Nemzetgazdasági versenyképesség: elmélet, mérés, esettanulmányok = Competitiveness of National Economies: Theory, Measurement, Case Studies

Műhelytanulmányunk a nemzeti versenyképesség vállaltokon túli dimenziójával kíván foglalkozni. A felgyorsult globalizáció korának világgazdasági környezetében, ahol a nemzetköziesedett nagyvállalatok rendelkeznek az erőforrások és a közvetlen beruházások jelentős része felett és az egyes regionális piacok folyamatai gyorsan áttevődnek más régiókra, a gazdaságpolitika és tágabb értelemben az állam mozgástere és feladata megváltozott. Ez az országokra nézve azt jelenti, hogy a stabil üzleti környezet megteremtésével és az emberi erőforrás illetve a technológiai infrastruktúra, mint háttérerőforrások fejlesztésével képesek hosszútávon megalapozni a gazdasági növekedést és felzárkózást, függetlenül attól, hogy az európai gazdasági integrációs környezetben valósítják-e meg mindezt. _____ The working paper examines the dimensions of competitiveness over the corporate level. The regional positions are changing quickly and the room for manoeuvre of the economic policy in national level is narrowed for attraction of business activities in the era of quickened globalisation. The countries compete for direct investments with the level of stability in business environment, the quality of human resource, the development of technological infrastructure. The development of background factors determines the economic growth.

Post-Crisis Lessons for Open Economies

In a systemic perspective, what are the primary transmitters of global competitiveness with the proper coordination mechanism? What are the systemic impacts of the U.S. economy on world markets? Will the United States stay the main engine of world economic growth for quite some time to come, or at least in the current decade? Will and should the United States, as the single largest open economy of the world, be in some way responsible for the provision of global economic stability as a valuable public good? Was the recent crisis predictable? These are the main questions addressed, all of which are answered in a new global context, and the responses are based on some known principles of international economics and economic history.

Post Crisis Lessons for Open Economies: Are They All New?

This paper will argue that the American economy could and will absorb the recent shocks, and that in the longer run (within a matter of years), it will somehow convert the revealed weaknesses to its advantage. America has a long record of learning from its excesses to improve the working of its particular brand of capitalism, dating back to the imposition of antitrust controls on the robber barons in the late 1800s and the enhancement of investor protection after the 1929 crash. The American economy has experienced market imperfections of all kinds but it almost always has found, true, not perfect, but fairly reliable regulatory answers and has managed to adapt to change, (e. g. Dodd-Frank Act on financial stability). The U.S. has many times pioneered in the elaboration of both theoretical and policy oriented solutions for conflicts between markets and government to increase economic welfare (Bernanke, 2008, p. 425). There is no single reason why it should not turn the latest financial calamities to its advantage. At the same time, to regain confidence in capitalism as a global system, global efforts are indispensable. To identify some of the global economic conflicts that have a lot to do with U.S. markets in particular, we seek answers to global systemic questions.

The integraton by trade and FDI of emerging economies: The ASEAN example

The paper investigates the role of regionalization and regional identity in the endeavours of emerging economies to connect successfully to the global world economy. It addresses the question of whether the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), with its loose institutional integration framework, has contributed to the global integration of its very heterogenous members in the first decade of the 21st century – and, if so, what are the drivers behind this. The paper summarizes connecting theories, using a multidisciplinary approach, and uses descriptive statistical analysis to identify the achievements of the ASEAN-6 countries within global trade and foreign direct invesment (FDI) flows in the given time period. We suggest that ASEAN countries, with their efforts to initiate interconnecting regional organizations in Asia, most specifically the ASEAN+3 (APT) construction, did contribute to greater integratedness of member countries; and they have created a regional image with a common market and production base. Such achievements, however, can be in great part attributed to the micro-level activities of international and regional firms wishing to establish cross-border production networks in these countries.

The integration by trade and FDI of emerging economies: The Asian example

The paper investigates the role of regionalization and regional identity in the endeavours of emerging economies to connect successfully to the global world economy. It addresses the question of whether the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), with its loose institutional integration framework, has contributed to the global integration of its very heterogenous members in the first decade of the 21st century – and, if so, what are the drivers behind this. The paper summarizes connecting theories, using a multidisciplinary approach, and uses descriptive statistical analysis to identify the achievements of the ASEAN-6 countries within global trade and foreign direct invesment (FDI) flows in the given time period. We suggest that ASEAN countries, with their efforts to initiate interconnecting regional organizations in Asia, most specifically the ASEAN+3 (APT) construction, did contribute to greater integratedness of member countries; and they have created a regional image with a common market and production base. Such achievements, however, can be in great part attributed to the micro-level activities of international and regional firms wishing to establish cross-border production networks in these countries.

Human Security and Crime in Latin America: The political Capital and Political Impact of Criminal Groups and Belligerents Involved in Illicit Economies

Organized crime and illegal economies generate multiple threats to states and societies. But although the negative effects of high levels of pervasive street and organized crime on human security are clear, the relationships between human security, crime, illicit economies, and law enforcement are highly complex. By sponsoring illicit economies in areas of state weakness where legal economic opportunities and public goods are seriously lacking, both belligerent and criminal groups frequently enhance some elements of human security of the marginalized populations who depend on illicit economies for basic livelihoods. Even criminal groups without a political ideology often have an important political impact on the lives of communities and on their allegiance to the State. Criminal groups also have political agendas. Both belligerent and criminal groups can develop political capital through their sponsorship of illicit economies. The extent of their political capital is dependent on several factors. Efforts to defeat belligerent groups by decreasing their financial flows through suppression of an illicit economy are rarely effective. Such measures, in turn, increase the political capital of anti-State groups. The effectiveness of anti-money laundering measures (AML) also remains low and is often highly contingent on specific vulnerabilities of the target. The design of AML measures has other effects, such as on the size of a country’s informal economy. Multifaceted anti-crime strategies that combine law enforcement approaches with targeted socio-economic policies and efforts to improve public goods provision, including access to justice, are likely to be more effective in suppressing crime than tough nailed-fist approaches. For anti-crime policies to be effective, they often require a substantial, but politically-difficult concentration of resources in target areas. In the absence of effective law enforcement capacity, legalization and decriminalization policies of illicit economies are unlikely on their own to substantially reduce levels of criminality or to eliminate organized crime. Effective police reform, for several decades largely elusive in Latin America, is one of the most urgently needed policy reforms in the region. Such efforts need to be coupled with fundamental judicial and correctional systems reforms. Yet, regional approaches cannot obliterate the so-called balloon effect. If demand persists, even under intense law enforcement pressures, illicit economies will relocate to areas of weakest law enforcement, but they will not be eliminated.

The Argentine Dilemma: “Vulture Funds” and the Risks Posed to Developing Economies

Post-crisis Argentina is a case study of crisis management through debt restructuring. This article examines how Argentina negotiated the external debt in the wake of the sovereign default in December 2001 and now confronts challenges posed by holdout creditors—the so called “vulture funds”. It argues that debt restructuring has put a straitjacket on the national economy, making it virtually impossible for healthy growth short of a break with the international economic order. While Argentina has successfully restructured a $95 billion debt with an unprecedented “hair cut” (around 70% reduction in “net value of debt”), a sustainable growth appears out of reach as long as reliance on the government debt market prevails. In this cycle, the transmission belt of financial crisis to developing countries is characterized by the entry of highly speculative players such as hedge funds, conflicts of interests embedded in “sovereign debt restructuring” (SDR) and vulnerabilities associated with “emerging market debt”.

"New" Social Movements: Alternative Modernities, (Trans)local Nationalisms, and Solidarity Economies

My dissertation is the first project on the Haitian Platform for Advocacy for an Alternative Development- PAPDA, a nation-building coalition founded by activists from varying sectors to coordinate one comprehensive nationalist movement against what they are calling an Occupation. My work not only provides information on this under-theorized popular movement but also situates it within the broader literature on the postcolonial nation-state as well as Latin American and Caribbean social movements. The dissertation analyzes the contentious relationship between local and global discourses and practices of citizenship. Furthermore, the research draws on transnational feminist theory to underline the scattered hegemonies that intersect to produce varied spaces and practices of sovereignty within the Haitian postcolonial nation-state. The dissertation highlights how race and class, gender and sexuality, education and language, and religion have been imagined and co-constituted by Haitian social movements in constructing ‘new’ collective identities that collapse the private and the public, the rural and the urban, the traditional and the modern. My project complements the scholarship on social movements and the postcolonial nation-state and pushes it forward by emphasizing its spatial dimensions. Moreover, the dissertation de-centers the state to underline the movement of capital, goods, resources, and populations that shape the postcolonial experience. I re-define the postcolonial nation-state as a network of local, regional, international, and transnational arrangements between different political agents, including social movement actors. To conduct this interdisciplinary research project, I employed ethnographic methods, discourse and textual analysis, as well as basic mapping and statistical descriptions in order to present a historically-rooted interpretation of individual and organizational negotiations for community-based autonomy and regional development.

The effects of agglomeration economies on the productivity of manufacturing local units in Ireland

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of agglomeration economies on the productivity of manufacturing local units in Ireland. Four types of agglomeration economies are considered in this study. These are internal economies of scale, localization economies, related variety and urbanization economies. This study makes a number of contributions to the literature. Firstly, this is the first study to conduct an investigation of the effects of agglomeration economies on the productivity of manufacturing local units operating in Ireland. Secondly, this study distinguishes between indigenous and foreign-owned local units which is important given the dual nature of the Irish economy (Krugman, 1997). Thirdly, in addition to considering the effects of agglomeration economies, this study examines the impact of spurious agglomeration on the productivity of foreign-owned local units. Using data from the Census of Industrial Local Units and a series of IV GMM estimators to control for endogeneity, the results of the analysis conducted in Chapter 6 reveal that there are differences in the effects of agglomeration economies on the productivity of indigenous and foreign-owned local units. In Chapter 7 the Census of Industrial Local Units is supplemented by additional data sources and more in-depth measures are generated to capture the features of each of the external agglomeration economies considered in this analysis. There is some evidence to suggest that the availability of local inputs has a negative and significant impact on productivity. The NACE based measures of related variety reveal that the availability of local inputs and knowledge spillovers for related sectors have a negative and significant impact on productivity. There is clear evidence to suggest that urbanization economies are important for increasing the productivity of indigenous local units. The findings reveal that a 1% increase in population density in the NUTS 3 region leads to an increase in the productivity of indigenous local units of approximately 0.07% to 0.08%. The results also reveal that there is a significant difference in the effects of agglomeration economies on the productivity of low-tech and medium/high-tech indigenous local units. The more in-depth measures of agglomeration economies used in Chapter 7 are also used in Chapter 8. A series of IV GMM regressions are estimated in order to identify the impact of agglomeration economies and spurious agglomeration on the productivity of foreign-owned local units operating in Ireland. There is some evidence found to suggest that the availability of a pool of skilled labour has a positive and significant on productivity of foreign-owned local units. There is also evidence to suggest that localization knowledge spillovers have a negative impact on the productivity of foreign-owned local units. There is strong evidence to suggest that the availability of local inputs has a negative impact on the productivity. The negative impact is not confined to the NACE 4-digit sector but also extends into related sectors as determined by Porter’s (2003) cluster classification. The cluster based skills measure of related variety has a positive and significant impact on the productivity of foreign-owned local units. Similar to Chapter 7, there is clear evidence to suggest that urbanization economies are important for increasing the productivity of foreign-owned local units. Both the summary measure and each of the more in-depth measures of agglomeration economies have a positive and significant impact on productivity. Spurious agglomeration has a positive and significant impact on the productivity of foreign-owned local units. The results indicate that the more foreign-owned local units of the same nationality in the country the greater the levels of productivity for the local unit. From a policy perspective, urbanization economies are clearly important for increasing the productivity of both indigenous and foreign-owned local units. Furthermore, the availability of a pool of skilled labour appears to be important for increasing the productivity of foreign-owned local units. Another policy implication that arises from these results relates to the differences observed between indigenous local units and foreign-owned local units and also between low-tech and medium/high-tech indigenous local units. These findings indicate that ‘one-size-fits-all’ type policies are not appropriate for increasing the productivity of local units operating in Ireland. Policies should be tailored to the needs of either indigenous or foreign-owned local units and also to specific sectors. This positive finding for own country spurious agglomeration is important from a policy perspective and is one that IDA Ireland should take on board.

Pass-through of International food prices to domestic ination during and after the great recession: evidence from a set of Latin American economies

We examined how international food price shocks have impacted local ination processes in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru in the past decade -- Using impulse-response analysis coming from cointegrated VARs, we wind that international food ination shocks take from one to six quarters to pass through to domestic head-line ination, depending on the country -- In addition, by calculating the elasticity of local prices to an international food price shock, we found that this pass-through is not complete -- We also take a closer look at how this type of shock affects local food and core prices separately, and asses the possibility second round effects over core ination stemming from the shock -- We wind that a transmission to headline prices does occur, and that part of the transmission is associated with rising core prices both directly and through possible second round effects, which implies a role for monetary policy when such a shock takes place -- This is especially relevant given that international food prices have recently been on an upward trend after falling considerably during the Great Recession

Explaining economic growth in developed economies after 1980

We use the Aguion and Howitt (2009) theoretical model of endogenous economic growth to explain the declining economic growth in developed economies in the period 1981-2009. Aguion and Howitt theoretical framework combines Solownian and Schumpeterian elements in a single scenario, so that labor-augmenting technological progress and capital accumulation per efficiency unit of labor are both caused not only by exogenous changes in the investment rate but also by shocks to the degree of efficiency in the Research and Development (R&D) expenditure process. Empirical results revealed that per worker output growth rates and capital stock per efficiency unit of labor growth rates both have a common panel unit root. Since the panel cointegration tests and estimates revealed a statistical significant negative long-run relationship between per worker output growth rate and capital stock per efficiency unit of labor, the interpretation of the econometric results analized from the Aguion and Howitt ́s theoretical perspective is that labor-augmenting technological progress is endogenously falling over time mainly because of an exogenous deterioration of the environment conditions for the transformation of the investment rate and R&D expenditures in technological progress.

Corporate governance in european transition economies: Emerging models

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on corporate governance models in European transition economies. The paper consists of four parts. After a historic overview of the evolution of corporate governance, the introduction presents various understandings of the corporate governance function and describes current issues in corporate governance. Part two deals with governance systems in the (mainly domestically) privatized former state-owned companies in Central European transition countries, with the main types of company ownership structures, relationships between governing and management functions, and deficiencies in existing governance systems. Part three is dedicated to the analysis of factors that determine the efficiency of the relationship between the corporate governance and management functions in Central European transition economies. It deals with the issue of why the German (continental European) governance model is usually the preferred choice and why the chosen models underperform. In the conclusion the author offers his suggestions on how the Central European transition countries should improve their corporate governance in the future.