public research and industrial innovations in germany this paper deals with the effects of publicly funded research at universities polytechnics and federal research labs on industrial innovations in germany we discuss the characteristics of companies that benefit from the findings of public research institutions in questioning 2 300 companies we found that less than one tenth of product or process innovating firms introduced innovations between 1993 and 1995 that would not have been developed without public research these new products amount to approximately 5 percent of all new product sales regressions show that firms own r d support the ability to absorb the findings of public research and turn them into innovations contrary to the widely held opinion that proximity to public research institutions does promote collaboration between firms and public research and increase the amount of received knowledge spillovers we found no higher probability of publicly supported innovations for firms in germany that are located near universities or polytechnics

gender and wages a cohort study of primary school teachers this study uses cohort data to analyse the observed or gross salary differential between male and female primary school teachers the teachers in this sample who are all employed in state sector schools in the same geographic locality are observed 20 years after first entering the teaching profession the main finding is that two fifths of the differential cannot be explained by gender differences in the levels of experience qualification and mobility within our sample and so is attributed to labour market discrimination and other unobservable gender influences

trade disputes and the implementation of protection under the gatt an empirical assessment abstract this paper is a first attempt to empirically determine why countries choose to violate or adhere to gatt rules when making trade policy adjustments between negotiating rounds we use a previously unexploited set of data in which countries implemented two types of protection under the gatt system between 1973 and 1994 i legal protection in which countries utilized the gatt s safeguards provisions and ii illegal protection in which the protection was provided outside of the safeguards provisions resulting in a formal trade dispute we find substantial evidence that concerns for retaliation affect government policy decisions in ways which contribute to the explanation of the existence of trade disputes

measuring the returns of r d an empirical study of the german manufacturing sector over 45 years abstract motivated by recent statistics that show significant growth in labor productivity this paper seeks to analyze the long term relationship between domestic rd recent rates of return on r d are estimated to have reached an all time low spanning the last 45 years current yields of r d are only one third compared to the sixties in conclusion though the productivity slowdown of the seventies seems to have been overcome this is not attributed to r d investments

the role of multilateral institutions in international trade cooperation the world trade organization wfo lacks the power to directly enforce agreements it is therefore important to understand what role the wto can play to facilitate international cooperation and whether a multilateral institution can offer distinct advantages over a web of bilateral agreements this paper examines two potential benefits of a multilateral trade institution first verifying violations of the agreements and informing third parties thus facilitating multilateral reputation mechanisms second promoting multilateral trade negotiations rather than a web of bilateral negotiations the model suggests that a multilateral approach is particularly important when there are strong imbalances in bilateral trading relationships

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

intertemporal market effect on gender earnings differentials lawyers in canada 1970 80 the conventional methodology for decomposition of cross sectional earnings differentials is extended to include a market effect on intertemporal changes in earnings and to analyse the changes in gender differentials over time the integrated cross sectional and intertemporal methodology is illustrated by a decomposition of the change in the earnings differential that occurred during the 1970s between male and female lawyers in canada an unprecedented rate of growth in the supply of lawyers during the 1970s in canada was associated with changes in the gender earnings differential in the legal profession this rapid supply growth had an almost negligible net impact on female earnings but a negative impact of 15 on the male earnings this explains the narrowing of the earnings differential by almost 30 over the decade although three fifths of the gender differential in 1970 and half of the differential in 1980 were attributable to the differences in the characteristics of the two groups these chang

developing countries as plaintiffs and defendants in gatt wto trade disputes developing countries have been increasing their participation in the formal institutions and proceedings of the multilateral trading system a prominent example is their more frequent involvement as defendants and plaintiffs in gatt wto trade disputes this paper provides an initial economic appraisal of developing country performance in the gatt wto dispute settlement system we measure the economic resolution of these disputes through trade liberalisation gains and our results suggest that developing country plaintiffs have had more success under wto disputes than was the case under the gatt we also document evidence on potential determinants of this success the capacity for plaintiffs to make credible retaliatory threats and the guilty determinations by gatt wto panels finally there is also some evidence that developing countries have recognised the importance of retaliatory threats and have responded by changing their pattern of dispute initiation under the wto to better take advantage of the instances in which they have sufficient leverage to threaten retaliation and induce compliance with gatt wto obligations

searching for the productivity slowdown some surprising findings from west german manufacturing we test the hypothesis of a negative long term trend and or a structural break in total factor productivity tfp after the first oil price shock for west german manufacturing industries within an econometric model based on a flexible cost function with capital as a quasi fixed factor after adjusting tfp growth for scale economies and varying capacity utilization this hypothesis is not supported by our empirical findings for the great majority of industries studied whereas the hypothesis that the log level of tfp follows a random walk with drift is not rejected by various statistical tests authors

why the gender gap in wages narrowed in the 1980s since 1976 the gender gap in wages on average declined by about 1 per year this article focuses on identifying the factors underlying this trend three data sets are analyzed the current population survey the panel study of income dynamics and the national longitudinal survey we find that convergence in measurable work related characteristics schooling and work experience explains one third to one half the narrowing the remainder is attributable to a relative increase in women s returns to experience as well as to declining wages in blue collar work and other factors

the march of an economic idea protectionism isn t counter cyclic anymore conventional wisdom holds that protectionism is counter cyclic tariffs quotas and the like grow during recessions while that may have been a valid description of the data before the first world war it is now inaccurate since the second world war protectionism has not been counter cyclic tariffs and non tariff barriers simply do not rise systematically during downturns i document this new stylised fact with a panel of data covering over 180 countries and 40 years using over a dozen measures of protectionism and six of business cycles i test and reject a number of potential reasons why protectionism is no longer counter cyclic a diagnosis of exclusion leads me to believe that modern economics may well be responsible for the decline in protectionism s cyclic behaviour economists are more united in their disdain for protectionism than virtually any other concept this in turn leaves one optimistic that the level of protectionism will continue to decline along with its cyclicality andrew k rose

research and development cash flow agency and governance uk large companies this paper investigates the determinants of r d expenditure using a sample of uk listed companies with the highest spend from 2000 to 2005 we investigate the effect of corporate governance and ownership on r d using panel data the results provide some evidence that more governance tends to depress r d activity a finding that is robust to whether a composite or disaggregated index of governance is used one innovation of the paper is that we treat agency and finance effects interactively the ownership stake of the ceo appears to be supportive for r d

is there sex discrimination in the legal profession further evidence on tangible and intangible margins failure to observe differences between men and women with respect to earnings and or promotions does not preclude the possibility that employers discriminate against women on other intangible margins since female lawyers are highly educated generally and specifically with respect to legal remedies to overt sex discrimination it seems unlikely that employers would discriminate against them on tangible margins indeed drawing from the 1984 american bar association survey of career satisfaction dissatisfaction we find no evidence of discrimination against female lawyers in terms of earnings or promotions we do however find evidence of sex discrimination on several intangible margins and in terms of overall job satisfaction

addressing global environmental externalities transaction costs considerations is there a way to understand why some global environmental externalities are addressed effectively whereas others are not the transaction costs of defining the property rights to mitigation benefits and costs is a useful framework for such analysis this approach views international cooperation as a contractual process among country leaders to assign those property rights leaders cooperate when it serves domestic interests to do so the demand for property rights comes from those who value and stand to gain from multilateral action property rights are supplied by international agreements that specify resource access and use assign costs and benefits including outlining the size and duration of compensating transfer payments and determining who will pay and who will receive them four factors raise the transaction costs of assigning property rights i scientific uncertainty regarding mitigation benefits and costs ii varying preferences and perceptions across heterogeneous populations iii asymmetric information and iv the extent of compliance and new entry these factors are used to examine the role of transaction costs in the establishment and allocation of property rights to provide globally valued national parks implement the convention on the international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora execute the montreal protocol to manage emissions that damage the stratospheric ozone layer set limits on harvest of highly migratory ocean fish stocks and control greenhouse gas emissions jel d23 p14 q22 q51 q54 q58

interdependencies between the science and technology infrastructure and innovation activities in german regions empirical findings and policy consequences abstract regional studies have detected interdependencies between the technological infrastructure and the innovation activities of the respective regions it is commonly agreed that the private knowledge base of companies in a region is supplemented by the public knowledge of research institutes located in the region on account of the accumulation of knowledge and regional effects competitive regional specialisation patterns evolve this paper follows studies from the united states and underlines the mostly positive influence between the public science infrastructure and the industrial science and technology output the empirical part deals with the federal states laender of germany for two of them baden wuerttemberg bw and north rhine westphalia nrw an innovative in depth analysis based on a breakdown of activities in 18 technology areas is presented consequences for science and technology policy are discussed

r d capital rate of return on r d investment and spillover of r d in japanese manufacturing industries the effect of r 50d on productivity growth in japanese manufacturing industries is examined using more accurate firm r 50d expenditure data than widely used data based on financial statements series of r 50d capital are constructed then rate of return on r 50d investment is estimated in addition the impact of other industries r 50d on the productivity growth of an industry is also estimated an attempt is made to determine the effect of electronics technology upon the productivity growth of other industries through the transaction of the intermediate electronics goods with improved quality and through the diffusion of the new technological knowledge discovered japanese technology trade 1977 1981 copyright 1989 by mit press

strategic interaction among nations negotiable and non negotiable trade barriers trade policy is modelled as a two stage game between governments governments choose a negotiable trade barrier in the first stage of the game which is co operative the level of this barrier is treated as a binding commitment in the second stage of the game where the non negotiable trade barrier is chosen non co operatively hence governments choose trade barriers during negotiations with a view to influencing the equilibrium of the non co operative game to follow this proves to be a convenient framework in which to analyse the idea that trade agreements contain loopholes which can be exploited by protectionist governments trade negotiations induce substitution toward less efficient instruments of protection but are nevertheless welfare improving as long as the negotiations are relevant i e the negotiable barrier is actually in use and the two instruments are not perfect substitutes

u s trade threats rhetoric or war working paper 95 7 the international agricultural trade research consortium is an informal association of university and government economists interested in agricultural trade its purpose is to foster interaction improve research capacity and to focus on relevant trade policy issues it is financed by united states department of agriculture ers fas and csrs agriculture canada and the participating institutions

on the economic success of gatt wto dispute settlement what features of the dispute settlement process help governments live up to their trade liberalization commitments exploiting data on gatt wto trade disputes initiated and completed between 1973 and 1998 this paper identifies economic and institutional determinants that help defendant governments commit to liberalizing trade we find substantial evidence consistent with the theory that power measures including threat of retaliation by the plaintiff yield credibility to allow defendant governments to live up to their commitments we find only limited evidence however that particular procedural or institutional features beyond the basic gatt wto dispute settlement forum itself contributed to the successful economic resolution of trade disputes

what makes countries initiate wto disputes on food related issues abstract this paper analyses relevant determinants for the probability to initiate a dispute on policy measures under the world trade organization wto dispute settlement system the empirical analysis differs from existing assessments by focusing on agro food related disputes and provides a more in depth analysis of specific country and sectoral characteristics not considered in previous studies contrary to recent analyses of overall trade disputes the results show that some determinants such as legal capacity and monetary means are not statistically significant own protectionist behaviour endured protectionism and the duration of wto membership however could be identified as relevant determinants with the expected direction of impact

antidumping and retaliation threats abstract we propose and test two ways in which retaliation threats may dampen the antidumping ad activity we observe first the threat of retaliatory ad actions may make a domestic industry less likely to name a foreign import source in an ad petition second the prospect of a gatt wto trade dispute may make government agencies less likely to rule positive in their ad decision using a nested logit framework we find evidence that both retaliation threats substantially affect us ad activity from 1980 through 1998

trade policy under the gatt wto empirical evidence of the equal treatment rule a fundamental difference between multilateral trade agreements like the gatt and wto and a preferential agreement is the multilateral agreements inclusion of a most favoured nation principle though mfn requires that members implement policies that provide equal treatment to all gatt wto countries how far do members actually follow the mfn principle when so required we empirically investigate a sample of gatt wto trade disputes and the effect of successful dispute settlement negotiations on the disputed product trade of third country exporters to the defendant country we document evidence of trade liberalization consistent with defendant countries successfully applying the equal treatment rule jel classification f13 politique commerciale sous le regime gatt omc resultats empiriques de la regle du traitement equivalent une difference fondamentale entre les accords commerciaux multilateraux comme le gatt ou l omc et un accord preferentiel est que dans le premier cas on fait appel au principe de la nation la plus favorisee meme si ce principe requiert que les membres mettent en place des politiques qui assurent un traitement equivalent a tous les pays de l accord gatt omc reste a savoir jusqu a quel point les membres se soumettent a ce principe quand c est requis ce memoire etudie la question en faisant enquete sur un echantillon de disputes commerciales autour d accords de type gatt omc et sur l effet du succes des negociations dans la resolution de conflit sur le commerce du produit au caeur de la dispute en provenance de pays tiers exportant vers le pays qui se defend on montre que les resultats de la liberalisation du commerce sont consistants avec l application de la regle du traitement equivalent par les pays qui se defendent

turnover and promotion of lawyers an inquiry into gender differences this paper analyzes the turnover and promotion of male and female lawyers using data on two cohorts of lawyers one which entered law firms between 1969 and 1973 and the other entering between 1980 and 1983 this study considers whether law firm promotion decisions have differed for women and if so whether these differences have declined over time a competing risks duration model is employed to capture the link between the lawyer s decision to stay or leave and the firm s decision to grant or deny promotion we find that over the entire sample period women are considerably less likely to be promoted and slightly more likely to leave the firm without being promoted however we also find that the parametric differential between men and women in partnership hazards has been reduced substantially and in the most general of our specifications eliminated across the two cohorts in contrast the gap between male and female job turnover rates does not appear to change over time we find that the gap between males and females in the cumulative partnership rate at seven years of experience falls from 32 to 14 percent the turnover gap increases about 0 2 percent with females slightly more likely to exit from the firm in the later period

do countries free ride on mfn abstract the most favored nation mfn clause has long been suspected of creating a free rider problem in multilateral trade negotiations to address this issue we model multilateral negotiations as a mechanism design problem with voluntary participation we show that an optimal mechanism induces only the largest exporters to participate in negotiations over any product thus providing a rationalization for the principal supplier rule we also show that through this channel equilibrium tariffs vary according to the herfindahl hirschman index of export shares higher concentration in a sector reduces free riding and thus causes a lower tariff estimation of our model using sector level tariff data for the u s provides strong support for this relationship

swimming upstream trends in the gender wage differential in the 1980s using michigan panel study of income dynamics data for 1979 and 1988 we analyze how a falling gender wage gap occurred despite changes in wage structure unfavorable to low wage workers the decrease is traced to gender specific factors which more than counterbalanced changes in measured and unmeasured prices working against women supply shifts net of demand were unfavorable for women generally and hurt high skilled more than middle and low skilled women by analyzing wages we find support for the notion of a gender twist in supply and demand having its largest negative effect on high skilled women

unraveling the productivity growth slowdown in the u s canada and japan the effects of subequilibrium scale economies and markup measures of productivity growth typically include in the productivity residual the impacts of fixity of factors subequilibrium costs of adjustment returns to scale and markups this paper proposes a general framework for adjusting the residual to accommodate these impacts by first correcting and then decomposing traditional measures use of the framework is illustrated empirically for the united states japanese and canadian manufacturing sectors using an econometric model that allows explicit incorporation and measurement of these factors the adjusted measures show that a significant amount of cyclical and secular change in measured productivity growth can be attributed to production characteristics other than technical change particularly scale effects copyright 1992 by mit press