1,721,154 research outputs found
Skill biased technical change and misallocation
No full textDue to strict reliance on competitive labor markets, standard approaches which measure skill biased technical change (SBTC) conflate labor market distortions which prevent firms from choosing the efficient ratio between skilled and unskilled labor and ‘true’ SBTC. This contrasts with recent evidence on decoupling between wages and productivity. To overcome this limitation, we present a unified framework to estimate SBTC which accounts for factor accumulation (FA) effects, and quantifies the discrepancy (i.e., relative misallocation) between the wage ratio (skilled to unskilled) and the marginal rate of technical substitution (MRTS)
Should all microfinance institutions mobilize microsavings? Evidence from economies of scope
No full textWe extend a recently developed generalized local polynomial estimator
into a semiparametric smooth coefficient framework to estimate a generalized cost
function. The advantage of the generalized local polynomial approach is that we can
simultaneously choose the degree of polynomial for each continuous nonparametric
regressor and the bandwidths via data-driven methods. We provide estimates of scope
economies from the joint production of microloans and microdeposits for a dataset of
Microfinance Institutions from over 50 countries. Our approach allows analysis on all
Microfinance Institutions rather than only those offering just microloans. Moreover,
the smooth coefficient estimator provides a general interface in which to account for
both direct and indirect environmental factors. We find substantial scope economies
in general, of about 10% at the median, as well as evidence that economies of scope
vary across the type of services and country in which the MFIs operate, suggesting
key insights into policy prescriptions
Labor productivity growth: disentangling technology and capital accumulation
Get PDFHow much of the convergence in labor productivity that we observe in manufacturing is due to convergence in technology versus convergence in capital-labor ratios? To shed light on this question, we introduce a nonparametric counterfactual decomposition of labor productivity growth into growth of the capital-labor ratio (K/L), technological productivity (TEP) and total factor productivity (TFP). Our nonparametric specification enables us to model technology allowing for heterogeneity across all relevant dimensions (i.e. countries, sectors and time). Using data spanning from the 1960s to the 2000s, covering 42 OECD and non OECD countries across 11 manufacturing sectors, we find TEP and TFP to account for roughly 46 and −6% of labor productivity growth respectively, on average. While technological growth at the world level is driven primarily by the US and a handful of other OECD countries, we find strong evidence of convergence in both technology and capital-labor ratios. Interestingly, very few of the usual growth determinants are found to enhance the process of technological catching-up
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Robotic capital - skill complementarity
Get PDFAbstract Relying upon an original (country-sector-year) measure of robotic capital ( ), we investigate the degree of complementarity/substitutability between robots and workers at different skill levels. We employ nonparametric methods to estimate elasticity of substitution patterns between and skilled/unskilled labor over the period 1995–2009. We show that: i) on average, exhibits less substitutability with skilled workers compared to unskilled workers, indicating a phenomenon of “RK-Skill complementarity”. This pattern holds in a global context characterized by significant heterogeneity; ii) the dynamic of “RK-Skill complementarity” has increased since the early 2000s; iii) the observed strengthening is more prominent in OECD countries, as opposed to non-OECD countries, and in the Manufacturing sector, compared to non-Manufacturing industries
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Room to move: Why some industries drive the trade-specialization nexus and others do not
No full textWe investigate which industries drive the trade-specialization nexus in the european union over the 1997–2006 period. We study the impact of the reallocation of resources within industries. We find that the true drivers of the trade-specialization nexus are productive firms, who benefit from the increase in trade openness by appropriating resources from less productive firms, coinciding with the expansion of the industry in which they operate, at the expense of other industries, in which there is no room to make such moves.keywordstrade barrierslatent class modelgravity model
Applying Statistical Methods to Compare Frontiers: Are Organic Dairy Farms Better Than the Conventional?
No full textThe Malmquist index is widely used in empirical studies of productivity change over time. The index is based on estimates of the frontier obtained from the convex envelopment of the data as in DEA. The statistical properties of the Malmquist index and its components, i.e. the frontier shift and the efficiency change, have until recently only been subject to a limited number of studies. The asymptotic properties of the geometric mean of the individual Malmquist indexes have been studied in the literature. Permutation tests for performing statistical inference in finite samples have recently been proposed and are easily performed. In the present paper we illustrate the permutation methods by an analysis of data comprising organic and conventional dairy farms in Denmark from 2011–2015. Further, differences between the frontiers of the production possibility sets for two separate samples are studied, specifically those of the organic and the conventional producers. We suggest to use jackknife methods when estimating the differences to ensure that these are not affected by the well-known bias originating from estimation of the frontier. In summary, the paper offers an illustration of how to analyse productivity data, in particular a comparison of two independent groups, and furthermore an analysis of how the separate groups evolve over time is provided.</p
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