Labour costs and competitiveness in the Latin American manufacturing sector, 1990-1998

Includes bibliography

La productividad industrial, el costo de la mano de obra y el costo de producción en el Istmo Centroamericano = Industrial productivity, labour costs and costs of production in the Central American Isthmus: abridged text

Incluye Bibliografía

Real unit labour costs in Eurozone countries: drivers and clusters

We examine the trajectories of the real unit labour costs (RULCs) in a selection of Eurozone economies. Strong asymmetries in the convergence process of the RULCs and its components —real wages, capital intensity, and technology— are uncovered through decomposition and cluster analyses. In the last three decades, the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) succeeded in reducing their RULCs by more than their northern partners. With the exception of Ireland, however, technological progress was weak; it was through capital intensification that periphery economies gained efficiency and competitiveness. Cluster heterogeneity, and lack of robustness in cluster composition, is a reflection of the difficulties in achieving real convergence and, by extension, nominal convergence. We conclude by outlining technology as the key convergence factor, and call for a renewed attention to real convergence indicators to strengthen the process of European integration.

Is a little sunshine all we need? On the impact of sunshine regulation on profits, productivity and prices in the Dutch drinking water sector

This paper analyzes the performance of Dutch drinking water utilities before and after the introduction of sunshine regulation, which involves publication of the performance of utilities but no formal price regulation. By decomposing profit change into its economic drivers, our results suggest that, in the Dutch political and institutional context, sunshine regulation was effective in improving the productivity of publicly organised services. Nevertheless, while sunshine regulation did bring about a moderate reduction in water prices, sustained and substantial economic profits suggest that it may not have the potential to fully align output prices with economic costs in the long run. In methodological terms, the DEA based profit decomposition is extended to robust and conditional non-parametric efficiency measures, so as to account better for both uncertainty and differences in operating environment between utilities.

Who Ultimately Bears the Burden of Greater Non-Wage Labour costs?

We investigate the effect of a rise in non-wage labour costs (NWLC) on real anufacturing labour costs in OECD countries, taking into account the degree of coordination in the wage bargaining process. We find that, in countries in which wage bargaining is not highly coordinated, 55% of an increase in NWLC appears to be shifted to workers in the long run, whereas in countries operating under a highly coordinated bargaining regime, full shifting occurs. Overall, our results suggest that high NWLC can be associated with a high equilibrium unemployment rate, but only in those OECD countries that do not have highly coordinated wage bargaining.

Inflation and relative prices: the Brazilian experience, 1970/79.

Based on behaviour of output growth and industrial sector prices, it tries to define the several stages comprising the cyclic trends of the Brazilian economy. Analyzes the behaviour of inflation rates and of relative prices, and shows that there is a positive association between the measures of inflation rates and of their variables as well as between both these measures and dispersion of relative price changes. Demonstrates the assymetric behaviour of relative price changes and differentiated behaviour in relative prices of farm produce and industrial products. -from Authors

Inflation and the variability of relative prices in the Caribbean: evidence from panel threshold models

Includes bibliography

Relative prices in Latin America in periods of low inflation and structural change

Includes bibliography