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Productivity Convergence at the Firm Level: New Evidence from the Americas
No full textUses firm-level data from the manufacturing sector in Colombia, Mexico, and the United States, in the past decade, to investigate the extent to which aggregate productivity growth in the manufacturing sector is driven by growth in productivity at the firm level or by reallocation of employment shares across firms. The evaluation produced results that stress a focus on firm-level productivity growth, as this has contributed the most to overall productivity growth. Reallocation between firms, within sectors, results in a weak force of productivity growth, and reallocation between sectors an even weaker source of growth. Although firms converge toward the domestic frontier with spillovers arising from the growth of the domestic frontier, no convergence occurs with respect to the global frontier. For all countries analyzed, the most important determinant of productivity convergence at the firm level remains innovation effort, measured as the firm-level expenditure shares in innovation and investment in capital equipment
Pharmaceutical expenditure and gross domestic product: Evidence of simultaneous effects using a two‐step instrumental variables strategy
No full textThis paper estimates the income elasticity of government pharmaceutical spending and assesses the simultaneous effect of such spending on gross domestic product (GDP). Using a panel dataset for 136 countries from 1995 to 2006, we employ a two‐step instrumental variable procedure where we first estimate the effect of GDP on public pharmaceutical expenditure using tourist receipts as an instrument for GDP. In the second step, we construct an adjusted pharmaceutical expenditure series where the response of public pharmaceutical expenditure to GDP is partialled out and use this endogeneity adjusted series as an instrument for pharmaceutical expenditure. Our estimations show that GDP has a strong positive impact on pharmaceutical spending with elasticity in excess of unity in countries with low spending on pharmaceuticals and countries with large economic freedom. In the second step, we find that when the quantitatively large reverse effect of GDP is accounted for, public pharmaceutical spending has a negative effect on GDP per capita particularly in countries with limited economic freedom
Benchmarking across Borders: An Update and Response
No full textArel-Bundock, Blais and Dassonneville (2018, ABD hereafter) offer an unusual critique of our 12 article, Benchmarking across Borders. They find no methodological flaws, produce identical 13 empirical results and concede that their proposed specification (Model 5) is mathematically 14 identical to that used in Kayser and Peress (2012, KP hereafter). ABD make two claims: (1) that 15 their preferred specification is an innovation that improves interpretation and (2) that the 16 empirical evidence presented in KP does not support benchmarking. The first is unpersuasive 17 and the second depends on a selective reading of the evidence. We address these issues below and 18 update the individual-level dataset from KP to increase statistical power, finding additional 19 evidence of benchmarking
Industrial Coordination and Vocational Training in the Post-industrial Age
No full textThis chapter suggests that one needs to look beyond national-level structures of industrial coordination to grasp how political pacts for vocational education and institutions for business-labor cooperation are being reinvented. Many believe that a revamping of vocational education for the post-industrial economy is necessary both to invest skills in services and to provide education for non-academic youth. The chapter discusses the relationship between industrial relations and vocational training, as well as challenges to the traditional governance mode in the policy spheres. It presents case studies of Denmark, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, which are based on secondary literature, document analysis, and expert interviews. The chapter explores how institutions for industrial coordination help or hinder efforts to renew vocational education for the post-industrial economy. In contrast, successive British prime ministers from both parties routinely avow commitment to vocational training with very little effect, although apprenticeship programs exist in some sectors
The Governance Report 2016
No full textThe content for The Governance Report 2016 was developed as part of a joint undertaking of the Hertie School of Governance and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to inform and shape the debate on the governance of infrastructure
Short-term electricity trading for system balancing: An empirical analysis of the role of intraday trading in balancing Germany's electricity system
No full textPrevious studies have noted that, surprisingly, Germany’s dramatic expansion of wind and solar energy coincided with a reduction of short-term balancing reserves. This paper provides further and updated evidence, supporting this “German Balancing Paradox”: since 2011 wind and solar energy nearly doubled while reserve requirements and reserve activation declined by around 50%. We quantitatively explore one reason for reduced balancing needs: increased and improved short-term wholesale electricity trading. Electricity trading is now commonly done around the clock and based on quarter hours, rather than hours. The shift to quarter-hourly products alone explains a decrease in balancing energy by 17%. We also find strong evidence for market parties to respond efficiently to imbalance charges, suggesting that market-based approaches to balancing work
Alternative organizing with social purpose: revisiting institutional analysis of market-based activity
No full textGiven rampant economic inequality, social exclusion and overconsumption, organizing in markets increasingly focuses on leveraging commercial activity for a social purpose. Alternative forms of organizing have developed to overcome the deficiencies of contemporary capitalism. They have become prevalent in numerous institutional contexts through types of organizations such as social enterprises, cooperatives and platform-based sharing economy organizations. Our objective is to ignite research on alternative organizing. We build on two important institutional perspectives, Neo-institutionalism and Comparative Capitalism, to investigate how these organizations diverge from the archetypal corporation. In addition, we develop a framework to guide institutional analysis of the origins, enabling conditions and consequences of alternative organizing in contemporary markets and society. We conclude by laying out pathways for future research