Posibilidad y límite de las movilizaciones contra las retenciones móviles : Interpretaciones desde una realidad local sobre "el conflicto del campo"

El rótulo "conflicto del campo" alude a un conjunto de acontecimientos complejos protagonizados por diversos actores durante el primer semestre del año 2008. El trasfondo fue la resolución número 125 del Ministerio de Economía de la Nación, que establecía retenciones móviles a la exportación de soja, maíz, trigo y girasol. Parte fundamental de este fenómeno fueron las muchas personas que organizaron cortes de rutas y campamentos en ciudades y pueblos del interior del país. Estos grupos fueron quienes efectivamente llevaron adelante la protesta y dieron fuerza y capacidad de negociación a las corporaciones agropecuarias nucleadas en la "mesa de enlace". Por esta razón, se cree necesario analizar los factores que hicieron posible la emergencia de estos pequeños, pero numerosos focos de protesta. Para ello, se analizará la influencia del entorno inmediato de los productores rurales sobre la dinámica del reclamo a nivel local en un escenario específico, teniendo en cuenta la perspectiva de los distintos actores que, voluntariamente o no, se vieron involucrados en los hechos

El Resguardo de Buenos Aires en 1817. Noticias sobre el comercio de importación y exportación

A través del estudio del libro del Resguardo de Buenos Aires, es posible obtener una interesante información sobre el comercio de exportación e importación como el realizado por cabotaje mayor y menor; también aparecen los nombres de muchos comerciantes, nacionales y extranjeros, varios de ellos poco conocidos. Algunos, los más importantes, aparecen en numerosas operaciones en tanto que otros, comerciantes eventuales, lo hacen ocasionalmente y en ventas de escasa importancia. También es posible obtener información relativa al tipo y origen de las naves utilizadas tanto en el comercio ultramarino como en el comercio de cabotaje como asimismo las que realizaban el servicio de puerto; el tiempo en que los barcos permanecían en aquel como el volumen de los bienes traficados entre febrero y agosto de 1817.

Desarrollo y límites de la producción argentina de tractores (1955-1978) : Su situación en el marco de la competencia internacional

En este trabajo, nos concentramos en un punto particular: la historia de la fabricación argentina de tractores desde sus orígenes hasta fines de los '70. El objetivo es analizar sus potencialidades y sus límites. Para ello, consideramos fundamental el análisis de la industria auxiliar, costos, características del proceso de trabajo, las exportaciones y el papel de la competencia internacional. Este trabajo es parte de nuestra tesis de doctorado. Nos remitimos a diversas fuentes: entrevistas a antiguos trabajadores, series estadísticas, publicaciones oficiales y periódicas especializadas en el tema, informes de organismos internacionales, material de empresa y aportes de otros investigadores

Exploring intra-commonwealth goods and services trade

A background paper for the Commonwealth Secretariat by Anirudh Shingal and Mohammad Razzaque: Existing work examining the trade effect of commonwealth membership does not account for sample selection, unobserved heterogeneity and multilateral resistance in estimation, leading to biased estimates. Our analyses improve on all these fronts. Unlike earlier work, we also consider services trade and assemble a much larger sample of trading partners (242 x 242, over 1995-2010). Commonwealth membership is found to increase goods exports by 18.5-33.2% and services exports by 42.8% in our results, ceteris paribus and on average. Our analyses on the determinants of intra-commonwealth trade suggest the positive role of common language (only for goods trade) and colonial relationships as well as the negative impact of geography, thereby confirming that commonwealth member states are not natural trading partners for each other. Finally, being one of Australia, Canada or the UK is associated with 98.2% greater merchandise trade than the commonwealth average; however, a similar effect is not observed for services trade.

A Distributive Comparison of Enterprise Size in Korea and Taiwan

Research to date on the economic development of the Republic of Korea and Taiwan has frequently contrasted the two economies by depicting the former as centered on large-scale enterprises and the latter on small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this study is to see if the appropriateness of this perception will also be verified by the statistical data. In Section I the authors utilized census data on the Korean and Taiwanese manufacturing sectors to compare the distribution pattern of the sizes of enterprises in the two economies. However, on examining the available data for making this comparison, the authors discovered that for Korea the statistics provided are those at the level of the establishment (a physical unit engaging in industrial activities such as a factory, workshop, office, or mine) while the statistics for Taiwan are those at the enterprise level. Mindful of this difference, the authors looked at the portion of the economy accounted for by large-scale establishments in Korea that employed 500 workers or more and by enterprises in Taiwan employing the same number of workers, and they discovered that the portion that these large-scale businesses account for, especially in the area of output, has steadily declined since the 1980s. When comparing the share of total production that these large-scale establishments/enterprises account for in the two economies, the authors concluded that those in Korea accounted for a larger share of that economy's production than did their counterparts in Taiwan. The authors then compared the portion of the economy accounted for by establishments in Korea and enterprises in Taiwan that employed less than ten workers, and they found that the portion of the two economies that these very small-scale production units accounted for has also been on the decline. Section II compares the portions of the two economies accounted for by large business groups. After comparing the percentage of GDP accounted for by the total sales of these business groups, the authors found that large business groups in Korea have played a far more important role in Korean economy than has been the case for such groups in Taiwan. This difference in the importance of such business groups in the two economies has also played an significant part in fostering the perceived dichotomy of large-scale enterprises playing the important role in Korea versus SMEs being the important players in Taiwan. Section III compares the percentage of total exports accounted for by SMEs, and shows that SMEs in Taiwan account for a larger share of exports than do their counterparts in Korea. This section also shows that in Taiwan the share of export sales for SMEs has consistently exceeded that for non-SMEs, while in Korea the relationship between enterprise size and the rate of export sales has been directly proportional. This difference in the size of the major export players is another factor fostering the perception of the Korean economy being centered on big business while Taiwan's is on SMEs. Although there were difficulties and limitations when comparing the data of the two economies, the statistical comparison undertaken in this study shows that in general big business has played the major role in the development of the Korean economy while in Taiwan's economic development this role has been played by SMEs. Thus the statistical data also verifies the perceived dichotomy of these two economies.

The Garment Industry in Cambodia: Its Role in Poverty Reduction through Export-Oriented Development

Cambodia's export-oriented garment industry has contributed greatly to poverty reduction in the country through employment of the poor. This paper provides a statistical verification of this contribution based on firm-level data from 164 sampled companies collected in 2003. Its main conclusions confirm the substantial impact that employment in the garment industry has had on poverty reduction in Cambodia. Firstly, entry-level workers receive wages far above the poverty line. Secondly, females make up the predominant share of the main category jobs in the industry. Thirdly, barriers to employment and to promotions up to certain job categories are not high in terms of education and experience. Another important finding is that a typical sample firm exhibited high profitability, although there was wide variation in profitability among firms. This average of high profitability could be a good predictor of Cambodia's viability in the intensified competition since the phase out of the Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA) at the beginning of 2005. A point of note is that Cambodia's pattern of industrial development led by a labor-intensive industry is similar to that of neighboring countries in East Asia which earlier went through the initial stage of industrial development, except that Cambodia has lacked a strong government industrial promotion policy which characterized the earlier group.

Winner-Take-All Contention of Innovation under Globalization: A Simulation Analysis and East Asia's Empirics

This paper sets out to examine how innovation enhances export competitiveness: The proposition that export volume becomes enhanced as more productivity-enhancing innovation is captured by the exporting economy is the focus of this study. From a Schumpeterian perspective, innovation can be characterized by continuous creation and subsequent diffusion of newer technologies on the basis of the exporters' existing capital stock. Then we highlight the theoretical possibility that concentration of innovative activities in a small group of "winner" economies would lead to larger shares of "winner" economies' exports of innovation-active commodities than those commodities for which technology involved is already mature. The world's export data corroborates this theoretical prediction overall, and a focus upon East Asia has revealed the region's increasing resort to technology-intensive commodity sectors, which has presumably been enabled through attracting technology-bearing inward foreign direct investment. Considering the overall gains from innovation, acceleration of full "cycle" of innovation and imitation might be a desirable option.

Trade and Business Cycle Correlations in Asia-Pacific

Recent empirical studies challenge the traditional theory of optimum currency areas by arguing that a monetary union enhances trade and business cycle co-movements among its member countries sufficiently as to obviate the need for national monetary policy. This paper examines the empirical relationship between trade and business cycle correlations among thirteen Asia-Pacific countries, paying particular attention to the structural characteristics of their economies and other issues not explored fully in the literature. According to our result, although trade is relevant to the business cycles of individual countries, the main determinant of their international correlations is not the geographical structure of their trade but what they produce and export --more specifically the extent to which their output and exports are concentrated on electronic products.

International Competitiveness of Manufacturing Firms in sub-Saharan Africa

As the success of East Asian countries has shown, labor-intensive industry is recognized to lead economic growth in the early stages of development, utilizing relatively low labor costs. This same growth process has already started in South and South East Asian LDCs since the mid-1990s. However, the manufacturing sector in sub-Saharan Africa has been underdeveloped and manufacturing exports, in particular labour-intensive goods, have stagnated. This paper investigates the international competitiveness of the African manufacturing sector and its determinants through an analytical survey of empirical studies and a comparison with Asian low income countries. Empirical evidences indicate that primary factors of competitiveness, namely productivity, labour cost and exchange rate are unfavorable in sub-Saharan Africa. Representative arguments attribute the weak competitiveness to problems in the business environment, factor endowment, and the exchange rate. However, careful review shows that labour cost is beyond the range explained by endowment and misalignment of exchange rates have been reduced in Africa. Moreover, comparison with Asian low income countries which have competitiveness in labour-intensive goods shows no difference in the quality of business environment, while the labour cost is significantly lower than sub-Saharan African countries. Although results should be considered tentative, high labour cost beyond endowment and conservative investment behavior emerge as important factors for the weak competitiveness in sub-Saharan Africa when controlling income level.

Forestry Sector Reform and Distributional Change of Natural Resource Rent in Indonesia

After the collapse of the centralized Soeharto regime, deforestation caused by over-logging accelerated. To tackle this problem, an IMF/World Bank-led forestry sector reform program adopted a market-friendly approach involving the resumption of round wood exports and raising of the resource rent fee, with the aim to stop rent accumulation by plywood companies, which had enjoyed a supply of round wood at privileged prices. The Indonesian government, for its part, decentralized the forest concession management system to provide incentives for local governments and communities to carry out sustainable forest management. However, neither policy reform worked effectively. The round wood export ban was reimposed and the forest management system centralized again with cooperation from a newly funded industry-led institution. In the midst of the confusion surrounding the policy reversal, the gap between the price of round wood in international and domestic markets failed to contract, although rent allocations to plywood industries were reduced during 1998-2003. The rents were not collected properly by the government, but accumulated unexpectedly in the hands of players in the black market for round wood.

East Asia's Economic Development cum Trade "Divergence"

This paper addresses some salient features of how some of "successful" East Asian economies have been faring in terms of enhancing their export competitiveness. That export becomes more divergent in terms of its unit price as more technology-enhancing economic activity is undertaken within an economy, is the primary message that this study conveys. This is indeed what Schumpeter had addressed in conjunction with his "creative destruction" thesis. From this perspective, East Asia's export-led industrialization has been attained through a particular policy focus upon high "trade divergence" sectors underpinned by a generally high level of manufacturing flexibility. The experience of Malaysia's development serves as the strong case in point. As an East Asia-wide FTA is expected to facilitate "divergent" export-led industrialization through enhanced knowledge interaction, this dynamic or "divergent" impact that knowledge creation could exert should come to the fore of relevant policy arguments, together with static consideration of trade creation and diversion. A formal statistical test of the "divergence hypothesis" above is called for with a view to building upon this preliminary study.

エチオピアの皮革産業の現状と展望

エチオピアでは，1991年に社会主義政権から新政権（EPRDF）へと政権が代わり，経済自由化政策が進められている。その影響は，コーヒーに次ぐ輸出産品である皮産業も例外ではない。産業活動の自由化によって，民間企業の参入が急増し，皮の国内価格も国際価格に大きな影響をうけるようになった。これによって，現在皮産業は活況を呈し，さらなる発展が見込まれるが，同時にさまざまな問題もはらんでいる。