{"title":"Product mix adjustments and import competition in Vietnam's manufacturing industries","authors":"Tien Dzung Nguyen, The Kien Nguyen, Xuan Nam Vu","doi":"10.1111/twec.13511","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.13511","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this article, we make use of Vietnam's annual enterprise surveys to investigate the product selection and product mix responses to import competition in manufacturing firms. We estimate the effect of imports from Vietnam's free trade agreement partners on firms' product scope and sales concentration, controlling for firms and industry characteristics and the conditions in export markets. The empirical results consistently indicate that Vietnam's manufacturing firms narrow the product scope and concentrate on better selling products in response to rising import competition. Given the dominant presence of quality sorting in the manufacturing industries, our analysis suggests an aggregate quality improvement as firms reallocate sales towards high‐quality products in responses to competition.","PeriodicalId":75211,"journal":{"name":"The World economy","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135093042","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Foreign direct investment (FDI) and environmental quality: Is greenfield FDI greener than mergers and acquisitions FDI?","authors":"Dung Ly‐My, Thai‐Ha Le, Donghyun Park","doi":"10.1111/twec.13513","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.13513","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Environmental sustainability is a key objective of sustainable development. In this connection, there are growing concerns about the environmental impact of foreign direct investment (FDI), even though it is a potentially powerful engine of growth and development in developing countries. In this study, we empirically examine and compare the environmental impact of two different types of FDI, namely greenfield FDI, and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) FDI. Using data from 91 countries in 2005–2020, we find significant differences in the environmental effects of the two different types of FDI. In particular, our empirical results show that greenfield FDI is more harmful to the environment of host countries than M&A FDI. In addition, FDI from emerging markets and developing countries tends to be more harmful to the environment than FDI from developed countries.","PeriodicalId":75211,"journal":{"name":"The World economy","volume":"113 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135093039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The impact of foreign demand shocks on organisational hierarchies","authors":"Santiago Bonilla, Sašo Polanec","doi":"10.1111/twec.13512","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.13512","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract According to the theory of knowledge‐based hierarchies, a sufficiently large change in firm size should induce firms to change their organisational structure by adding or dropping organisational layers. In open economies, one of the main determinants of firm size is the volume of foreign sales, and its changes may also trigger reorganisations. However, changes in foreign sales are not only driven by foreign demand shocks alone, but also by firm characteristics like productivity and quality, which in theory confound both foreign sales and organisational structure. We construct a set of Bartik‐type measures of exogenous foreign demand shocks, and test whether firms respond to these shocks by changing their hierarchical structure. For this purpose, we combine transaction‐level trade data and employer–employee data for a set of Slovenian manufacturing firms that were engaged in exporting during the 1998–2011 period. While we find a positive relationship between changes in actual exports growth and number of organisational layers, we find no evidence that exogenous foreign demand shocks lead to adding or dropping organisational layers.","PeriodicalId":75211,"journal":{"name":"The World economy","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135197915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Oman's trade achievements with Singapore given the Gulf–Singapore Free Trade Agreement","authors":"Azmat Gani","doi":"10.1111/twec.13510","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.13510","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Oman's trade performance achievements with Singapore are assessed within the Gulf–Singapore Free Trade Agreement (GSFTA) framework. Since coming into force in January 2015, Oman's total export value to Singapore has plunged significantly. The number of imported products from Singapore remained significantly higher than the number of Oman's exports to Singapore, confirming that Omani exports have a weaker presence in the Singaporean market. In the post‐2015 period, Oman's export partner share in trade remained below its import partner share. Although Oman's comparative advantage strengthened in consumer goods, intermediate goods, chemicals and metals since 2015, animals, food, vegetables and wood consistently revealed their comparative disadvantage since 2000. Between 2015 and 2018, Oman's export share of capital and intermediate goods to Singapore fell from 45.23% to 33.57%, while it rose for consumer goods, chemicals, fuels, machinery and electrical products. Oman's trade reforms have resulted in weighted average tariffs on all products falling from around 5% in 2005 to below 0.60% in 2018. While GSFTA has delivered on expanding trade between Oman and Singapore (though with different magnitudes), it has fallen short of delivering the ‘level playing field’ as expected of Oman's bilateral trade.","PeriodicalId":75211,"journal":{"name":"The World economy","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135480706","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"African firms in global value chains: What can we learn from firm‐level data in Cameroon and Côte d'Ivoire?","authors":"Romaric Coulibaly, Heddie Moreno, Akiko Suwa‐Eisenmann, Nouhoum Traore","doi":"10.1111/twec.13506","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.13506","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The paper offers a detailed review of African firms' participation to international value chains and provides new quantitative insights on two countries, Cameroon and Ivory Coast, based on a unique dataset, which was obtained by merging firm census and detailed customs transactions over time. “GVC firms” are defined as firms that both export and import, with positive production and labour. The paper characterises GVC firms in the two countries. GVC firms represent about 15% of manufacturing firms; they are more frequent than pure exporters, a sign of the challenges faced by firms in those countries if they want to sell abroad. In line with the literature on firm heterogeneity and trade, firms engaged in GVCs are larger, more productive and live longer than one‐way‐traders or domestic firms. African markets are the main destination of manufacturing GVCs in Ivory Coast, while Cameroon GVC firms rely on OECD (including for agricultural exports). There is limited cross‐penetration between African‐oriented and OECD‐oriented GVC firms over time. The probability of moving into a GVC is higher for exporters than for importers, showing that exporting is a stepping stone for African firms to join a GVC.","PeriodicalId":75211,"journal":{"name":"The World economy","volume":"121 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135696240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Globalisation, economic growth and quality of infrastructure: New insights","authors":"Rasmane Ouedraogo, Hamidous Sawadogo, Issa Dianda","doi":"10.1111/twec.13509","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.13509","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The China's Belt and Road Initiative and the EU's Global Gateway projects are based on the idea that high‐quality infrastructures are key for countries to benefit from globalisation. This article investigates the economic growth effect of globalisation using a panel of 117 countries over the period 1980–2019 and explores whether the state of infrastructure in countries matters. Based on the assumption that there are winners and losers of globalisation, we hypothesize that the effect of globalisation on economic growth differs across groups of countries with similar but unobserved characteristics. Therefore, the article incorporates the potential presence of hidden heterogeneity and tries to explain group membership of countries based on the quality of infrastructure. The finite mixture model regression shows that the effect of globalisation on growth differs across two different groups of countries. While the effect is insignificant in the first group, globalisation spurs economic growth in the second group. In addition, we find that countries with a better quality of infrastructure are more likely to be in the class where globalisation fosters economic growth. The results are robust to a battery of robustness checks. The article provides evidence that countries should improve the quality of infrastructure to fully reap the benefit of globalisation.","PeriodicalId":75211,"journal":{"name":"The World economy","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135744873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Digital connectedness and exports upgrading: Is <scp>sub‐</scp>Saharan Africa catching up?","authors":"Camille da Piedade","doi":"10.1111/twec.13501","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.13501","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We highlight a new dimension of the submarine cable infrastructure network, termed ‘digital connectedness’, reflecting a country's digital proximity to main world markets and assess its impact on export upgrading. Using an instrumental variables approach conducted on a sample of 60 developing countries—including 23 sub‐Saharan African countries—over the period 1995–2017, we find that digital connectedness contributes positively and significantly to the export basket complexity but also points out spatial heterogeneity within our sample. In fact, estimations stress that compared to the Rest of the World, a 10 pp increase in the share of world GDP directly cabled to SSA countries leads to a supplementary increase ranging from 4.6 index points to 5.3 index points in the export complexity index. Moreover, while everywhere else the positive effect of digital connectedness declines with distance from global markets, in sub‐Saharan Africa the benefit increases. Finally, in line with the literature, improved digital connectedness also translates into higher exports of differentiated goods and greater participation in the global value chain.","PeriodicalId":75211,"journal":{"name":"The World economy","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135343119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The landscape of <scp>CO<sub>2</sub></scp> emissions across Africa: A comparative perspective","authors":"Jaime de Melo, Jean-Marc Solleder","doi":"10.1111/twec.13498","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.13498","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper provides evidence on carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions for 51 African and 132 other countries in 163 sectors over the period 1995–2015. The resulting landscape is summarised in four patterns. Patterns identified for Africa differ from those identified for other regions but are closely related to a synthetic aggregate comparator based on key country characteristics. (1) All regions have reduced emission intensities over the period 1995–2015. Africa's share of global CO 2 emissions has remained constant from 1995 to 2015. (2) The carbon intensity of production has increased in Africa in both decades. Over half of the 20 top African emitting countries shifted towards more carbon‐intensive techniques. (3) Over 1995–2015, intra‐regional shares of emissions fell by seven percentage points to 84% for Africa. Africa's share of emissions originating from Asia rose from 4% to 11%. Europe's share of emissions from Africa rose from 2% to 4%, respectively. (4) The export basket of Africa is skewed towards high CO 2 equivalent‐intensity products. CO 2 emission intensities correlate positively with output upstreamness (OU) and input downstreamness (ID). The OU/ID indicator of position in a supply chain is negatively correlated with CO 2 emission intensities within regions.","PeriodicalId":75211,"journal":{"name":"The World economy","volume":"70 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135476056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The economic impact of broadband access for small firms","authors":"Pantelis Koutroumpis, Danai Sarri","doi":"10.1111/twec.13485","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.13485","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper investigates the economic effects of improved broadband access at the firm level. Using a detailed micro data set from 2002 to 2017, we cover almost 20,000 small, medium and large Greek firms and test the relationship between their economic performance with the availability and use of broadband services at the postcode level. We trace the effect of increased access and speeds across industrial sectors and firm sizes. Our results highlight that increases in broadband speeds can improve the financial performance of adopting small firms (sales, profits and labour productivity) by 2% for every speed doubling beyond basic broadband access. Unlike other output metrics, small firms do not generate increasing shares of intangible capital through this adoption process. These effects, which remain strong across a range of robustness checks, suggest that the digital transition for small firms should focus on the causes of adoption (including training and skill development) and move beyond policies aimed at increased broadband availability alone.","PeriodicalId":75211,"journal":{"name":"The World economy","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134957878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Service offshoring and its impacts on wages: An occupation‐oriented analysis of Germany","authors":"Michael Frenkel, Ngoc Tuyet Ngo","doi":"10.1111/twec.13495","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.13495","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract International trade in services has increased significantly in recent decades, mainly due to innovations in information and communication technology. This development has also increased the importance of service offshoring, as companies spread their production processes across several countries. This paper examines the intensity of offshoring of specific tasks of occupations, which in turn leads to higher imports, and explores the impact of such substitution on wages in the home economy. We use micro‐level data from the Occupational Information Network and the Socio‐Economic Panel in Germany and draw on the OECD's Input–Output Database. In total, we used data from about 62,000 person‐years in 45 industries in Germany during 2014–2018. A particular focus of our study is on the interaction between service offshoring and the tradability as well as skill levels of workers. Our main findings suggest that service offshoring itself exerts downward pressure on workers' wages. This effect is amplified by the degree of tradability of the occupations.","PeriodicalId":75211,"journal":{"name":"The World economy","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135926498","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}