and pompelli 1989 nelson 1999 yet the alcoholic beverage industries are connected by similarities in their production processes and inputs as well as by the demand substitutability of their products lea and piggott 1995 these industries are therefore usefully examined together when questions about technical change and productivity growth arise little recent attention has been given to the nature of technical adjustments in the beer sector and no such work seems ever to have been published on wine and spirits 1brewing and distilling and to a smaller extent winemaking have become increasingly mechanized during the past half century as they have in most other manufacturing sectors packaging rates are higher shelf lives longer and storage and transportation technology improved tremblay 1987 elzinga 1990 pp 216 219 iserentant 1995 piggott and conner 1995 gisser 1999 the fixed costs associated with these innovations have broadly speaking served as an incentive to build fewer and larger plants industry concentration in the beer sector rose dramatically from the mid 1930s through the mid 1980s plant numbers then expanded as microbreweries catered to the new demand for product variety and idiosyncrasy although four firm concentration continued to rise through the mid 1990s in the spirits sector domiciled largely in the south distillery numbers continue to decline spurred by declining aggregate demand as well as scale economies no such broad consolidation is taking place in the wine industry where several california and new york firms long have occupied a substantial market share instead wineries numbers have grown rapidly and uninterruptedly since 1970 proliferating in regions long thought inhospitable to wine grape production growing consumer interest in wine variety and microclimates a trend similar to that for microbrews has abetted this diversification goodhue et al 2000 prices in the alcoholic beverage industries have in real terms fallen substantially in the past 40 years net prices to brewers have dropped 37 to wineries 16 and to distillers 31 at the same time real wage rates generally have risen and except for brief instability during the 1970s so have capital rental prices real material prices in all three sectors rose from the 1950s through the 1960s fell through the 1970s then recovered by the mid 1990s to their early 1970s levels relative factor prices in the beer industry broadly representative of those in the other two sectors are shown in figure 1 wage rates rose relative to both capital and material prices until 1980 thereafter wages fell relative to capital but continued to rise relative to material prices u s bureau of the census various years expenditure shares illustrated in figure 2 suggest that the beer industry is the most capital intensive of the three sectors by the mid 1990s capital expenditures represented one third of beer production costs compared to only one fifth of wine and distilling costs on the other hand raw materials constituted little more than half of beer expenses but nearly 70 of wine and distilling costs labor accounted for only 10 12 of expenditures in any of these industries figure 2 seems to suggest that at least since the mid 1970s or early 1980s capital has substituted for labor and materials in all three sectors yet as figure 1 reveals much of these share changes are accounted for by the rising relative price of capital the substantial narrowing of output input price margins in the alcoholic beverage sector suggests that the sector has become more cost efficient through either technical change scale economies improved utilization rates or other means technical changes themselves can alter potential scale economies and productive capacities and hence prospects for future variations in industry structure

landlords tenants and technological innovations abstract there is a long standing belief that landlords and capitalists have used their control over the means of production to direct the development and adoption of technologies which have increased their welfare at the expense of workers there is also a wide spread belief that the interlinkage between credit and tenancy markets which seems so prevalent in ldcs provides further impetus to the resistance of innovations innovations which make tenants better off reduce their demand for loans and thus make landlords qua creditors worse off these contentions have typically been dismissed out of hand by standard welfare economics arguments the rural environment of most ldcs may not however be adequately described by the standard economic model on which this welfare analysis is based in particular in many ldcs sharecropping contracts are widely employed there is evidence of widespread unemployment and there is not the full set of risk and capital markets required by the competitive paradigm the objective of this paper is to show under quite general conditions that the institutional structure of the economy may indeed be an important determinant of whether a particular innovation will or will not be adopted we show that 1 i landlords may wish to and can resist innovations which unambiguously increase production whenever sharecropping contracts are employed 2 ii conversely landlords may adopt innovations which not only lower the welfare of workers but even lower net national product 3 iii the presence of interlinkage may indeed affect the adoption of a new technology however the reason for this is only partly related to the effect of innovations on tenants borrowing indeed we show that innovations may increase as well as decrease the tenants demand for borrowing

what is capital economists and sociologists have changed its meaning should it be changed back this is a pre copyedited author produced pdf of an article accepted for publication in cambridge journal of economics following peer review the version of record geoffrey h hodgson what is capital economists and sociologists have changed its meaning should it be changed back cambridge journal of economics vol 38 5 1063 86 september 2014 is available online at http dx doi org 10 1093 cje beu013

the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on dynamic productivity growth of the spanish food manufacturing industry an impulse response analysis the emergence of a financial crisis is an event that can impact the fortunes of nearly all economic agents the focus here is on the 2008 financial crisis and how firms productivity growth was impacted by this crisis in the years that followed this article focuses on dynamic productivity growth and its components using a firm level data set of spanish meat processing dairy processing and oils and fats firms the impulse response analysis shows that the impact of the crisis on dynamic productivity growth is negative and persistent in the oils and fats industry initially positive but then negative in the meat processing industry and positive in the dairy processing industry the observed magnitudes of change in indicator are between 2 and 5 for oils and fats industries and of 1 in both dairy and meat industries our analysis further confirms that firms size is an important factor in explaining how crisis impacts dynamic productivity growth and its components while we find only slight evidence regarding the firms experience in the market

econometric developments in agricultural and resource economics the first 100 years this article reviews the major contributions of agricultural and resource economists in the area of econometrics over the past 100 years early on a number of agricultural economists were in on the ground floor in terms of developing new econometric methods over time as the economics profession became more empirically oriented agricultural and resource economists increasingly assumed the role of early adopters of new econometric methods even so agricultural and resource economists continue to make useful modifications to econometric techniques in order to adapt the methods to the unique nature of the problems and applications that we study

marshallian industrial districts in italy the end of a model or adaptation to the global economy this paper discusses the marshallian industrial district as it was rediscovered and further developed by italian economists before tracing the main changes in the market and institutional context in the wake of globalization it then focuses on some of the main transformations that have taken place in the italian districts since the 1990s after highlighting the important role still played by the districts in the italian economy the paper develops a framework for the evolutionary processes of the marshallian industrial district that would allow reproduction of the district in a manner suited to the era of globalisation

territorial innovation models a critical survey moulaert f and sekia f 2003 territorial innovation models a critical survey reg studies 37 289 302 this paper provides a critical review of the literature on territorial innovation models industrial districts milieux innovateurs new industrial spaces local production systems etc the review is organized in two stages first the main features of each of these models and their view of innovation are compared second their theoretical building blocks are reconstructed and evaluated from the point of view of conceptual clarity and analytical coherence it is found that despite some semantic unity among the concepts used economies of agglomeration endogenous development systems of innovation evolution and learning network organization and governance territorial innovation models tims suffer from conceptual ambiguity the latter is mainly a consequence of the way territorial innovation is theorized i e in terms of technologically driven innovation and a business culture that is ma

size and productivity in the u s milling and baking industries from the late 1950s through mid 1990s productivity growth in u s grain milling and feed manufacturing has been consistently strong and positive in grain milling approximately 15 of the growth is due to size economies technical change has been capital using increasingly material saving and in recent years decreasingly labor saving or increasingly labor using the quality of capital has risen relative to that of labor and materials in all but the baking industry capital intensification and incentives for plant size growth remain unabated copyright 2000 oxford university press

structural change capital investment and productivity in the food processing industry investment in new technology affects structural change and economic performance through its effect on capital and input composition this is particularly important for capital intensive industries such as food processing which lack short run flexibility due to adjustment costs this study considers the impacts of capital quasi fixity on capital and noncapital input decisions made in the u s food and kindred products industry from 1965 to 1991 a cost based production theory model is used to evaluate investment motivations for three capital components productivity growth accompanying changing input patterns is then discussed focusing on capital and farm input demand

trade policy review for china the world s top exporter with new normal economic growth this paper has evaluated the wto trade policy review and added more information and recent data to examine more closely china s economy and trade major trade policies during 2014 16 were summarised as the belt and road initiative policies facilitating trade and new adjustments to support and promote cross border e commence after evaluating data on china s trade and economic performance it discussed three challenges the chinese government needs to deal with in the near future

the economic theory of agrarian institutions introduction alternative approaches to the theory of institutions in economic development pranab bardhan rational peasants efficient institutions and a theory of rural organization methodological remarks for development economics joseph e stiglitz part 1 land and labour theories of sharecropping nirvikar singh a comparison of principal agent and bargaining solutions the case of tenancy contracts clive bell contracts with eviction in infinitely repeated principal agent relationships bhaskar dutta et al production relations in semi arid african agriculture hans binswanger et al part 2 credit and interlinked transactions rural credit markets the structure of interest rates exploitation and efficiency kaushik basu credit and agrarian class structure mukesh eswaran and ashok kotwal credit rationing tenancy productivity and the dynamics of inequality avishay braverman and joseph e stiglitz on choice among creditors and bonded labour contracts t n srinivasan some aspects of linked product and credit market contracts among risk neutral agents clive bell and t n srinivasan a note on interlinked rural economic arrangements pranab bardhan interlinkages and the pattern of competition debraj ray and kunal sengupta part 3 marketing and insurance agricultural institutions for insurance and stabilization david m newbery peasants risk aversion and the choice of marketing intermediaries and contracts a bargaining theory of equilibrium marketing contracts pinhas zusman part 4 co operatives technology and the state agricultural producer co operatives louis putterman institutional analysis of credit co operatives avishay braverman and j luis guasch agrarian structure technological innovations and the state alain de janvry et al

trust interlinking transactions and credit in the industrial district an essential feature of the industrial district is trust among individuals and firms within it this paper focuses mainly on trust based on investments in building up a good reputation that is a personal capital that can even substitute for collateral in obtaining credit informal credit often linked to other transactions and especially subcontracting is therefore an important way of financing economic development in the industrial district moreover the importance of trust as personal capital gives rise to a double financial intermediation in the industrial district this double intermediation constitutes a device to reduce information problems that are usually responsible for credit rationing c 1994 academic press inc copyright 1994 by oxford university press

industrial districts social cohesion and economic decline in italy the paper argues that the so called canonical view of the italian industrial district id depicts it as a system whose economic and social vitality requires the interaction between two major sub systems a community of people and a community of firms a range of circumstances including insufficient aggregate demand competition from low cost coun tries and technological change have determined inconsistencies between the rationales of these two sub systems as a result lead firms have emerged that substitute the id as coordinating instances in the pursuit of their goals they tend to prefer cost scrapping to quality enhancement thereby determining a competition that further undermines the id as a system the paper contends that this outcome is not the only possible one an alternative would require the regulatory as opposed to merely permissive action of pub lic actors in that it would have to change the incentive system that leads firms to choose short sighted strategies

is the wto passe the wto has delivered policy outcomes that are very different from those likely to emerge out of the recent wave of preferential trade agreements ptas should economists see this as an efficient institutional hand off where the wto has carried trade liberalization as far as it can manage and is now passing the baton to ptas to finish the job this paper surveys a growing economics literature on international trade agreements and argues on this basis that the wto is not passe rather and subject to some caveats this survey of research to date suggests that the wto warrants strong support while a more cautious view of ptas seems appropriate

reputation and imperfect information abstract a common observation in the informal literature of economics and elsewhere is that is multistage games players may seek early in the game to acquire a reputation for being tough or benevolent or something else but this phenomenon is not observed in some formal game theoretic analyses of finite games such as selten s finitely repeated chain store game or in the finitely repeated prisoners dilemma we reexamine selten s model adding to it a small amount of imperfect or incomplete information about players payoffs and we find that this addition is sufficient to give rise to the reputation effect that one intuitively expects

aggregation without separability tests of the united states and mexican agricultural production data the generalized composite commodity theorem gcct and testing procedure is extended to test for consistent aggregation of the united states and mexican agricultural production data in each category for which earlier tests rejected homothetic separability nonrejected gcct and separability hypotheses provide empirical support for aggregating all the united states agricultural outputs into as few as two categories crops and livestock mexican agricultural outputs also can be aggregated into as few as two categories support for aggregating all outputs into a single category is ambiguous in both countries and is only provided by the gcct

interest rates in backward agriculture the role of economic and extra economic control this paper examines the nature and roles of personalized control exercised by the rural moneylender over a class of poor borrowers to extract as much as possible in the form of high interest charges and income from undervalued and or forfeited collaterals based on primary survey data from rural india it analyzes the strategies adopted by the lender through economic and extra economic instruments to enforce the credit contracts to accomplish his goals it also provides a vivid picture of the variations in the level of interest rates and the reasons for it across a class of borrowers in the sample copyright 1990 by oxford university press

what s different about banks abstract negotiable certificates of deposit cd s trade in the capital market in competition with other securities like commercial paper and bankers acceptances if cd s must pay lenders competitive monetary interest the reserve tax on cd s is borne by bank borrowers viability of the tax means there must be something special about bank loans that makes some borrowers willing to pay higher interest rates than those on other securities of equivalent risk moreover there must be something special about banks that prevents other intermediaries from competing to assure that it never pays to finance loans with cd s

market failure and control of labour power towards an explanation of structure and change in indian agriculture part 1 1 although existing approaches do on occasion shed light on certain specific aspects of indian agriculture in general they run into problems of methodology or content or more frequently both in particular it is misleading to treat indian agri culture in peasant economy no markets or neoclassical perfect market terms and problematic to view it as semi feudal markets subordinate to extra economic factors 2 analysis of the relationships between farm size land productivity sharecropping and mechanisation suggest the need for an integrated model which emphasises both the unemployment and poverty of poor peasants and the problems of supervision and control of wage labour and tenants 3 proper appreciation of the interlinked role of these factors can help to explain the system s inability to combine the abundant labour of the poor with resources owned largely by the rich it can also go on to explain institutional responses like sharecropping as partial solutions to the problem of intensifying labour use and technological ones such as mechanisation as a means of delinking large farm growth from the need to intensify labour use 4 the tensions and choices between these responses underlie both the problem of stagnation and the phenomenon of switches from sharecropping to mechanisation 5 for associated reasons more rapid growth in indian agriculture is unlikely without major institutional changes to create much new employment and is likely to be more capital intensive than is usually assumed

moral hazard and nonmarket institutions dysfunctional crowding out or peer monitoring the authors examine a situation in which insurance is characterized by moral hazard when market insurance is provided supplementary mutual assistance between family and friends unobservable to market insurers will occur when nonmarket insurers have no better information than market insurers the mutual assistance not only crowds out market insurance but is also harmful and therefore dysfunctional alternatively when nonmarket insurers can observe each other s effort perfectly mutual assistance is beneficial these results point to the potential importance of peer monitoring mechanisms in mitigating moral hazard copyright 1991 by american economic association

china s exports export tax rebates and exchange rate policy this paper examines the relationship between china s exports export tax rebates and exchange rate policy it offers an explanation for why china s exports continued to rise under rmb real appreciations during the asian financial crisis based on a traditional export demand model we test our hypothesis that the counteracting effects of china s export tax rebate policy have diminished the effectiveness of real exchange rates in facilitating the resolution of trade imbalances under the current pegged exchange rate regime we find evidence that rmb real appreciations during the crisis negatively affected china s exports but the negative effects were mitigated by the positive effects of export tax rebates we also find evidence of a long run relationship between china s exports and the other explanatory variables the empirical evidence suggests that under the pegged exchange rate regime with limited adjustments real exchange rate movements alone cannot resolve china s external imbalances the policy implication of this study is that china needs to redirect its decades long export oriented development strategy to one that emphasises domestic demand oriented development and to replace the current pegged exchange rate regime with a market oriented more flexible exchange rate regime

dynamic measures of scope and scale economies an application to german agriculture static concepts of multiproduct economies of scale and scope are extended into a dynamic setting within the cost of adjustment framework important properties of the dynamic measures are developed and the foundations of a dynamic theory of the firm generalizing static neoclassical theory are presented dynamic measures of scope and scale as well as shadow costs are estimated empirically for multiple output multiple input german dairy farms operating under a production quota causes of scope economies are explored and a conceptual model to predict the evolution of the production structure of german farms is formulated

from local networks of smes to virtual districts evidence from recent trends in italy abstract industrial districts as local networks of small and medium enterprises smes rooted their competitiveness in a mix of economic relationships and social ties recently network technologies have promised gains of efficiency through a reduction in transaction costs and showed new commercial opportunities for small firms despite the morphological similarities between industrial districts and network technologies a longitudinal analysis of ict diffusion within italian districts shows that the foreseen convergence between the district economic model and new technologies should not be taken for granted the observed specific evolutionary paths concerning technology innovation in local systems also opens up issues of economic policy

understanding china s urban pollution dynamics china s ongoing urban economic growth has sharply increased the population s per capita income lowered the count of people living below the poverty line and caused major environmental problems we survey the growing literature investigating the causes and consequences of china s urban pollution challenges we begin by studying how urban population and industrial growth impacts local pollution levels and greenhouse gas production as the urban population grows richer its demand for private transportation and electricity sharply increases such privately beneficial activity exacerbates urban pollution externalities facing these severe environmental challenges china s urbanites increasingly demand quality of life progress we survey the emerging literature investigating the demand for environmental progress in china progress in mitigating externalities hinges on whether the powerful central and local governments choose to address these issues we analyze the political economy of whether government officials have strong incentives to tackle lingering urban externalities we conclude by discussing future research opportunities at the intersection of environmental and urban economics jel o18 p25 p28 q53 r23 r41 r58

productivity growth and environmental regulation in mexican and u s food manufacturing many argued during the nafta debate that trade liberalization would favor mexican over u s food processors especially because of lax environmental laws south of the border we find through an examination of profit functions that productivity growth in mexico has outstripped that in the united states suggesting free trade indeed will benefit mexican suppliers u s pollution regulations have had no impact on the profitability or productivity of u s food manufacturing in contrast mexico s swiftly rising environmental standards have enhanced food processors productivity growth corroborating the porter hypothesis pollution law therefore has favored mexican over u s food processing but for reasons few had anticipated

the world trade organization and the future of multilateralism when the general agreement on tariffs and trade was signed by 23 nations in 1947 the goal was to establish a rules based world trading system and to facilitate mutually advantageous trade liberalization as the gatt evolved over time and morphed into the world trade organization in 1993 both goals have largely been achieved the wto presides over a rule based trading system based on norms that are almost universally accepted and respected by its 163 members tariffs today are below 5 percent on most trade and zero for a very large share of imports despite its manifest success the wto is widely regarded as suffering from a deep malaise the main reason is that the latest wto negotiation the doha round has staggered between failures flops and false dawns since it was launched in 2001 but the doha logjam has not inhibited tariff liberalization far from it during the last 15 years most wto members have massively lowered barriers to trade investment and services bilaterally regionally and unilaterally indeed everywhere except through the wto for today s offshoring linked international commerce the trade rules that matter are less about tariffs and more about protection of investments and intellectual property along with legal and regulatory steps to assure that the two way flows of goods services investment and people will not be impeded it s possible to imagine a hypothetical wto that would incorporate these rules but the most likely outcome for the future governance of international trade is a two pillar structure in which the wto continues to govern with its 1994 era rules while the new rules for international production networks are set by a decentralized process of sometimes overlapping and inconsistent mega regional agreements

trade policy review for china continuing globalisation amidst the world financial crisis the 2008 world financial crisis had led many industrialised countries to endure a significant decline in their gdps though the chinese government arranged a 4 trillion rmb stimulus package coupled with 30 trillion rmb of new bank credits in 2008 2010 to mitigate the impact of the world financial crisis the growth of china s international trade declined to a single digit level after 10 years of rapid growth at more than 20 per annum since its wto accession the latest wto trade policy review for china is a timely piece of literature which provides excellent information on china s current economic situation its trade and investment policies and government s priorities of policy support in this article we intend to reveal the latest development in the chinese economy from the second half of 2011 and to predict what it may happen in the next a couple of years china s determination to go global has not faded and china can only become more open in the future

trust and inter firm relations in developing and transition economies the role of trust in facilitating economic growth has been highlighted in previous contributions to this journal in order to take this debate forward this article argues 1 that more attention needs to be given to the relationship between sanctions and trust and 2 that it is worth distinguishing between the minimal trust for making markets effective and the extended trust required for deeper kinds of inter firm co operation to work the article goes on to ask why minimal trust is lacking and so hard to construct in the republics of the former soviet union it then examines how extended trust grows or can be made to grow in industrial supply chains and clusters in developing countries

the coming regional crisis and how to avoid it the analysis of regional development and the formation of development policies is currently excessively influenced by the assumption that globalization represents the overriding causal influence and policy imperative this bias seems to derive from insufficiently critical borrowings from the management literature and the emergence of a stratum of economic development actors concerned primarily with regional competitiveness the article suggests that the objectivity of analysis and the economic rationality of policy making can be improved by paying more attention to localized activities to regional economic welfare and to the impact of regionalization on macroeconomic policy making

policies for the development of knowledge intensive local production systems starting from the empirical literature concerning the analysis of industrial districts this paper focuses on the importance of industrial policies in supporting the development and consolidation of local production systems here institutions and markets are envisaged as equally important for long term performance the objective is to propose a conceptual framework for the formulation of public policies that places organisational learning at the centre of interest

local financial development and the trade credit policy of italian smes we investigate the relation between local financial development and trade credit in an integrated financial market our results suggest that trade credit complements the formal finance of small and medium sized enterprises smes at the local level provincial banking development in italy increases the provision of trade credit by smes and stimulates the redistribution of loans via trade credit however cooperative banking reduces the use of trade credit at the local level evidence shows that lower levels of provincial banking development are linked with a stronger decline in trade credit at the start of the global financial crisis we also find that smes in provinces with industrial districts use more trade credit our results confirm that local differences in banking development and the trade credit policy of smes within countries matter adding to earlier findings that the provision of trade credit is complementary to the development of financial institutions at the country level

tracing the effects of agricultural commodity prices and food costs we estimate a system of product and input demand equations for food processing industries to trace the links among farm commodity prices food processing costs and food prices disembodied technical change which likely reflects increasing consumer demand for convenience and product variety has sharply reduced agricultural materials demand relative to most other food processing inputs this implies weakening impacts of farm price shocks on food prices but improving quality and falling relative prices for agricultural inputs in combination with increasing factor substitution has counteracted these forces to encourage greater usage of agricultural inputs in food processing and limit these trends food prices today often appear less responsive to farm price shocks than in the past a development sometimes attributed to failures in market institutions however powerful long run technological and social changes leading to adaptations in production processes and food consumption patterns have also altered the demand for primary agricultural materials by changing the structure of food processing industries the social shifts surrounding the expanded role of women in the labor force represent one striking example of such changes the fraction of married women in the labor force less than one third in 1960 rose sharply through the next three decades before stabilizing at around 61 in the 1990s such demographic shifts increased the demand for food products requiring less home preparation time which in combination with enhanced technology has led to more in plant processing of agricultural materials and likely a growing share of nonagricultural inputs in

reviewing trade policy in china during the transition to balanced economic growth the paper reviews the world trade organization s analysis of developments in china s trade policy during 2012 14 the review overlaps with the continuing great recession and with china s determination to foster a sustainable rate of economic growth developments in the country s trade policy include the launching of the shanghai pilot free trade zone china faces a series of trade policy related challenges including the complex process necessary to internationalise the renminbi

china and its dollar exchange rate a worldwide stabilising influence 1 we argue that criticism concerning the chinese dollar peg is misplaced as no predictable link exists between the exchange rate and the trade balance of an international creditor economy the stable nominal yuan dollar rate is argued to have stabilized chinese east asian and global growth however linked to us low interest rates chinese sterilization policies and potentially subsidized capital allocation in china the real yuan dollar rate is undervalued this has caused both in china and the united states structural distortions and threatens to undermine global growth and stability we propose sino american policy coordination to escape from the policy dilemma which continues to drive global imbalances jel code f150 f310 f330

against parsimony three easy ways of complicating some categories of economic discourse economics as a science of human behavior has been grounded in a remarkably parsimonious postulate that of the self interested isolated individual who chooses freely and rationally between alternative courses of action after computing their prospective costs and benefits in recent decades a group of economists has shown considerable industry and ingenuity in applying this way of interpreting the social world to a series of ostensibly noneconomic phenomena from crime to the family and from collective action to democracy the economic or rational actor approach has yielded some important insights but its onward sweep has also revealed some of its intrinsic weaknesses as a result it has become possible to mount a critique which ironically can be carried all the way back to the heartland of the would be conquering discipline that the economic approach presents us with too simpleminded an account of even such fundamental economic processes as consumption and production is the basic thesis of the present paper this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

aggregate savings and external imbalances in china over the last decade the internal and external macroeconomic imbalances in china have risen to unprecedented levels in 2008 china s national savings rate soared to over 53 percent of its gdp whereas its current account surplus exceeded 9 percent of gdp this paper presents a unified framework for understanding the structural causes of these imbalances i argue that the imbalances are attributable to a set of policies and institutions embedded in the economy i propose a unified framework for understanding the joint causes of the high savings rate and external imbalances in china my explanations first focus on an array of factors that encouraged saving across the corporate government and household sectors such as policies that affected sectoral income distribution along with factors like incomplete social welfare reforms and population control policies i then turn to policies that limited investment in china thus preventing the high savings from being used domestically finally i will examine how trade policies such as export tax rebates special economic zones and exchange rate policies strongly promote exports moreover the accession of china to the world trade organization has dramatically amplified the effects of these structural distortions in conclusion i recommend some policy reforms for rebalancing the chinese economy

policy barriers to international trade in services evidence from a new database surprisingly little is known about policies that affect international trade in services previous analyses have focused on policy commitments made by countries in international agreements but in many cases these commitments do not reflect actual policy this paper describes a new initiative to collect comparable information on trade policies for services from 103 countries across a range of service sectors and relevant modes of service delivery the resulting database reveals interesting policy patterns although public monopolies are now rare and few services markets are completely closed the authors observe numerous second generation restrictions on entry ownership and operations even in instances in which there is little explicit discrimination against foreign providers market access is often unpredictable because the allocation of new licenses remains opaque and highly discretionary in many countries across regions some of the fastest growing countries in asia and the oil rich gulf states have restrictive policies in services whereas some of the poorest countries are remarkably open across sectors professional and transportation services are among the most protected industries in both industrial and developing countries whereas retail telecommunications and even finance tend to be more open

sharecropping and the interlinking of agrarian markets one of the often noted features of less developed agrarian economies is the existence of interlinkages among the land labor credit and product markets the landlord is often the supplier of credit he frequently purchases and markets the output of the tenant farmers and often sells raw materials and even consumption goods to his tenant farmers how can this phenomenon be explained what are the welfare consequences of attempts to restrict these practices which often seem to constitute restraints on free trade these are the questions to which this paper is addressed a general set of arguments applicable to both competitive and noncompetitive environments are presented to situations where all the terms of the contract are determined in an optimal way as well as to situations where many of the terms are specified institutionally section i examines interlinked credit and tenancy contracts section ii examines interlinked marketing and tenancy contracts section iii points out the possible interlinking between labor contracts and consumption goods markets and section iv presents the different equilibrium frameworks discussed in the paper such as monopoly monopsony competition and equilibria with surplus labor

trust networks and norms the creation of social capital in agricultural economies in ghana this paper contributes to the continuing debate over the multifaceted concept of trust and its ability to provide a richer explanation of processes of economic activity using case studies of agricultural production marketing and financing systems in brong ahafo region of ghana the analysis documents the means by which trust is created among farmers traders and agricultural input suppliers the mechanisms include formal and informal networks of working relations customer friendships pre existing networks and intermediaries the study shows that trust is necessary for the development of a vibrant private sector based on microenterprises in conditions where actors cannot rely on formal legal institutions at present

an economic analysis of technology in the meat products industry the meat products industry underwent significant structural change during the last two decades the relocation and expansion of commercial cattle feeding stimulated development of new single species slaughtering facilities to replace older multi species plants an essentially new processing industry arose specializing in breaking and packaging carcasses this forward integration has significantly changed distribution methods of slaughtering and fabricating firms increased emphasis on coordination of inputs led to interest in backward integration from packing into cattle feeding the steer and heifer slaughtering sector which was decentralized and competitive in the 1950s has turned toward centralization and concentration although the largest firm accounted for only 13 of total u s steer and heifer slaughter in 1977 it had more than doubled its share since 1970 in 1978 this firm slaughtered more than twice as many steers and heifers as its nearest competitor in addi

financial structure production and productivity evidence from the u s food manufacturing industry this study integrates production and financing to examine the impacts of financial structure change on the production profitability and productivity growth in the u s food manufacturing industry empirical results show that during the period covered by this study agency cost associated with increased debt use by this industry negatively affected its output growth input demand profitability and overall productivity growth dividend payment positively contributed to the production and performance of this industry via signaling benefit however the negative effects of increased debt use by this industry far outweighed the positive contribution of dividend payment the u s food industry achieved a 0 9 average annual productivity growth which came primarily from technological progress and capital adjustment the rapid increase in debt use by this industry was responsible for slowing down the pace of productivity growth via its negative contribution to the total factor productivity growth capital expansion was the principal driver of output growth and profitability in this industry

rural credit markets and institutions in developing countries lessons for policy analysis from practice and modern theory this article presents evidence of the failure of government intervention in rural credit markets of ldcs in the past three decades it then shows how lessons for policy analysis can be drawn from modern theory particularly those theories focussing on credit rationing in competitive markets and interlinking of credit contracts with labor and land contracts the article outlines the policy implications of these theories and finds them insufficient to account for the empirical evidence it contends that a more systematic and rigorous analysis of institutions and institutional environments is essential for understanding and implementing effective policy reforms of rural credit markets it presents suggestions for undertaking such an analysis

spatial proximity and firm survival in a declining industrial district the case of knitwear firms in baden wu rttemberg the literature on small firm networks in industrial districts postulates the importance of territorial proximity for business innovation and regional development but empirical research to test this proposition is sparse while there is some research on the extent of interfirm co operation little is known about the performance outcomes of co operation i develop competing hypotheses from institutional ecological and random action theories concerning the survival chances of firms located in geographic proximity and test them with data on the complete population of knitwear firms in baden wurttemberg germany for the period from 1960 to 1998 proportional hazard estimates show that location in clusters of firms in the same industry increased business failure rates and location in diversified clusters of firms operating in complementary industries reduced failure rates the empirical results are most consistent with the ecological model of localized competition in resource environments la documentation

competitiveness and technical efficiency determinants in the groundnut oil sector of india india imports about half of its domestic consumption needs of edible oils groundnuts are a major source of edible oils in india one of the central problems of groundnut production and processing is huge inefficiencies due to an uncertain production environment owing to rainfed cultivation the low resource base of smallholder farmers and processors and the low adoption rates of improved technology this paper addresses critical issues that impair the groundnut sector s international competitiveness and efficiency the paper uses primary data collected from indian farmers and processors of groundnuts to measure efficiency and it suggests policies for reducing yield gaps and increasing efficiency specific policies suggested from the study are a the harnessing of improved varieties with attributes like drought tolerance high oil content high productivity for large scale seed multiplication and distribution by public and private agencies b viable village seed banks and seed networks through cycles of post rainy season seed multiplication to meet the seed requirements in the rainy season and vice versa c adoption of low cost technologies to increase profitability and reduce risk d oilseed clusters to facilitate scale and scope economies in processing units and e capital subsidies to accelerate technological upgrading to shed inefficiency in the processing sector the expected gains in efficiency in the production and processing of oilseeds are expected to result in producer and consumer gains which would justify the proposed incentives for seeds and for technological upgrading in the processing sector

china trade policy review a political economy approach chinese trade policy has experienced great reversal in the year of 2008 a series of constraining measures taken previously have been loosened eventually we investigate this situation using a political economy approach unlike in democratic countries where interest groups play a crucial role in trade policy change in china given the political reality leaders will and trade partners pressure are the determinant factors we call this top down and outside in trade policy actually the idea of harmonious society and scientific development emphasised by top leaders in october 2006 paved the road for the following trade policy adjustment i e reducing tax rebate limiting processing trade compressing the catalogue for foreign investment etc however with the shock of a global financial tsunami these measures get coastal areas relying on foreign trade heavily into trouble the economic downturn in pearl river delta even astonished the decision making body calling on a quick reversal in foreign trade policy if interest groups had been allowed to express their demand formally and adequately from the very start the cycle of taking up first but giving up last in policy design would have not taken place in other words the bottom up and inside out trade policy should be more stable although flexibility is necessary in the face of uncertainty frequent and discretionary trade policy change usually produces effects of pro government not pro market this is unfavourable for the transformation in china the constraining trade policy in mid 2007 to mid 2008 has been a part of the government s desire to seek healthier development however with the inside and outside surroundings getting worse the structural adjustment long run objective has had to concede to the economic growth short run objective

exit voice and the evolution of industrial districts the case of the post world war ii economic development of prato in this paper the hirschmanian exit voice approach is applied to the development of industrial districts the analysis of the post world war ii evolution of the prato district helps to make explicit how the industrial district competitive advantage can be reproduced over time during periods of regular development in addition the exit voice polarity helps in understanding also the specific difficulties that industrial districts face in responding to major changes in their external circumstances in particular the case examined sheds light on the role that conscious collective action has in permitting the successful adjustment of a local system

from ascribed to earned trust in exporting clusters abstract this paper is concerned with the role of trust in export manufacturing it asks how trust has developed in two industrial clusters which are located in developing countries and export most of their output to north america and europe the main conclusion is that trust was based initially on socio cultural ties between clustered firms and later on conscious investments in inter firm relationships