compact cities and economic productivity in mexico this paper examines the contingent nature of agglomeration economies existing empirical evidence that compact cities are more productive is mostly from countries and regions with highly productive

urban development in the united states 1690 1990 the united states transformed itself from a rural to an urban society over the last three cen turies after a century of unremarkable growth the pace of urbanization was historically un precedented between the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries in the twentieth century the urban population continued to increase but in a much more dispersed manner as the sub urban population increased throughout these developments cities also exhibited considerable variation in their population sizes this paper finds that the pace and pattern of u s urban development are explained by changes in regional comparative advantage and in economies in transportation and local public goods which in turn were determined by the changes in the economic structures of cities this paper also finds that cities varied considerably in size because the larger cities reduced market transaction costs associated with coordinating greater geograph ic division of labor

economic growth in a cross section of cities abstract we examine the relationship between urban characteristics in 1960 and urban growth between 1960 and 1990 income and population growth move together and both types of growth are 1 positively related to initial schooling 2 negatively related to initial unemployment and 3 negatively related to the initial share of employment in manufacturing racial composition and segregation are uncorrelated with urban growth across all cities but in cities with large nonwhite communities segregation is positively correlated with population growth government expenditures except for sanitation are uncorrelated with growth government debt is positively correlated with later growth

search sorting and urban agglomeration studies have suggested that urban agglomeration enhances productivity by facilitating the firm worker matching process this article develops a model that formalizes this notion and demonstrates that when firm capital and worker skill are complementary in production urban agglomeration will tend to generate more efficient yet segregated matches as a result not only will local market size be positively associated with average productivity it will also generate greater between skill group wage inequality and a higher expected return to skill acquisition recent data from the counties and metropolitan areas of the united states is consistent with each of these implications

productivity gains from geographic concentration of human capital evidence from the cities abstract based on recent theoretical developments the argument is made that the average level of human capital is a local public good cities with higher average levels of human capital should therefore have higher wages and higher land rents after conditioning on the characteristics of individual workers and dwellings this prediction is supported by data for standard metropolitan statistical areas smsas in the united states where the smsa average levels of formal education and work experience are used as proxies for the average level of human capital the alternative explanations of omitted smsa variables and self selection are evaluated an estimate of the effect of an additional year of average education on total factor productivity is computed

fdi and industrial restructuring in post wto greater prd implications on regional growth in china this paper aims at studying the investment flows in the greater pearl river delta region hong kong prd in china and its impacts on industrial restructuring at the firm level using a business survey with the hong kong prd entity acted as a core periphery economy the critical effects of gravity distance on transaction costs in the determination of investment flows are examined statistically by a gravity model by incorporating a hypothetical infrastructural construction project survey findings show that the evolution of the cross border operations at the main core has directed the outward fdi flows and the subsequent industrial structural adjustments of the core periphery economy this paper has presented a typical illustrative case for further studies of investment flows and its impacts upon industrial adjustments and performance in other regions in china especially after the wto accession its implication on regional economic growth is also discussed

inflation and savings international evidence on inflation induced income losses the fall in the average propensity to consume a p c in the i970s in most industrialised countries has been the subject of much debate it has been ascribed to a wide variety of causes most important it has been widely interpreted as a typical example of a situation in which economic forecasting has failed simply because it did not take into account the psychological effects of rapid changes in the economic environment given the inability of economists to predict sudden changes in consumer expectations these would naturally set severe limits to the usefulness of economic forecasting this paper takes a different approach to the problem it contends that the true fall in the a p c has been considerably lower than indicated by the statistics the argument runs roughly as follows the increase in the rate of inflation has led to a net transfer of real resources away from the personal sector this transfer was due to the fall in the real value of net monetary assets held by the personal sector and issued by the public and business sectors of the economy consumers considered this fall as negative income and adjusted their expenditure accordingly the definition of personal sector disposable income used in the national accounts statistics does not include such a correction in inflationary periods this leads to a large overestimate of true personal sector disposable income given this overestimate of the denominator it is hardly surprising that measured c y should fall when the rate of inflation rises the simplicity of this theory indicates that it can quite easily be subjected to empirical testing the tests proposed in this paper are based on a novel specification of the consumption function developed by davidson et al i978 henceforth dhsy this function has a solid theoretical foundation good statistical properties and allows both shortand long run phenomena to be easily incorporated in an acceptable manner simple theoretical considerations indicate roughly how one should go about measuring true income this corrected measure of income can be incorporated into the consumption function to be estimated in such a way that the coefficient of the correction term is endogenously determined in the regression the statistical properties of the resulting regressions are the evidence leading to a rejection or tentative acceptance of the theory

production stability in a supply chain environment abstract there is evidence that the growth rate of gdp in the united states stabilized in 1984 and improvements in production management are frequently cited as a source this paper defines the quality of production as the scale of the firm s production shock and assumes that the firm can exercise control over the scale of the shock the firm is assumed to operate in a supply chain environment and the question of interest is what if any influence the adoption of more reliable production techniques by a single firm has for aggregate volatility the results indicate that the adoption of more reliable production techniques by a single firm typically have minor effects on aggregate volatility because the benefit dies out rapidly as the product moves downstream the exceptions are those cases in which the firm adopting the improved technology lies near the end of the chain there is also some benefit when deliveries of materials to the initial firm in the production chain stabilize

production management output volatility and good luck abstract this paper models the scale of the technology shocks as a decision variable whose value is determined by the production manager it is shown that smaller shocks enhance profit in several ways and thus the firm has an incentive to adopt more reliable production technologies the adoption of these technologies may account for the good luck hypothesis in which the stabilization of gross domestic product gdp since 1984 is attributed to smaller shocks it differs from this hypothesis in two respects first the reduced volatility should be permanent second the stabilization does not require smaller intrinsic shocks to the economy

estimating dynamic localization economies the inadvertent success of the specialization index and the location quotient estimating dynamic localization economies the inadvertent success of the specialization index and the location quotient regional studies after addressing definitional issues on the concepts of c

geographical location of foreign direct investment and wage inequality in china this paper examines the relationships between distance and the transportation costs of international trade on the location specific effects of foreign direct invest ment and provincial per capita income in china applying the economic geography model proposed by redding and venables 2004 it traces the increasing wage inequality among the coastal and inland provinces by focusing on the distance of foreign owned firms from access to international markets and to suppliers of intermediate inputs first a gravity type equation is used to construct the market access and supplier access variables then the effect of market and supplier access on provincial wage rates is estimated the results indicate that distance does affect international trade and geography explains roughly one third of the wage differential greater market access increases the provincial wage gap while larger supplier access increases the wage difference in trade destined for the foreign market but decreases the wage difference in trade targeted for the domestic market similar findings also result from applying the estimations to two local firm types state owned enterprises and collective owned enterprises

cities and cultures we investigate whether cultural diversity across us cities measured as the variety of native languages spoken by city residents is associated with any effect on their productivity diversity of cultures may imply diversity of production skills of abilities and of occupations that enhances the productive performance of a city on the other hand transaction costs and frictions across groups may hurt productivity similarly diversity in available goods and services can increase utility but distaste for or hostility to different cultural groups may decrease it using census data from 1970 to 1990 we find that wages and employment density of us born workers were systematically higher ceteris paribus in cities with richer linguistic diversity these positive correlations reveal a net positive effect of diversity on productivity that survives robustness checks and instrumental variable estimation this effect is found to be stronger for highly educated workers and for white workers we also show that better assimilated non native speakers i e those who speak english well and have been in the us for more than five years are most beneficial to the productivity of us born workers

german inventory to sales ratios 1971 2005 an empirical analysis of business practice abstract the purpose of this study is to test empirically for the first time the general hypothesis that inventory to sales ratios have decreased over time in the german economy although inventory reduction has been a prevalent topic in the production and operations management literature there is a lack of empirically confirmed answers to questions they are as follows have inventories in german firms decreased overall during the past decades what sectors of german industry are leading lagging behind inventory reduction has inventory reduction developed differently for raw materials work in process or finished goods in which periods was marginal inventory reduction greatest to the best of our knowledge this empirical study is the first to broadly investigate inventory development from the 1970s until the present for a major european economy germany and will provide the first answers to the research questions stated above using aggregate industry level data provided by the deutsche bundesbank we show that inventory levels decreased overall in many sectors of german industry this reduction was mainly marked for raw materials and finished goods particularly for the second half of the time frame investigated

stability of perishable goods in cold logistic chains abstract we consider that production and logistics facilities in the supply chain are positioned between the origin and the supply market or in a part of it any changes in time distance or temperature in the chain could cause the net present value of the activities and their added value in the supply chain to be perturbed in reality the perturbations can be robust the natural question arises is to what are the effects of some perturbations in a supply chain in its production or distribution part on the stability of perishable goods in such systems and what is the appropriate control which keeps the product on the required level of quality and quantity at the final delivery these analyses are especially important to assure the stability of cold chains in the cold chains management ccm what conditions should be fulfilled to assure that after such robust perturbations of parameters and especially time delays lead times and some other delays the behaviour of the logistics chain would still be within the prescribed limits the formulation obtained in the time domain will be compared with the formulation in the frequency space introduced by grubbstrom in his paper on the application of the laplace transform to certain economic problems manage sci 7 1967 558 and with the later studies of his school their model was extended by the authors to the complete logistic chain where location and with it also the distance between the activity cells of logistic chain play an important role

the missing piece in policy analysis social security reform this lecture discusses the economic losses that result from an unfunded social security retirement system and the potential gain from shifting to a funded system the social security payroll tax distorts labor supply and the form in which compensation is paid although each individual s benefits are linked to that individual s previous payroll tax payments the low equilibrium rate of return inherent in an unfunded system implies a net payroll tax that causes distortions the resulting deadweight loss is 1 of each year s gdp in perpetuity an amount equal to 20 of payroll tax revenue and a 50 increase in deadweight loss of the personal income tax also there is the loss of investment income resulting from forcing employees to accept the low implicit return of an unfunded program rather than the much higher return paid on private saving or in a funded social security program the present value of the annual losses from using an unfunded system exceeds the benefit to those who received windfall transfers when the program began and when it expanded shifting to a funded program cannot reverse the crowding out of capital that has already occurred recognizing the existing unfunded obligation only makes that piece of the national debt explicit but shifting to a funded program limits crowding out of capital formation to the amount that already occurred future increases in annual saving that result from economic growth are able to earn the higher rate of return on real capital the present value of these gains is equivalent to a perpetuity of more than 2 of gdp a year the combi nation of improved labor market incentives and higher real return on saving has a net present value gain of more than 15 trillion an amount equivalent to three percent of each future year s gdp forever this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

regional productivity variation and the impact of public capital stock an analysis with spatial interaction with reference to spain in this article we examine whether variations in the level of public capital across spain s provinces affected productivity levels over the period 1996 to 2005 the analysis is motivated by contemporary urban economics theory involving a production function for the competitive sector of the economy industry which includes the level of composite services derived from service firms under monopolistic competition the outcome is potentially increasing returns to scale resulting from pecuniary externalities deriving from internal increasing returns in the monopolistic competition sector we extend the production function by also making log labour efficiency a function of log total public capital stock and log human capital stock leading to a simple and empirically tractable reduced form linking productivity level to density of employment human capital and public capital stock the model is further extended to include technological externalities or spillovers across provinces using panel data

agglomeration and trade some additional perspectives the form of agglomeration economies those internal to the firm as well as those external to it is reviewed consideration is next given to recent changes in the regional state economies of the us midwest as part of an effort to explore the evolving nature of agglomeration economies particular attention is paid to the changing relationship between the establishment and the firm and to radical developments that have affected the transportation sector the impact of these changes on the nature of interstate trade and on the structure of the metropolitan economy are then examined there follows a discussion of how agglomeration economies are being supplemented and perhaps replaced by less spatially constrained advantages finally certain of the more important implications of these various trends are discussed

optimum product variety in urban areas abstract a monopolistically competitive industry in which firms produce differentiated products subject to increasing returns to scale technology is superimposed on a monocentric residential land use model the main result is the demonstration that given an isoelastic demand structure the market equilibrium will correspond to a first best optimum if firms own shares in land rents and population is set optimally this result contrasts with existing literature on monopolistic competition and product diversity in which it is contended that the market equilibrium is a second best optimum if firms do not own shares in land rents a corrective subsidy paid to firms and financed out of a tax on differential land rents will result in replication of the planning solution

technological specialization and variety in urban invention o huallachain b and lee d s technological specialization and variety in urban invention regional studies urban economic theory distinguishes between knowledge spillovers that occur within specializations and those that cross technologies empirical analysis has sought to gauge their relative strength but the results are inconclusive metropolitan specialization and variety at different aggregation levels of a us patent classification system are assessed using theil s relative entropy index the results show that specialization and variety are not competing features of urban technological structure cities can have both the invention rate positively associates with specialization in diverse technologies the cross fertilization of ideas among skilled professionals with different expertise and the interaction between specialists of narrow fields of knowledge are both important in technological advance the most inventive cities have deep specializations in different technologies the results also sho

economic growth size of the agricultural sector and urbanization in africa this paper uses variations in international commodity prices and rainfall to construct instrumental variables estimates of the within country effect that changes in the size of the agricultural sector and gdp per capita growth have on the urbanization rate for a panel of 41 african countries during the period 1960 2007 the paper s three main findings are that i decreases in the share of agricultural value added lead to a significant increase in the urbanization rate ii conditional on changes in the share of agricultural value added gdp per capita growth does not significantly affect the urbanization rate iii increases in the urbanization rate had a significant negative average effect on gdp per capita growth

industry evidence of enhanced production stability since 1984 abstract mcconnell and perez quiros have recently provided evidence that the growth rate of gdp has stabilized since 1984 they conclude that the enhanced stability can be attributed to improvements in inventory management in the durables sector this study examines the behavior of output in two digit sic manufacturing industries in an effort to determine whether this increase in stability is evident in less aggregated data after accounting for changes in demand volatility output stabilized in four of the six 2 digit durables industries modeled here total durables output stabilized by 9 these improvements appear to be the result of milder short run output responses to demand shocks this suggests that output has become less responsive to demand shocks and casts doubt on enhanced flexibility of production that should be characteristic of improved production management

taxes and agglomeration economies how are they related to nonprofit firm location author affiliation teresa d harrison department of economics drexel university 3141 chestnut street philadelphia pa 19104 usa tharrison drexel edu1 introductionnonprofits are an ever increasing component of the u s economy from 1997 2001 employment growth in the nonprofit sector averaged 2 5 outpacing both the business 1 8 and the government sectors 1 6 moore 2004 much of this growth stems from new nonprofits yet few studies have investigated possible determinants of nonprofit entry and location decisions most of these studies focus on demand side factors wolch and geiger 1983 downes and greenstein 1996 bielefeld murdoch and waddell 1997 for example downes and greenstein 1996 focus on demographic and religious characteristics of the surrounding community and its relation to private school location in this paper i use firm level data and focus on potentially important supply side variables tax rates and agglomeration economies most nonprofits are exempt from corporate sales and property taxes hansmann 1987 and gulley and santerre 1993 find evidence that higher corporate property and sales taxes are positively related to nonprofit market share however market share measures obfuscate the dynamics of the industry in terms of entry and exit rates if market share for nonprofits increases in response to higher tax rates this could be because new nonprofits are entering or because for profits are leaving the industry identifying these two cases is impossible with market share data using nonprofit tax return data i examine the relation between these tax exemptions and state county location decisions of new nonprofits to my knowledge this is the first paper to study these interactions at the individual firm level nonprofits also receive tax favored status due to the individual tax deduction on charitable contributions gentry and penrod 1998 employees of and donors to the nonprofits will be affected by the individual tax rates this in turn alters the costs to the nonprofit of location in a high or low tax area unlike previous studies i therefore investigate the relation between individual marginal tax rates and nonprofit location another potential supply side determinant of firm location decisions is the existing firm concentration in the area the potential economies of scale generated by proximity to other firms have been extensively examined in for profit industries 1 previous studies have generally found a positive relation between agglomeration and location carlton 1983 bartik 1985 woodward 1992 gius and frese 2002 rosenthal and strange 2003 to my knowledge bielefeld et al 2004 is the only study that examines nonprofit agglomeration finding evidence of agglomeration in dallas texas this warrants additional examination because nonprofit output is generally service driven and less mobile thus agglomeration implies greater direct competition making market saturation a larger issue in the nonprofit market using a nationwide dataset i examine how location and existing firm concentration are related and explore the potential presence of market saturation i also investigate possible differences between inter and intra industry agglomeration my results provide new insight into nonprofit firm behavior in most cases higher tax rates are associated with new firm location but the results for corporate and property taxes vary across the sample years i find that individual tax rates are an important consideration for nonprofits and are positively correlated to location my analysis also contributes to the literature by examining how the sensitivity to tax rates varies according to the sources of revenues for the institution firms that depend highly on individual donations are more likely to locate in high individual tax states while nonprofits with large mission related revenues are more sensitive to the property tax rate

classic or new monopsony searching for evidence in nursing labor markets the market for registered nurses rns is often offered as an example of classic monopsony while a new monopsony literature emphasizes that firm labor supply is upward sloping independent of market structure using data from multiple sources we explore the relationship between nursing wages in hospitals and measures of classic and new monopsony wage level analysis fails to provide support for classic monopsony the relative wages of rns in 240 u s labor markets being largely uncorrelated with hospital system concentration longitudinal analysis shows nursing wages declining with increases in hospital concentration we interpret these results as providing support for classic monopsony effects in the short run but question whether wage effects are sustained in the long run no relationship is found between nursing wages and a new monopsony measure of mobility but support for new monopsony is found for women elsewhere in the labor market rns display greater interemployer mobility than do women or men in general two conclusions follow first upward sloping labor supply need not imply monopsonistic outcomes second absent more compelling evidence nursing should not be held up as a prototypical example of monopsony classic or new

has production management improved since 1984 kim and nelson 1999 and others have recently presented evidence of a dramatic decline in the volatility of real gross domestic product gdp when the data are plotted the break date is easily identified as 1984 kim and nelson conclude that the enhanced stability is broadly based but statistical analysis by mcconnell and perez quiros 2000 hereafter mpq points to reductions in inventory volatility in the durables sector as the source of the newfound stability although inventory investment is a very small component of gdp changes in inventory investment are one of the most volatile components of changes in gdp ramey and west 1999 calculate that declines in inventory investment typically account for 49 of reductions in u s gdp during recessions inventories in the durables sector are substantially more volatile than in the nondurables sector and thus inventory investment in this sector is more likely to contribute to macroeconomic instability the 1984 break date is intriguing because it coincides with the rising popularity of new production management techniques such as just in time jit 1 hall 1983 describes jit as an emphasis on producing exactly what is needed and conveying it to where it is needed precisely when required he cites several components to the successful implementation of jit but one of the major components is flexible production implying rapid response and the ability to profitably produce only what is immediately required in this ideal environment no unfilled orders or finished goods are accumulated and whatever raw materials and work in process must be accumulated are quickly processed more generally the more flexible and well coordinated the production process the more quickly output can respond to a demand shock 2 the questions addressed here are as follows 1 is there evidence of structural change in output 2 did the structural change if any occur around 1984 3 did output track demand more closely following the structural change the answers to all three questions must be yes to support the contention that improved production management is responsible for the stabilization of gdp the analysis is carried out at the industry level to identify those industries that satisfy the criteria the quality of production management is measured as the difference between the log of output and the log of new orders both measured monthly new orders represent demand and are equivalent to sales among firms that hold no unfilled orders if the firm achieves the ideal efficiency then output is identical to demand more generally efficiency is reflected in the time required for the firm to return inventories and unfilled orders to their target values following a shock to demand or output an increase in efficiency implies a more rapid output response to demand shocks so that any differences between output and demand are resolved more rapidly structural change is identified with tests for structural change with unknown break dates developed by andrews 1993 and andrews and ploberger 1994 following herrera and pesavento s 2004 industry level analysis the tests allow for multiple breaks their tests for stability are conducted on univariate autoregressive models of sales and inventories by stages of fabrication here the growth rate of output or the difference between the log of output and the log of new orders is the dependent variable allowing for a direct observation of structural change in the variable of interest in addition the models are richer in that variables such as new orders and raw materials are included on the right hand side to determine the sensitivity of the break date to potential sources of any change in output behavior several studies in addition to herrera and pesavento s 2004 have examined industry level data for evidence of structural change that might indicate improvements in production management

problems with using traditional aggregate inventory to sales ratios abstract changes in traditionally constructed aggregate inventory to sales ratios are shown to not necessarily measure changes in underlying subsector inventory behavior this is because while traditionally constructed aggregate inventory to sales ratios can be viewed as the weighted average of the underlying subsector inventory to sales ratios the aggregation weights vary over time reflecting shifts in the composition of sales across the subsectors for example aggregate ratios can increase when most of the underlying subsectors are reducing inventory to sales ratios this is shown to have been the case for the us retail sector as a solution to this measurement problem the use of fixed weight aggregate inventory sales ratios is proposed these should help business cycle analysts and researchers better gauge the condition of inventories

firm performance under just in time and traditional proxies for profit maximization abstract when the profit function is too complex to maximize directly firms must rely on some other performance criterion to guide work station activity simplification is achieved by emphasizing either flow or stock management flow management seeks to ensure that no work station is starved by available inputs stock management seeks to minimize inventories this paper develops a model to assess the performance of these two approaches for a firm that can carry both input and output inventories the model includes shocks to both demand and production and the possibility of a stockout is explicitly reflected in the optimization problem stock management dominates flow management when carrying costs are sufficiently large when carrying costs are moderate the strategy of simply ignoring shocks to demand and capacity dominates both stock and flow management the flow management approach is superior only when carrying costs are very small

has inventory management in the us become more efficient and flexible a macroeconomic perspective abstract this paper examines the seeming eradication of evidence for improved inventory management since the early 1980s suggested by the aggregate data in the january 1993 revision of the bureau of economic analysis inventory and sales estimates for us manufacturing and trade it analyzes inventory sales output orders ratios at the published level of detail to determine whether at least some components continue to show clear evidence of increased long run efficiency after 1982 further it investigates three other potential avenues of improved inventory management greater cyclical flexibility adjusting of inventory levels more fully to cyclical peaks and troughs faster adjustment to near term desired levels and diminished buffer stock behavior for each aspect and each inventory component several indicators are examined jointly to assess the evidence for improved management the incidence of positive assessments is then viewed across components to judge their overall role substantial evidence for improved long run efficiency is largely confined to materials and work in process inventories in certain manufacturing industries rising inventory sales ratios for other components centered in retail trade are offsetting elements significantly greater cyclical flexibility and faster speeds of adjustment are more widespread although again centered in manufacturing there is virtually no evidence of diminished buffer stock behavior

trend breaks in us inventory to sales ratios abstract this paper documents econometrically that us inventory to sales ratios have time trends and that there have been significant breaks in these time trends at both the aggregate and industry level using techniques developed by bai rev econ stat 1997 551 and by bai and perron econometrica 66 1 1998 47 we simultaneously estimate the time trend parameters and the dates of statistically significant breaks in those trends using data from 1967 through 2001 it is estimated that aggregate manufacturing and trade inventory to sales ratio trended upwards at a 0 76 year rate before 1985 q3 and has trended downwards at a 1 29 year rate since then downtrends are estimated to have begun in manufacturing ratios in 1983 wholesalers in 1985 and retailers in 1990 before the mid 1990s nearly all the reductions in ratios occurred in industries carrying durable goods examination of the timing and possible explanations of trend breaks for the 20 two digit manufacturing industries suggests that breaks are much more likely to have occurred in recessions and may be related to changes in the variance of the industry s sales growth rate

the consumption function in macroeconomic models a comparative study 1984 the consumption function in macroeconomic models a comparative study applied economics vol 16 no 6 pp 799 838

agglomeration economies in urban manufacturing industries a case of japanese cities abstract the effects of urban agglomeration economies on productivities in two digit manufacturing industries is estimated using the cross section data of japanese cities in 1979 urbanization and localization economies which are major forms of urban agglomeration economies are explicitly separated the estimates of these economies vary considerably among industries light industries receive more productive advantages from urbanization economies than from localization economies but heavy industries experience these economies more from localization economies than from urbanization economies

an empirical examination of government expenditures and the ex ante crowding out effect for the british economy the conventional macroeconomic view that consumers make their consumption decisions without regard for goods provided by the government has been examined in the literature moreover the line of research that questions this conventional view argues that this separation does not have a firm theoretical backing if consumers take government expenditures into account when maximizing their utility functions then the effects of fiscal policy actions will tend to appear weaker than those suggested by most conventional analyses the examination of this issue should therefore have far reaching political as well as economic implications within the context of traditional fiscal policies this paper will empirically examine the ex antecrowding out effect of government expenditures upon private consumption expenditures for the british economy an aggregate consumption function is derived and estimated in the context of a simultaneous equations model based on intertemporal consumption theory the empirical results sho

inventory investment and sectoral characteristics in some oecd countries this paper discusses the effects of sectoral structure on the long run macroeconomic inventory behaviour of national economies data on 15 oecd countries are included in the analysis which is based on correlation and cluster analysis methodologies the study is part of a long term research project exploring factors influencing the inventory behaviour of national economies first we introduce some basic characteristics of macroeconomic inventory formation in the 15 oecd countries we argue that our previous results on the existence of specific characteristic features of macroeconomic inventory investment are justified hence it makes sense to study the factors influencing these features we then examine the contribution of various sectors to the production of in the countries involved and the relationship between sectoral structure and inventory intensity annual inventory change gross value added we find that the high share of agriculture and manufacturing increases inventory intensity that the increasing share of services has a negative effect and that the role of construction and trade is not obvious the relatively low stability of the statistical results warns us to be cautious with our judgements further case by case analysis would be required to obtain more solid results

urban diversity and economic growth at the risk of some simplification it is possible to identify four periods of intense study of cities by economists each of these has led to an increased understanding of the economics of urban areas and the unique role played by cities in the modem economy the first of these periods occurred in the decade after world war i only about ten years after the truck revolutionized the transport of goods within urban areas this period included the first systematic empirical analysis of the forces affecting the location of firms and households within cities robert murray haig 1926 and a number of other microeconomists at columbia analyzed the spatial pattems of manufacturing activity in lower manhattan and in the rest of new york city haig jmd his colleagues devoted considerable attention to where things belong in an urban area p 402 providing the first systematic economic analysis of urban spatial structure for example they analyzed the garment industry concluding that it was destined by nature to disperse north of 14th street and predicting that it would follow the estabhshed spatial pattem of the cooperage barrelmaking industry standardization in size and quality of barrels had meant that identical barrels could be made throughout the new york metropolitan area even in new jersey and the introduction of the truck meant that they could be transported cheaply throughout the region and exported the second of these periods though not in chronological order began in the mid 1960s it formalized many of the insights about location incentives within urban areas which had been uncovered a half century before mixed them with the logic of heinrich von thunen s 1826 ancient theories about agricultural crops and land values and applied them to the hotisehold sector the works of william alonso 1964

inventory dynamics time lags and efficiency measures abstract standard measures employed to examine efficiency such as production efficiency in manufacturing are static in nature standard methods typically employ a stock flow approach to measure turnover and delay this is a first estimate but an inadequate approach since production processes are time dependent and dynamic this study examines theoretical issues concerning the standard method of measuring efficiency indices and introduces a refined dynamic measurement methodology the standard and proposed methodologies are applied to financial data for us tire and rubber goods industry to demonstrate the empirical differences between the two measures

manufacturing productivity and city size in canada 1975 and 1985 does population matter this paper analyses the relationship between manufacturing productivity and city size based on canadian data for 1975 and 1985 the results differ in some respects from those of us studies in particular in canada city size appears to have a weaker impact on manufacturing productivity and an impact which is diminishing over time these findings may be a consequence of several differences in the characteristics of canadian and us firms as well as differences between the two urban systems urbanisation economies in canada may also have been weakened by regional development policies there are at the same time some striking similarities in the industries which show positive urbanisation economies in the us and canada there is also a tendency in canada for both industries with smaller firms and industries with higher rates of domestic ownership to exhibit greater urbanisation economies

multilevel approaches and the firm agglomeration ambiguity in economic growth studies empirical studies in spatial economics have shown that agglomeration economies may be a source of the uneven distribution of economic activities and economic growth across cities and regions both localization and urbanization economies are hypothesized to foster agglomeration and growth but recent meta analyses of this burgeoning body of empirical research show that the results are ambiguous recent overviews show that this ambiguity is fuelled by measurement issues and heterogeneity in terms of scale of time and space aggregation growth definitions and the functional form of the models applied alternatively in this paper we argue that ambiguity may be due to a lack of research on firm level performance in agglomerations this research is necessary because the theories that underlie agglomeration economies are microeconomic in nature hierarchical or multilevel modeling which allows micro levels and macro levels to be modeled simultaneously is becoming an increasingly common practice in the social sciences as illustrated by detailed dutch data on firm level productivity employment growth and firm survival we argue that these approaches are also suitable for reducing the ambiguity surrounding the agglomeration firm performance relationship and for addressing spatial sectoral and cross level heterogeneity

does post ante investment experience matter lessons from fdi in china ample efforts of fdi literature have researched on the motives and determinants of fdi flows based on ex ante conditions little has been studied with regard to the effects of post ante behaviour in determining future investment decisions post ante experience of fdi decisions with regard to foreign investors satisfaction or dissatisfaction and future profit expectations on recurrent decisions are critical this paper thus attempts to investigate fdi in the context of an emerging market environment with emphasis on how environmental and institutional factors and the micro firm effects of how investors post ante views on profits expectations and investment experience would affect mncs decisions on recurrent investment and firm relocation empirical results show that decisions in the short and long run were affected differently by the factors under study specifically the short run decisions were more affected by profit expectations while the long run by post ante experience on investment satisfaction dissatisfaction and environmental and institutional determinants