nonmonetary effects of the financial crisis in propagation of the great depression this paper examines the effects of the financial crisis of the 1930s onthe path of aggregate output during that period our approach is complementary to that of friedman and schwartz who emphasized the monetary impact of the bank failures we focus on non monetary primarily credit related aspects of the financial sector output link and consider the problems of debtors as well as those of the banking system we argue that the financial disruptions of 1930 33 reduced the efficiency of the credit allocation process and that the resulting higher cost and reduced availability of credit acted to depress aggregate demand evidence suggests that effects of this type can help explain the unusual length and depth of the great depression this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

local labour control regimes uneven development and the social regulation of production jonas a e g 1996 local labour control regimes uneven development and the social regulation of production reg studies 30 323 338 the apparent demise of fordist consensus seeking institutions of labour regulation raises questions concerning which if any forms of labour market governance will dominate localities in the future without providing the answers for these questions this paper addresses at a theoretical level the social need for capital to foster reciprocities between places of production and sites of consumption and labour reproduction in local labour markets this need emerges from a contradiction between on the one hand capital s abstract interest in the global exchange of labour power and on the other hand the concrete interest of particular capitals in the local context of that exchange a local labour control regime amounts to a stable local institutional framework for accumulation and labour regulation constructed around local labour market reciprocities different factions

marshallian factor market externalities and the dynamics of industrial localization abstract when an industry has thus chosen a locality for itself it is likely to stay there long so great are the advantages which people following the same skilled trade get from near neighborhood to one another a localized industry gains a great advantage from the fact that it offers a constant market for skill employers are apt to resort to any place where they are likely to find a good choice of workers while men seeking employment naturally go to places where there are many employers who need such skill as theirs the advantages of variety of employment are combined with those of localized industries in some of our manufacturing towns and this is a chief cause of their continued growth alfred marshall principles of economics 8th ed pp 271 272 1920

financial contagion through capital connections a model of the origin and spread of bank panics financial contagion is modeled as an equilibrium phenomenon in a dynamic setting with incomplete information and multiple banks the equilibrium probability of bank failure is uniquely determined we explore how the cross holding of deposits motivated by imperfectly correlated regional liquidity shocks can lead to contagious eects conditional on the failure of a financial institution we show that contagion is possible in the unique equilibrium of the economy and characterize exactly when it may exist at the same time we identify a direction of flow for contagious eects which provides a rationale for localized financial panics simulations identify the optimal level of interbank deposit holdings in the presence of contagion risk our results suggest that when the probability of bank failure is low maximal levels of interbank holdings are optimal when cross holding of deposits is complete we demonstrate that the intensity of contagion is increasing in the size of regionally aggregate liquidity shocks

trade facilitation and economic development new approach to quantifying the impact this article analyzes the relationship between trade facilitation and trade flows in the asia pacific region country specific data for port efficiency customs environment regulatory environment and e business usage are used to construct indicators for measuring trade facilitation the relationship between these indicators and trade flows is estimated using a gravity model that includes tariffs and other standard variables enhanced port efficiency has a large and positive effect on trade flows regulatory barriers deter trade improvements in customs and greater e business use significantly expand trade but to a lesser degree than improvements in ports or regulations the benefits of specific trade facilitation efforts are estimated by quantifying differential improvements in these four areas among members of the asia pacific economic cooperation apec a scenario in which apec members with below average indicators improve capacity halfway to the average forall members shows that intra apec trade could increase by dollar 254 billion or 21 percent of intra apec trade flows

seizing agglomeration s potential the greater springfield massachusetts metalworking sector in transition 1986 1996 forrant r and flynn e 1998 seizing agglomeration s potential the greater springfield massachusetts metalworking sector in transition 1986 1996 reg studies 32 209 222 in the 1980s a dramatic wave of lay offs and plant closings among western massachusetts largest metalworking manufacturers led to rapid industrial decline and massive dislocation for several thousand of the region s workers today western massachusetts is home to a thriving and competitive agglomeration of over 350 small metalworking firms in an industrial sector known for cut throat competition cost driven business strategies and fierce privacy western massachusetts firms stand apart for their openness hundreds of workers and managers have participated in group training and seminars over the last several years in topics including blue print reading computer numerical control machine tool programming and repair work flow management and iso 9000 certification western massachusetts represents a successful case of the bootstra

collective moral hazard maturity mismatch and systemic bailouts the paper elicits a mechanism by which private leverage choices exhibit strategic complementarities through the reaction of monetary policy when everyone engages in maturity transformation authorities haver little choice but facilitating refinancing in turn refusing to adopt a risky balance sheet lowers the return on equity the key ingredient is that monetary policy is non targeted the ex post benefits from a monetary bailout accrue in proportion to the number amount of leverage while the distortion costs are to a large extent fixed this insight has important consequences first banks choose to correlate their risk exposures second private borrowers may deliberately choose to increase their interest rate sensitivity following bad news about future needs for liquidity third optimal monetary policy is time inconsistent fourth macro prudential supervision is called for we characterize the optimal regulation which takes the form of a minimum liquidity requirement coupled with monitoring of the quality of liquid assets we establish the robustness of our insights when the set of

investigating the impacts of time delays on trade abstract time delays due to inefficient customs and administrative procedures have become a leading non tariff barrier ntb that restrict international trade and impair social welfare this paper investigates how time delays affect product quality product price trade flow and social welfare using data on the days it takes to clear customs in 96 countries we explore the impacts of time delays on product quality and price with different levels of perishability we find that longer time delays at the border would significantly decrease highly perishable agricultural products quality and price we also find that for highly perishable agricultural products improved and simplified customs delays would increase trade flows and social welfare of importing countries

industrial districts old wine in new bottles harrison b 1992 industrial districts old wine in new bottles reg studies 26 469 483 according to the theory of industrial districts a new wave of economic growth is being led in a number of regions in europe north america and east asia by spatially concentrated networks of mostly small and medium sized enterprises often using flexible production technology and characterized by extensive local interfirm linkages does this amount to a re emergence of the dominance of what urban and regional economists call agglomeration economies over the well known pressures on business to spatially disperse its operations neoclassical economic theorizing from marshall to perroux provides one perspective on the contemporary industrial district phenomenon another is afforded by granovetter s more recent elaboration of the ideas of embedding under and over socialization confronting each of these theoretical approaches with the other leads me to conclude that the industrial district prototypes involv

clusters dispersion and the spaces in between for an economic geography of the banal while the geographical clustering of economic activities remains an enduring feature of the industrial landscape and a perennial source of theoretical and empirical interest the geographical scale at which external economies and agglomerative effects are now claimed to operate is on the increase such changes in the spatial form and potential causes of agglomeration over time pose important questions how should we analyse changes in the spatial extent of external economies and agglomerative effects ought we to pay more attention to the sorts of banal economic spaces thrown up as part of increasingly diffuse forms of agglomeration to answer the first of these questions it is noted how economists and geographers have explained agglomerations often in the rather singular and invariant categories of pecuniary and marshallian externalities respectively this paper considers the relevance of neo marshallian analysis and the concept of borrowed size as variations on these classical principles to an analysis of the mobility and fixity of external economies and contemporary diffuse forms of agglomeration whilst reflecting important changes in the spatial extent of industrial agglomerations they are insufficiently sensitive to the interaction of different types of external economies with different scale dependencies in answering the second question it is noted that part of the value of analysing the economic basis of largely overlooked banal intermediate places lies in what they may reveal about the functioning of diffuse forms of agglomeration

is tourism firm competitiveness driven by different internal or external specific factors new empirical evidence from spain abstract the quest to understand the multilevel antecedents of competitiveness has led to a separation of approaches on one side of the question are the environment theories that analyze the structural characteristics of the general and competitive environment on the other side are the resource based view and its extensions that highlight firm specific resources and capabilities as the main basis of firms competitiveness however in recent years the nature of competition and shifting economic conditions have given rise to new theoretical approaches that complement the assumptions underlying both environmental and firm theories specifically this study contributes by examining the regional environment effect the district effect and the strategic group effect through a study of 364 spanish tourism firms this research explores the relative importance of distinct external forces such as the general environment or country effect the regional effect the competitive environment or industry effect the district effect and internal factors such as the firm s tangible resources capabilities and strategy selection the results demonstrate that firms capabilities are more important than environment effects and tangible resources

unique equilibrium in a model of self fulfilling currency attacks even though self fulfilling currency attacks lead to multiple equilibria when fundamentals are common knowledge we demonstrate the uniqueness of equilibrium when speculators face a small amount of noise in their signals about the fundamentals this unique equilibrium depends not only on the fundamentals but also on financial variables such as the quantity of hot money in circulation and the costs of speculative trading in contrast to multiple equilibrium models our model allows analysis of policy proposals directed at curtailing currency attacks

export performance and trade facilitation reform hard and soft infrastructure summary we estimate the impact of aggregate indicators of soft and hard infrastructure on the export performance of developing countries we derive four new indicators for more than 100 countries over the period 2004 07 estimates show that trade facilitation reforms do improve the export performance of developing countries this is particularly true with investment in physical infrastructure and regulatory reform to improve the business environment the findings provide evidence that the marginal effect of the transport efficiency and business environment improvement on exports appears to be decreasing in per capita income in contrast the impact of physical infrastructure and information and communications technology on exports appears increasingly important the richer a country becomes we also find statistical evidence on the complementarity between hard infrastructure and soft infrastructure as captured by our indicators finally drawing on estimates we compute illustrative ad valorem equivalents of improving each indicator halfway to the level of the top performer in the region

industrial districts and regional economic development a regulation approach digiovanna s 1996 industrial districts and regional economic developoment a regulation approach reg studies 30 373 386 this paper examines the regulatory underpinnings of industrial districts as many regional governments have been forced to accept greater responsibility for their own economic futures the industrial district model has been presented as an attractive path to economic development the underlying assumption among many policy makers is that all industrial districts are based on similar models of production organization and labour relations nevertheless the comparative approach illustrates that districts which appear similar on the surface are often quite distinct particularly when the experience of workers is considered by applying the concepts of regulation theory to the experiences of emilia romagna baden wurttemberg and silicon valley this paper illustrates that flexibly specialized districts can result in a variety of social outcomes this paper concludes that the success o

does manufacturing extension matter an evaluation of the industrial technology extension service in new york abstract building on pioneering state programs in the 1980s new federal initiatives call for a significant expansion in the scale and scope of manufacturing extension efforts in the united states this article presents an evaluation of one effort to spur industrial modernization the industrial technology extension service ites in new york state based on both qualitative and quantitative analysis the evaluation suggests that the ites program has had a favorable impact on many companies with respect to cost reductions and increased productivity the article discusses some of the difficult methodological issues in evaluating these types of programs and includes a series of recommendations on strengthening future evaluations to yield more definitive results

monitoring the monitor an incentive structure for a financial intermediary this paper studies financial intermediation i e delegated monitoring in a costly state verification model there are a finite number of agents thus the intermediary cannot fully diversify its portfolio and is subject to default risk the role of the intermediary is to satisfy simultaneously the different portfolio preferences of borrowers and lenders two questions arise when a delegated monitor is subject to non trivial default risk a what arrangement solves the problem of monitoring the monitor b what intermediary portfolio accomplishes optimal asset transformation between borrowers and lenders unlike previous delegated monitoring studies the law of large numbers is not sufficient to obtain our results instead we appeal to a stronger results the large deviation principle which establishes that convergence in the law of large numbers is exponential

regional social capital why it matters malecki e j regional social capital why it matters regional studies social capital refers to a culture of interaction among people with productive economic outcomes social capital promotes regional learning both within a region and beyond as it reinforces openness to the ideas of others regional cultures vary in the degree to which people individually and within their organizations trust and interact with one another which is why regional outcomes vary innovation learning and entrepreneurship key processes of regional development take place largely within and among people as members of companies and territorial organizations innovative milieus industrial districts and knowledge economies are among the regions with extraordinary pools of social capital malecki e j

growth pole strategies in regional economic planning a retrospective view part 2 implementation and outcome the paper continues from part 1 which appeared in the previous issue of the journal the primary concern is with neglected aspects of the growth pole strategy particularly as these relate to its i

innovation and industrial districts a first approach to the measurement and determinants of the i district effect boix r and galletto v innovation and industrial districts a first approach to the measurement and determinants of the i district effect regional studies the paper analyses an exhaustive database of patents granted in spain between 2001 and 2006 aggregated in a panel of 806 local labour markets classified by seven typologies of local production systems the analysis shows that marshallian industrial districts generate 30 of spanish patents and an innovative output per capita that is 47 above the national average and 31 larger than the manufacturing production systems of large firms the econometric estimates of a fixed effects model confirm the existence of an innovation district i district effect and its size the i district effect is mainly related to the presence of marshallian localization economies boix r et galletto v innovation et districts industriels une premiere approche de la mesure et des determinants des effets des districts d innovation regional studies nous analysons une base

financial intermediation and delegated monitoring this paper develops a theory of financial intermediation based on minimizing the cost of monitoring information which is useful for resolving incentive problems between borrowers and lenders it presents a characterization of the costs of providing incentives for delegated monitoring by a financial intermediary diversification within an intermediary serves to reduce these costs even in a risk neutral economy the paper presents some more general analysis of the effect of diversification on resolving incentive problems in the environment assumed in the model debt contracts with costly bankruptcy are shown to be optimal the analysis has implications for the portfolio structure and capital structure of intermediaries

how much difference is there between industrial district firms a net value creation approach abstract we argue that industrial district firms possess a number of shared resources that explain the competitive superiority of these firms these factors include common reputation intensity of exchange and combination of resources and participation of the local institutions using these shared resources we aim to address an unsolved question in the industrial district literature namely the internal heterogeneity of the clustered firms our empirical research drew upon a sample of 288 spanish manufacturing firms belonging to industrial districts findings suggest that even assuming a certain degree of homogeneity among internal district firms they develop their own particular relationships and networks and as a result exploitation of the shared resources is irregular these differences can therefore be used to explain the differences in value creation among firms

collective efficiency growth path for small scale industry this study is concerned with the growth of small local industry in developing countries and explores one particular route for understanding and fostering such growth it focuses on the clustering of firms and the competitive advantage which they derive from local external economies and joint action captured in the concept of collective efficiency following a conceptual discussion the article explores the economic and institutional conditions which enhance or hinder collective efficiency this includes a case study which suggests that responding to opportunity and crisis requires shifting from mere reliance on external economies to joint action and from ascribed to earned trust

demystifying the role of culture in innovative regional economies james a 2005 demystifying the role of culture in innovative regional economies regional studies 39 1197 1216 within the regional learning and innovation literature the precise impact of regional culture on firms competitive performance remains unspecified in response this paper draws on research on utah s high tech industrial agglomeration embedded in a highly visible regional culture mormonism focusing specifically on computer software firms the paper first shows how the cultural embeddedness of firms in the region is best understood as a series of sustained tensions between 1 self identified regional cultural traits imported into the firm versus 2 key elements of corporate cultures known to underpin innovation second the paper measures the material impact of that regional cultural embedding on firms innovative capacities and hence abilities to compete finally it outlines the wider relevance of the author s work with regard to the spatial limits imposed on high tech cluster po

aid for trade effectiveness complementarities with economic integration developing countries are increasingly using regional integration as a main policy lever when pursuing a trade led growth strategy and today deep preferential trade agreements go beyond trade policy negotiations and cover trade facilitation issues since aid for trade aft has been recognised as a powerful instrument for increasing developing countries trade capacity by targeting internal trade costs this article tests whether complementarities exist between this type of aid and economic integration using a gravity model on panel data for the period 1995 2005 results indicate that aft when combined with economic integration has been effective in increasing trade flows both south south and north south trade flows have benefited and the combination of the two instruments has been particularly effective in expanding the south s exports to the north finally when breaking down aft into categories assistance to trade related institutions seems to generate the strongest complementarities with economic integration

employment decentralisation polycentricity or scatteration the case of barcelona at the present time most large cities in the world are polycentric and at the same time they are undergoing processes of employment decentralisation and deconcentration it has been argued that polycentricity is just an intermediate stage between monocentricity and a more unstructured chaotic and amorphous location model scatteration for the case of the polycentric barcelona the aims of this study are to test whether its employment is moving from polycentricity to scatteration and whether its employment location model is increasingly random and unstructured the results show that in spite of the decentralisation and deconcentration processes employment concentrated in centres still represents a significant percentage of total employment and new sub centres have emerged in the periphery what is more the results also show an increasing influence of employment sub centres on employment location and density conditions as a result polycentricity has been reinforced

assessing the benefits of trade facilitation a global perspective this paper estimates the relationship between trade facilitation and trade flows using a panel of disaggregated manufactured goods for the 2000 2001 period for 75 countries four categories of trade facilitation are defined measured and assessed for their impact on bilateral trade flows using a gravity model the four measures of trade facilitation are port infrastructure air and maritime customs environment regulatory environments and e business infrastructure the results suggest that raising global capacity halfway to the world average in the four areas would increase trade by 377 billion most regions of the world increase exports more than imports in large part this result stems from increased exports to oecd markets that is obtained through a country s own effort to improve ports customs regulations and services infrastructures in addition the results suggest that reform and capacity building in trade facilitation in areas related to gatt articles v viii and x that are under discussion at the world trade organisation could expand trade and exports significantly many of the reform measures necessary to achieve this goal need not necessarily require large scale investment projects but rather action in legal and administrative reform to facilitate trade

the role of large producers in industrial districts a case study of high technology systems houses in southern california scott a j 1992 the role of large producers in industrial districts a case study of high technology systems houses in southern california reg studies 26 265 275 a generalized concept of industrial districts is proposed the concept hinges on the intertwined notions of the social division of labour external economies and locational agglomeration it is argued that large production units often play an important part in sustaining the growth and development of industrial districts and that such districts need not be composed solely of small production units the argument is illustrated by means of a case study of the role of large systems houses within the high technology industrial districts of southern california it is concluded that neither large establishments nor the internationalization of the economy necessarily threaten the continued viability of industrial districts it is also suggested that industrial districts represent a very widely developed phenomenon in time and space scott a j

banking crises and the lender of last resort how crucial is the role of information this article develops a model of bank runs and crises and analyses how the presence of a lender of last resort lolr affects the solvency of the banking system we obtain a one to one mapping from the depositors equilibrium strategy to an optimal contract prevailing in the economy the study finds that the difference between a perfectly informed and an imperfectly informed lolr can be crucial our results indicate that a perfectly informed lolr is a pareto improvement however if the supervisory process of the lolr is subject to noise then the gains from ex post efficiency may be outweighed by ex ante inefficiency induced by moral hazard which is conducive to lower lending rates in the economy

small firms borrowed size and the urban rural shift in this paper we suggest that some elements of the observed urban rural shift in firm formation and growth may centre on the phenomenon of borrowed size in doing so we make a link between literature on the geography of small firm formation and growth the theory of agglomeration and the relations among settlements within urban systems spatial externality fields have expanded over time so that small firms can locate in smaller settlements and yet access specialized labour and informational external economies of nearby larger urban areas we examine the relevance of aspects of borrowed size in the relationship of small firms in leighton linslade and lichfield to the local economy and nearby larger urban centres in particular we question the contribution of local institutional support to the growth of rural enterprise stressed in recent analysis we conclude by briefly noting the implications of borrowed size for conceptions of the local economy and local economic policy cet article cherche a avancer

the self imposed embargo customs related transaction costs of north cyprus customs related transaction costs are a major barrier to the expansion of international trade these costs are a financial burden to importers and ultimately to consumers this study measures the transaction costs that are created by the obsolete customs and port handling procedures in north cyprus such an analysis is important because since 1974 north cyprus has suffered under a direct trade embargo all its imports and exports must come or go via the ports in turkey this study finds that excessive trade transaction costs inflicted by the inefficient port handling and customs services of north cyprus is between 1 42 to 2 96 times as costly as the extra transportation costs caused by the international embargo on its direct trade with the rest of the world

revisiting marshall s agglomeration economies technological relatedness and the evolution of the sheffield metals cluster potter a and watts h d revisiting marshall s agglomeration economies technological relatedness and the evolution of the sheffield metals cluster regional studies according to alfred marshall firms receive increasing returns from a trinity of agglomeration economies a local pool of skilled labour local supplier linkages and local knowledge spillovers this article re examines the mechanisms underlying marshall s agglomeration economies in the sheffield metals cluster wherein marshall discovered them despite the cluster s decline empirical evidence is found that the mechanisms underlying marshallian agglomeration economies continue to occur within the surviving metals industry however upon closer examination marshallian agglomeration economies have evolved to become more prevalent amongst plants that use related metals technology the results highlight the importance of technological relatedness to cluster survival

recent evolutionary theorizing about economic change this famous passage from marshall s principles of economics it first appeared in the fifth edition which came out in 1907 nicely brings out two issues which are as germane to economics today as they were when marshall wrote the first is the heavy reliance by economists in their formal theorizing on the notion of equilibrium the other is the appeal that biological conceptions3x201d have for many economists particularly when their focus is on economic change

does aid for trade enhance export performance investigating on the infrastructure channel today there are few empirical studies assessing the effectiveness of aid for trade on trade pe rformance furthermore existing works do not test channels by which this impact is transiting we address this question using an empirical analysis constructed in two steps following a model of export performance we first test if institutions and infrastructure our two potential channels of transmission are indeed determinants of export performance secondly we test the impact of aid for trade sectoral flows on the determinants that were highlighted in the first part we show that the infrastructure channel appears to be highly significant in the first step whereas the institutional one turns out to have limited impact on developing countries exports furthermore in our second step aid for infrastructure seems once instrumented to have a strong and positive impact on the infrastructure level our results indicate that a 10 increase in aid to infrastructure commitments per capita leads to an average increase of the exports over gdp ratio for a developing country of 2 34 it is also equivalent to a 2 71 reduction of the tariff and non tariff barriers this highlights the very high economic impact of aid for trade throughout the channel of infrastructures

the textile and clothing industries under the fifth kondratieff wave some insights from the case of hong kong abstract this paper proposes that the world s textile and clothing industries have become increasing vertically disintegrated with a few flexible production regions the cream portion engaging in creative innovative dynamic and high value added activities and an expanding number and spatial extent of regions the cake portion taking part in low value added activities in between is an artificial layer protected by the international regulatory framework this layer has characteristics of both the cream and cake layers on the one hand the labor force in this layer suffers from low job mobility and low paid blue collar work of the cake portion and is dominated by female semi skilled workers on the other hand industrialists and governments in this layer enjoy the profits and high export values of the cream portion under the fifth kondratieff wave the textile and clothing industries have become increasingly coordinated and controlled by a thinner cream layer over time regions in the cake portion will find it increasingly difficult to transform themselves into cream because of deep seated structural and geographic differences

reasons for the development of islands of innovation evidence from hertfordshire this paper analyses why innovations often cluster in a few metropolitan islands of innovation the reason for this interest is that a growing body of neo schumpeterian economic theory argues that economic recovery after periods of economic recession and depression such as we have seen during the 1980s and early 1990s is driven by innovations these do not spring up all over the country but are spatially concentrated in a small number of metropolitan regions it is therefore important to know why this is so in order to evaluate the effectiveness of various uk and eu public policies whose specific objectives are to stimulate local and regional economic development agglomeration theory is used in order to understand the driving forces behind the spatial clustering of new innovations this leads to four explanatory hypotheses these are that innovation is facilitated by agglomeration in order to reduce distance transaction costs between firms in different spaces or by local factor conditions which provide

institutional conditions and innovation systems on the impact of regional policy on firms in different sectors moodysson j and zukauskaite e institutional conditions and innovation systems on the impact of regional policy on firms in different sectors regional studies this paper deals with institutional conditions in regional innovation systems how institutions affect the organization of innovation activities among firms and in what ways regional policy initiatives can be supportive the analysis draws on data on innovation networks activities and regional policies targeting the life science media and food industries in scania sweden the study takes account of the ways in which regional policies can impact individuals and organizations action in relation to each other by being internalized it is argued that such ability is decisive for the success or failure of the policy initiative

coordination failures and the lender of last resort was bagehot right after all the classical doctrine of the lender of last resort lolr elaborated by bagehot 1873 asserts that the central bank should lend to illiquid but solvent banks under certain conditions several authors have argued that this view is now obsolete in modern interbank markets a solvent bank cannot be illiquid this paper provides a possible theoretical foundation for rescuing bagehot s view our theory does not rely on the multiplicity of equilibria that arises in classical models of bank runs we built a model of banks liquidity crises that possesses a unique bayesian equilibrium in this equilibrium there is a positive probability that a solvent bank cannot find liquidity assistance in the market we derive policy implications about banking regulation solvency and liquidity ratios and interventions of the lender of last resort furthermore we find that public bailout and private bail in involvement are complementary in implementing the incentive efficient solution and that bagehot s lender of last resort facility must work together with institutions providing prompt corrective action and orderly failure resolution finally we derive similar implications for an international lender of last resort ilolr jel g21 g28

wage polarisation in the us and the flexibility debate the proportion of workers earning low wages in the american economy declined from 1963 through 1979 since 1979 both the low wage and the high wage shares of employment have increased leading to wage polarization analysis of current population survey data indicates that this occurred for both men and women for men this condition has been exacerbated by a secular stagnation in real median wages these empirical developments in the distribution of labor income are analyzed in detail and discussed in light of theoretical debates about employers attempts to increase labor flexibility under the pressure of declining profits copyright 1990 by oxford university press

tighter bonds customer supplier linkages in semiconductors angel d p 1994 tighter bonds customer supplier linkages in semiconductors reg studies 28 187 200 this paper examines changing linkage relations between high technology firms and their semiconductor suppliers in an effort to improve manufacturing performance and accelerate the pace of technology development high technology firms are establishing closer ties with semiconductor suppliers to date the restructuring of supplier relations has focused primarily upon increasing the flow of information among firms stronger forms of collaboration such as the co development of manufacturing and technological capability are less common the locational effects of tight supplier linkages are weaker than anticipated differing markedly from the intensified regionalization of manufacturing associated with just in time production in the automobile industry angel d p 1994 s agit il des liens plus etroits les relations client fournisseur dans l industrie des semi conducteurs reg studies 28 187 200 c

the lender of last resort abstract this paper develops a model of the lender of last resort lolr from a central bank cb viewpoint the model in a static setting suggests that the cb would only rescue banks which are above a threshold size consistent with the insight of too big to fail in a dynamic setting cb s optimal policy in liquidity support depends on the trade off between contagion and moral hazard effects our results show that contagion is the key factor affecting cb s incentives in providing lolr and they also provide a rationalization for constructive ambiguity

saving two in a billion quantifying the trade effect of european food safety standards on african exports abstract a growing concern over health risks associated with food products has prompted close examination of sanitary and phytosanitary standards in industrialized countries this paper quantifies the impact of a new harmonized aflatoxin standard set by the eu on food exports from africa we employ a gravity model to estimate the impact of changes in differing levels of protection based on the eu standard in contrast to those suggested by international standards the analysis is based on trade and regulatory survey data for 15 european countries and nine african countries between 1989 and 1998 our results suggest that the implementation of the new aflatoxin standard in the eu will have a negative impact on african exports of cereals dried fruits and nuts to europe the new eu standard which would reduce health risk by approximately 1 4 deaths per billion a year will decrease these african exports by 64 or us 670 million in contrast to regulation set through an international standard

supply chains material linkage and regional development the importance of economic linkage to regional development has been implicit in the variety of approaches that have been taken to analysing the development process despite this no mechanism exists which allows a general assessment of regional supply networks the paper provides one approach to this type of evaluation in uk regions focusing on the north west of england and taking uk input output tables as the basis of analysis sectoral linkages with supply potential are identified and their magnitude estimated the paper reveals both the scope for extending material linkages and generating employment in this region of the uk as well as confirming the important role played by manufacturing industries in intermediate supply chains

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

trade policy trade costs and developing country trade this paper briefly reviews new indices of trade restrictiveness and trade facilitation that have been developed at the world bank the paper also compares the trade impact of different types of trade restrictions applied at the border with the effects of domestic policies that affect trade costs based on a gravity regression framework the analysis suggests that tariffs and non tariff measures continue to be a significant source of trade restrictiveness for low income countries despite preferential access programs this is because the value of trade preferences is quite limited a new measure of the relative preference margin developed in the paper reveals that this is very low for most country pairs most countries with very good duty free access to a market generally have competitors that have the same degree of access the empirical analysis suggests that measures to improve logistics performance and facilitate trade are likely to have the greatest positive effects in expanding developing country trade increasing the trade impacts of lowering remaining border barriers by a factor of two or more

firm level knowledge accumulation and regional dynamics two bodies of literature have contributed significantly to our insight into the forces driving competitiveness and economic growth regional agglomeration studies emphasise the favourable impact of geographical proximity on regional economic performance particularly through knowledge spillovers however the firms that constitute those agglomerations largely remain black boxes in contrast studies dealing with technological learning explain economic performance at firm level without systematically taking account of the effects of geographical proximity the aim of the paper is to propose a possible way to bridge this gap this contributes to our understanding of the determinants of economic growth in industrial clusters an empirical illustration of a capital goods cluster is elaborated

catalytic finance when does it work in a model of debt crisis caused partly by creditor coordination failure we show that bailouts that reduce ex post inefficiency will sometimes enhance the incentives for governments to take costly adjustment effort this model helps us understand a debate about the role of the imf in catalyzing lending to developing countries

regional worlds from related variety in regional diversification to strategic coupling in global production networks this annual lecture paper bridges two influential but parallel literature strands on evolutionary economic geography eeg and global production networks gpn it argues that both strands are prem

the political economy linkage between trade liberalization and domestic environmental regulations this paper considers the political economy linkage between trade liberalization and domestic environmental regulations in a duopolistic product market we investigate the environmental consequences and welfare implications of a home country s unilateral tariff reduction on a polluting good in a framework where the domestic environmental tax is subject to the influence of the home firm we find that a tariff reduction on a good producing a consumption type externality will improve the home country s environmental quality moreover we find that the home country s tariff reduction will unambiguously enhance the home country s welfare and it will damage the foreign firm s profits and thus the foreign country s welfare provided that the weight that the home government attaches to its social welfare is sufficiently small this result also suggests the possibility that a unilateral tariff reduction will achieve a pareto improvement

coordination risk and the price of debt abstract creditors of a distressed borrower face a coordination problem even if the fundamentals are sound fear of premature foreclosure by others may lead to pre emptive action undermining the project recognition of this problem lies behind corporate bankruptcy provisions across the world and it has been identified as a culprit in international financial crises but has received scant attention from the literature on debt pricing without common knowledge of fundamentals the incidence of failure is uniquely determined provided that private information is precise enough this affords a way to price the coordination failure comparative statics on the unique equilibrium provides several insights on the role of information and the incidence of inefficient liquidation

interest groups trade liberalization and environmental standards in considering a country that imposes a minimum standard on an imported polluting good which generates negative consumption externalities we construct a common agency model in which a domestic environmental group and a foreign industrial lobby can influence the formation of the minimum standard by providing political contributions to the government this paper investigates the effects of trade liberalization on the political equilibrium environmental standard the pattern of trade environmental disutility and social welfare we find that trade liberalization tightens the minimum standard decreases imports of the polluting good and reduces environmental disutilities the importing country s social welfare however does not necessarily increase with trade liberalization the weaker the environmental group s lobbying efficiency or the stronger the foreign firm s lobbying efficiency the more likely it is that trade liberalization will enhance the importing country s welfare