nep-fdg New Economics Papers
on Financial Development and Growth
Issue of 2013‒09‒25
five papers chosen by
Iulia Igescu
Global Insight, GmbH

  1. R&D offshoring and the productivity growth of European regions By Castellani, Davide; Pieri, Fabio
  2. Is financial support for private R&D always justified ? A discussion based on literature on growth By Benjamin Montmartin; Nadine Massard
  3. The global welfare impact of China: trade integration and technological change By Julian di Giovanni; Andrei A. Levchenko; Jing Zhang
  4. Trade Openness and Income: A Tale of Two Regions By Mariam Camarero; Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso; Felicitas Nowak-Lehmenn D.; Cecilio Tamarit
  5. Structural change, labor productivity growth, and convergence of BRIC countries By Vatthanamixay Chansomphou; Masaru Ichihashi

  1. By: Castellani, Davide (Department of Economics, Finance and Statistics, University of Perugia, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, Milan, Italy Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), Halle, Germany CIRCLE, Lund University, Sweden); Pieri, Fabio (Depto. de Economia Aplicada II (Estructura Economica), Universitat de Valencia, Spain)
    Abstract: The recent increase in R&D offshoring have raised fears that knowledge and competitiveness in advanced countries may be at risk of `hollowing out'. At the same time, economic research has stressed that this process is also likely to allow some reverse technology transfer and foster growth at home. This paper addresses this issue by investigating the extent to which R&D offshoring is associated with productivity dynamics of European regions. We find that offshoring regions have higher productivity growth, but this positive effect fades down with the number of investment projects carried out abroad. A large and positive correlation emerge between the extent of R&D offshoring and the home region productivity growth, supporting the idea that carrying out R&D abroad strengthen European competitiveness.
    Keywords: R&D Offshoring; Regional Productivity; Foreign Investments; Europe
    JEL: C23 F23 O47 O52 R11
    Date: 2013–05–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2013_020&r=fdg
  2. By: Benjamin Montmartin (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - CNRS : UMR7321 - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis [UNS]); Nadine Massard (GATE Lyon Saint-Etienne - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - CNRS : UMR5824 - Université Lumière - Lyon II - École Normale Supérieure - Lyon)
    Abstract: Many economists have long held that market failures create a gap between social and private returns to Research and Development (R&D), thereby limiting private incentives to invest in R&D. However, this common belief that firms significantly underinvest in R&D is increasingly being challenged, leading the rationale behind public support for private R&D to be questioned. In this paper, we attempt to clarify the perspectives of two sources : the theoretical literature on endogenous growth, and its recent developments in integrating a geographical dimension, and the empirical literature that measures the social returns to R&D in relation to the private returns. Ultimately, we are able to clearly distinguish among different types of market failures and compare their relative impact on the gap between the private and social returns to R&D. Two main conclusions are reached. First, systematic firm underinvestment in R&D is not demonstrated. Second, even though instances of underinvestment do occur, they are mainly explained by surplus appropriability problems rather than by knowledge externalities. This suggests the need for a new policy mix that employs more demand-oriented instruments and is more concentrated on identifying efficient allocations among activities rather than merely increasing global private R&D investment.
    Keywords: Returns to R&D; Market failures; R&D-based growth; Economic Geography; R&D policy
    Date: 2013–09–20
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00864011&r=fdg
  3. By: Julian di Giovanni; Andrei A. Levchenko; Jing Zhang
    Abstract: This paper evaluates the global welfare impact of China's trade integration and technological change in a quantitative Ricardian-Heckscher-Ohlin model implemented on 75 countries. We simulate two alternative productivity growth scenarios: a balanced" one in which China's productivity grows at the same rate in each sector, and an \unbalanced" one in which China's comparative disadvantage sectors catch up disproportionately faster to the world productivity frontier. Contrary to a well-known conjecture (Samuelson 2004), the large majority of countries in the sample, including the developed ones, experience an order of magnitude larger welfare gains when China's productivity growth is biased towards its comparative disadvantage sectors. We demonstrate both analytically and quantitatively that this fnding is driven by the inherently multilateral nature of world trade. As a separate but related exercise we quantify the worldwide welfare gains from China's trade integration.
    Keywords: Production (Economic theory) ; Technological innovations ; Welfare
    Date: 2013
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-2013-08&r=fdg
  4. By: Mariam Camarero (Universitat Jaume I de Castelló / Spain); Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso (Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research, Goettingen / Germany); Felicitas Nowak-Lehmenn D. (Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research, Goettingen / Germany); Cecilio Tamarit (Universidad de Valencia / Spain)
    Abstract: In this article we present evidence of the long-run effect of trade openness on income per worker for two regions that have followed different liberalization strategies, namely Asia and Latin America. A model that re-examines these questions is estimated for two panels of Asian and Latin American countries over the 1980-2008 period using a novel empirical approach that accounts for endogeneity as well as for the time series properties of the variables involved. From an econometric point of view, we apply recent panel cointegration techniques based on factor models that account for two additional elements usually neglected in previous empirical literature: cross-dependence and structural breaks. The results point to a positive impact of trade openness in both Asia and Latin America although the size is smaller in the second region. We associate this finding with the degree to which trade was managed in both regions of the developing world.
    Keywords: GDP per worker, trade openness, panel cointegration, structural breaks, crosssection dependence, Asia, Latin America
    JEL: F15 F43 C22 O40
    Date: 2013–09–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:got:iaidps:226&r=fdg
  5. By: Vatthanamixay Chansomphou (Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation); Masaru Ichihashi (Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation)
    Abstract: In this study, we seek to understand the patterns of structural change, labor productivity growth and convergence in BRIC countries. In the first part, we employ the dataset of labor productivity from de Vries et al. (2012) and the Groningen Growth and Development Center (2013) and utilize the shift and share analysis to investigate the contribution of within shift, static shift and dynamic shift effects on growth of labor productivity. In the second part, we use the convergence tests to check for the cross-country convergence in each economic sector. Our aggregate shift-share decomposition results report that labor productivity growth within sector itself is the main source of aggregate growth, while an effect of labor movement exists (shift effect) but not substantial. Among BRIC, we found that, during 1980-2008, China had the highest rate of labor productivity growth, following by India, Russia, and Brazil, respectively. The results of the convergence analysis show that service sectors in BRICs have faster catching-up rates than industrial sectors, and there is no convergence in agriculture. Among service sectors, financial, insurance, and real estate sector has highest speed of convergence. The BRICs results are then used to compare with the four OECD countriesf results. It is found that in OECD countries, the sectors that converge fastest are mining and finance, insurance, and real estate. Nevertheless, the magnitudes of speed of convergence in OECDs are not comparable to BRICs. This confirms the growth theory in that less developed countries converge faster than developed nations. In sum, our findings imply that service sectors are the driving force of economic growth and economic convergence in BRICs.
    Keywords: Structural change, shift-share analysis, sectoral convergence, BRICs
    JEL: C80 N10 O10 O11 O41 O47
    Date: 2013–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hir:idecdp:3-5&r=fdg

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