Low Skill but High Volatility?
Claudia M. Buch
CESifo Working Paper No. 2665,
2009
Abstract
Globalization may impose a double-burden on low-skilled workers. On the one hand, the relative supply of low-skilled labor increases. This suppresses wages of low-skilled workers and/or increases their unemployment rates. On the other hand, low-skilled workers typically face more limited access to financial markets than high-skilled workers. This limits their ability to smooth shocks to income intertemporally and to share risks across borders. Using cross-country, industry-level data for the years 1970 - 2004, we document how the volatility of hours worked and of wages of workers at different skill levels has changed over time. We develop a stylized theoretical model that is consistent with the empirical evidence, and we test the predictions of the model. Our results show that greater financial globalization and development increases the volatility of employment, and this effect is strongest for low-skilled workers. A higher share of low-skilled employment has a dampening impact.
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Globalisierung von Forschung und Entwicklung – der Technologiestandort Deutschland
Jutta Günther, Björn Jindra, Johannes Stephan
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 2,
2009
Abstract
Am 11. November 2008 fand am Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Halle (IWH) zum zweiten Mal ein innovationspolitischer Workshop statt, diesmal zum Thema „Globalisierung von Forschung und Entwicklung – der Technologiestandort Deutschland“. Die Veranstaltung bildete zugleich einen Bestandteil des vom IWH koordinierten EU-Projekts U-Know („Understanding the Relationship between Knowledge and Competitiveness in the Enlarging EU“), das sich mit einer Reihe innovationsökonomischer Forschungsthemen beschäftigt. Der Workshop hatte zum Ziel, das Thema Globalisierung von Forschung und Entwicklung aus wissenschaftlicher, unternehmerischer und innovationspolitischer Perspektive zu beleuchten und die Position Deutschlands im internationalen Technologiewettbewerb zu diskutieren.
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Deutsche Einheit und Globalisierung als Herausforderungen an die Soziale Marktwirtschaft
Ulrich Blum
60 Jahre Soziale Marktwirtschaft,
2009
Abstract
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Globalisation Forces an Acceleration of Standardization Processes
Ulrich Blum, Henry Dannenberg
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 8,
2008
Abstract
The increase in the intensity of competition in recent years, especially in markets for industrial products, has increased the pressure for businesses to innovate. This finds expression in an accelerated introduction of new products and processes, leading to a shortening of product life cycles. Equally, the pressure to innovate also increased the pressure on research and development processes of businesses.
For this reason, the patent system and the standardization system get under pressure, because these systems for codifying and saving intellectual property rights need time for necessary inspections and to reach a consensus on different proposed specifications. This article focuses on the standardization system. Under the condition of temporal pressure, there are three possibilities for standardization: abstaining from standardization, switch to non consensus-based industrial standardization or accelerate the standardization process. This article examines if standardization organisations have successfully accelerated their processes to survive in the sandwich position between shortened product cycles and accelerated market introduction of products. It turns out that the acceleration has succeeded – through a series of institutional reforms, such as a prioritization of international before the national standards by the beginning and middle of the last decade agreements.
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Has the International Fragmentation of German Exports Passed its Peak?
Udo Ludwig, Hans-Ulrich Brautzsch
Intereconomics,
No. 3,
2008
Abstract
In the second half of the nineties the import content of German exports increased considerably. The article examines whether this trend has continued up to the present. A second question concerns the purpose of the imports. Are they intermediate inputs for the production of export goods or imports destined for immediate re-exports? Finally, it must be asked whether these events are singular: Is only Germany among the industrially developed West European countries affected by this development, or are other nations also? These issues are studied by means of tables and the standard static open model of input-output-analysis.
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Oil Prices and International Trade: How Petrodollar Recycling Affects the Industrialised Countries
Götz Zeddies
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 4,
2008
Abstract
Since 2004, prices for crude oil nearly tripled at international commodity markets. In the wake of the oil crises of the 1970s and ‘80s, numerous empirical studies analysing the macroeconomic effects of sharp increases in commodity prices were carried out pointing at the risks of oil price rises for GDP growth in oil-importing countries. However, in most of these analyses, the impact of oil price increases on international trade of oil-importing countries, which gained in importance in the course of globalisation, is considered only marginally. This is especially the case for the additional revenues of oil-exporting countries spent in large parts for imports from and investment in the industrialised economies.
The present article examines the impact of oil price increases on merchandise exports and imports of single oil-importing industrialised countries. The results show that the curbing effects on merchandise exports are lower than on imports. Whereas import demand responds disproportionally high on the decline in consumption and investment in consequence of oil price increases, the effects on merchandise exports are ambivalent. On the one hand, exports to oil-importing trading partner countries decline due to the local economic downturns, but on the other, exports to oil-exporting countries sharply increase. As a consequence, the negative impact of rising oil prices on macroeconomic activity in oil-importing countries is lowered by the external sector due to growing net exports.
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The Relationship between Knowledge Intensity and Market Concentration in European Industries: An inverted U-Shape
Niels Krap, Johannes Stephan
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 3,
2008
Abstract
This paper is motivated by the European Union strategy to secure competitiveness for Europe in the globalising world by focussing on technological supremacy (the Lisbon - agenda). Parallel to that, the EU Commission is trying to take a more economic approach to competition policy in general and anti-trust policy in particular. Our analysis tries to establish the relationship between increasing knowledge intensity and the resulting market concentration: if the European Union economy is gradually shifting to a pattern of sectoral specialisation that features a bias on knowledge intensive sectors, then this may well have some influence on market concentration and competition policy would have to adjust not to counterfeit the Lisbon-agenda. Following a review of the available theoretical and empirical literature on the relationship between knowledge intensity and market structure, we use a larger Eurostat database to test the shape of this relationship. Assuming a causality that runs from knowledge to concentration, we show that the relationship between knowledge intensity and market structures is in fact different for knowledge intensive industries and we establish a non-linear, inverted U-curve shape.
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Globalisierung und Beschäftigung – eine Untersuchung mit der Input-Output-Methode.
Udo Ludwig, Hans-Ulrich Brautzsch
IMK Studies Nr. 1/2008,
No. 1,
2008
Abstract
In the course of globalization imports play a more and more important role as inputs for national production. In the wake of this development, domestic products are substituted by imported goods and jobs are moved abroad. However, this enables domestic companies to become more competitive and to improve their position in national and international markets. Applying input-output techniques this paper shows that, although imports have risen considerably, the increase in domestic production induced by exports had an overall positive impact on the German economy. This holds not only for the trade balance of production sectors that are oriented to export activities, but for the trade balance as a whole. Overall, high export surpluses were accompanied by increases in value added. Furthermore, especially in the second half of the last decade employment benefited much; while the rising import of intermediate and finished goods has caused many job cuts, on balance the increase in employment in the wake of the strong export expansion has outdone the losses.
Even though many industrialized economies in Europe have made similar experiences, the impacts on job markets differed considerably. For example, while the strength of the increase in employment in the Netherlands was similarly to that in Germany, labour market improvements in France were much weaker, not least due to noticeably lower export surpluses.
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Market Follows Standards
Ulrich Blum
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 10,
2007
Abstract
Standards are an important part of the codified knowledge of a society. In contrast to industry standards, formal standards are created in a consensus-based procedure open to all interested parties. Only if an economic interest for application exists will formal standards be produced. Interested parties have to shoulder participation costs themselves, which enforces economic interest. Up to a certain extent, governments also trigger and finance formal standardisation processes through the new approach, which creates a framework that is filled by private activity. Standards stand at the end of intellectual property rights if the totality of the value chain of knowledge production is looked at. One important aspect is their accessibility and the inclusion of all necessary intellectual property rights, especially patents, at reasonable prices. Conversely, consortia may exclude groups from the use of their standards. By preventing the licensing of those patents included in a standard, they can effectively block market entry. Thus, “successful” standards often face antitrust problems. Formal standards reduce costs of production through economies of scale, economies of scope and network-economies. Goods and processes that are standardized signal quality, the inclusion of high technological standards and permanent presence in the markets, which again accelerates market dissemination. Firms face a dilemma: On the one hand, the penetration of a markets with industry standards offers potentials for high profits; on the other hand, this has to be balanced against the risk of failure, especially if clients are hesitant because they do not know which standard will be successful in the end. Formal standards create and stabilize trust markets. This is especially true in the area of globalisation. Europe, which has to face an enormous competition in the international knowledge economy, needs an institutionally efficient approach to formal standardisation. This contribution addresses future problems of the European standardisation that have been developed within the framework of a working group of the European Standardisation Organisation called Future Landscape of European Standardisation (FLES).
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Innovations as driving force of the knowledge society – concepts and contemporary theoretical approaches
Jutta Günther, Björn Jindra
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 9,
2007
Abstract
In response to the question what secures Europe’s future competitiveness, it is often in the context of “knowledge society” referred to location advantages for research and development (R&D), innovation and knowledge. Respective point of view is not only represented by decision makers of high-duty industrial countries, but also by so called catching up economies in Central and Eastern Europe as well as Asia. The present article deals against the background of current innovation theoretic approaches with the question of what indeed constitutes the abstract notion of the knowledge society, which actors play a role and how R&D and innovation are geographically distributed. Systemic approaches are outlined, which place emphasis on the relation among different knowledge generating actors, in particular among science and economy. In effort to elucidate the geographical distribution of R&D and innovation the authors refer to the regional economic theory, which constitute the reasons why such processes are marked by spatial concentration. Thereby, the hypotheses are competing in associating the spatial concentration with either sectoral specialization or diversification. The article shows the domination of multinational companies of research and development (R&D) in the private sector and that these businesses connect regional centers of innovations beyond national borders. Based on the theory of technological accumulation and internationalization of companies, the globalization of R&D and innovation processes are explained. Thereby, it must be recognized that a hierarchy of regional innovation systems is emerging in which the disparities are increasing both at home and abroad.
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