We use plant-level data to study the link between the local availability of services and the decision of manufacturing firms to source materials from abroad. We develop a model to generate ...predictions about how the intensity of international sourcing of materials depends on the availability of services and firm characteristics. These predictions are supported by the data. Greater availability of services across regions, industries, and time increases firms' foreign sourcing of materials relative to sales. The impact of services differs by firm type. National firms' sourcing responds to changes in regional service conditions, whereas multinationals tend to be less affected. A l'aide de données au niveau des établissements, on étudie le lien entre la disponibilité locale de services et la décision des entreprises manufacturières de s'approvisionner en biens à l'étranger. On développe un modèle pour engendrer des prédictions quant à savoir jusqu'à quel point l'intensité de l'approvisionnement en biens à l'étranger dépend de la disponibilité des services et des caractéristiques de l'entreprise. Ces prédictions sont supportées par les données. Une plus grande disponibilité de services à travers les régions, les industries et le temps accroît l'approvisionnement en biens à l'étranger des entreprises en pourcentage des ventes. L'impact des services diffère selon le type de firme. L'approvisionnement à l'étranger des entreprises domestiques répond aux variations régionales dans les conditions de service, alors que les entreprises plurinationales tendent à être moins affectées.
Due to the unprecedented population growth and increased economic activity in coastal areas, the health and hence value of coastal waterbody resources have been the subject of interest in recent ...years. In this article we estimate the value of a healthy waterbody through a hedonic property price analysis utilizing water quality as the amenity of interest. We compare hedonic analysis results using technical measures of water quality to the results using a non-technical measure of water quality “location grade” available in an urban coastal housing market of South Florida. Our results indicate that water quality improvement is associated with higher property values. In the comparison between technical and non-technical measures of water quality, we find that the technical measures provide better prediction of housing prices than the non-technical location grade. We further impute implicit prices for water quality improvement where significant mean willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates range from $7,531 to $43,158. JEL Classification Codes: Q25, Q51, R21, D60
Until its recent end, the Spanish construction industry enjoyed a decade of unprecedented growth, absorbing labour and capital from other sectors of the economy in huge amounts. Using the ...input—output methodology, we compare the picture for different countries in order to seek patterns and identify possible distortions associated with the extraordinary growth of the construction sector in Spain. We find that the sector is plainly oversized in Spain in comparison to its closest benchmarks, namely a group of OECD advanced economies. The available input—output data for Spain, covering several years, also provide evidence of a process of 'deformation' of the economy. On this basis, we provide an initial estimate of the impact a hypothetical adjustment in the industry would have on total income and employment in the economy.
The empirical finding that exporting firms are more productive on average than non‐exporters has provoked a large theoretical literature based on models such as Melitz (), where more productive firms ...are more likely to overcome costs associated with trade. This paper investigates how closely the productivity heterogeneity framework fits the data from a firm‐level survey that includes information on export destinations and firm characteristics such as productivity. We find a high degree of unpredictable idiosyncratic participation in export markets by firms and a relatively weak positive correlation between the extent of a firm's export market participation and its export sales. We find that a small number of standard gravity variables provide a close fit to the country‐level determinants of trade but that greater variation results in more difficulty in explaining firm‐specific factors driving exporting behaviour. We also illustrate some elements of the dynamics over time in firm exporting patterns by destination. We show that lagged exporting activity has a significant effect on a firm's current exporting profile.
Recent research has revealed that most articles published in top US accounting journals come from institutions based in the USA or a small number of other English-speaking countries (Jones and ...Roberts, Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, 32(5/6), pp. 1107-1140, 2005). It has also been shown that the research paradigm favoured by US journals is financial economics, with the result that articles on accounting history or social and behavioural accounting are very scarce. European journals exhibit a more diverse content. Nevertheless, as shown by some studies, British authors are the main contributors to these journals. As a consequence, the assertion has been made that the published literature is not perfectly representative of the diversity of European accounting research. The aim of this study is to test the validity of this assertion by comparing the content of 18 major academic journals in accounting over five years (2000-2004) with the set of papers presented at the EAA congress in 2003, 2004 and 2005. The results give some support to the assertion that the diversity of European accounting research is imperfectly reflected in academic journals. They also are consistent with the idea that non-English-speaking scholars are at a competitive disadvantage in the race for publication in recognised periodicals.
"This study analyses the treatment effects of public training programmes for the unemployed in Germany. Based on propensity score matching methods, we extend the picture that has been sketched in ...previous studies by estimating the treatment effects of medium-term programmes for different skill and age groups. Our results indicate that programme participation has a positive impact on employment probabilities and earnings for almost all sub-groups. We find little evidence for the presence of heterogeneous treatment effects, and the magnitude of the differences is quite small. Our results thus - at least in part - conflict with the strategy to provide training increasingly to individuals with better employment prospects." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku). Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: empirisch-quantitativ; empirisch. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 2000 bis 2006.
How to reduce poverty in lagging regions remains much debated and underserved with solid empirical evidence. This study illustrates an empirical methodology to analyze the pathways households ...followed out of poverty and to explore their potential in the future using 2000–2004 rural household panel data from two lagging provinces of China, Inner Mongolia and Gansu. It finds that rising labor productivity in agriculture has been key in understanding poverty reduction in rural lagging areas of these provinces and that it still holds much promise. Circular migration has also been important in Gansu, though less so in Inner Mongolia. On average, rural diversification has not proven to contribute much to poverty reduction and income transfers and agricultural tax abolishment have only helped at the margin. The findings from these two case studies highlight that the scope for reducing poverty in rural lagging regions can still be substantial in agriculture, also when nonagriculture drives national growth.
China's fiscal arrangement in the 1980s has preserved local governments' incentive but the 1994 fiscal reform recentralized revenues. Since then, farmers' tax burdens have risen steeply and become a ...major challenge to the state legitimacy. How to account for the huge regional variation? Why were some localities able to tax more heavily than others? Based on a national survey of village governance in China, we examine farmers' burdens empirically and identify political and social factors that explain the local governments' ability to tax farmers. This paper suggests that developments since the 1990s have shown that it overstates local discretionary power and does not pay enough attention to societal forces in understanding local public finance.
► We examine China’s rural tax reform. ► The reform has reduced overall tax burdens. ► High fees are still charge in some regions. ► Rural self-governing organizations helped to reduce taxes.
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