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Business and Economics > Production and Operations Management

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 58 items for :

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  • Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations x
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Cover IMF Working Papers
Europe’s Productivity Weakness: Firm-Level Roots and Remedies
Oyun Erdene Adilbish
,
Diego A. Cerdeiro
,
Romain A Duval
,
Gee Hee Hong
,
Luca Mazzone
,
Lorenzo Rotunno
,
Hasan H Toprak
, and
Maryam Vaziri
Europe faces a well-known productivity malaise, with a large and widening aggregate productivity gap relative to the U.S. In this paper, we provide a novel diagnosis of the firm-level roots of Europe’s productivity growth slowdown through an analysis of data covering the universe of firms in Europe and the U.S over their life cycles. Compared to their U.S. counterparts, we identify critical performance gaps among both Europe’s frontier firms and young high-growth firms. Our firm-level analyses reveal that smaller markets and limited market-based financing are key bottlenecks for frontier European firms, while skill shortages and insufficient risk capital, such as venture capital, hinder the formation and subsequent growth of young firms in Europe. These findings suggest that removing remaining intra-Europe barriers to accelerate factor and product markets integration, alongside national reforms to facilitate swifter resource reallocation and enhance human capital, could help revive Europe’s productivity growth.
Keywords:
Firm-level productivity; business dynamism.; EU accession; productivity weakness; productivity problem; frontier firm; trade Barries; firm Size; Productivity; Trade balance; Trade barriers; Total factor productivity; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Industrial Policy in Europe: A Single Market Perspective
Andrew Hodge
,
Roberto Piazza
,
Fuad Hasanov
,
Xun Li
,
Maryam Vaziri
,
Atticus Weller
, and
Yu Ching Wong
European countries are increasingly turning to industrial policy to address the challenge of geopolitical fragmentation, enhance productivity, and accelerate the green transition. Well-targeted industrial policy has the potential to correct market failures and support production efficiency by exploiting scale effects and internalizing knowledge externalities. But even the most carefully designed unilateral industrial policies risk generating negative production externalities in other countries, and, under certain conditions, may not even be welfare-enhancing for the implementing country. The reason is that negative externalities of unilateral industrial policy can drive European and international production patterns away from underlying comparative advantages, create regional or global over-supply, and result in changes in terms of trade that reduce domestic welfare. This suggests significant benefits from coordination. Structural modeling and case studies show that a coordinated approach within the European Union and with international trading partners on a narrowly defined and carefully designed set of industrial policies could unlock untapped benefits. Closer European integration would facilitate the adjustment of firms and workers to coordinated and well-targeted industrial policies and amplify their benefits.
Keywords:
Industrial policy; European Single Market; State Aid; EU aerospace industry export; EU single market; fishery block exemption regulation; State aid expenditure; single market perspective; Comparative advantage; Demand elasticity; Competition; Terms of trade; Europe; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Europe’s Shift to EVs Amid Intensifying Global Competition
Philippe Wingender
,
Jiaxiong Yao
,
Robert Zymek
,
Benjamin Carton
,
Diego A. Cerdeiro
, and
Anke Weber
European countries have set ambitious goals to reduce their carbon emissions. These goals include a transition to electric vehicles (EVs)—a sector that China increasingly dominates globally—which could reduce the demand for Europe’s large and interconnected auto sector. This paper aims to size up the tradeoffs between Europe’s shift towards EVs and key macroeconomic outcomes, and analyze which policies may sharpen or ease them. Using state-of-the-art macroeconomic and trade models we analyze a scenario in which the share of Chinese cars in EU purchases rises by 15 percent over 5 years as a result of both a positive productivity shock for car production in China and a demand shock that shifts consumer preferences towards Chinese cars (given China’s dominance in the EV sector). We find that for the EU as a whole, the GDP cost of this shift is small in the short term, in the range of 0.2-0.3 percent of GDP, and close to zero over the long term. Adverse short-run effects are more significant for smaller economies heavily reliant on the car sector, mainly in Central Europe. Protectionist policies, such as tariffs on Chinese EVs, would raise the GDP cost of the EV transition. A further increase in Chinese FDI inflows that results in a significant share of Chinese EVs being produced in Central European economies, on the other hand, would offset losses in these economies by supporting their shift from supplying the internal combustion engine (ICE) production chain to that of EVs.
Keywords:
Electric vehicles; green transition; trade; tariffs; global value chains.; protectionist policy response; GDP cost; EV share; Europe's shift; shift to electric vehicles; Foreign direct investment; Productivity; Imports; Europe; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Productivity and Product Markets in Korea: Evidence from Advanced Economies
Mr. Andrew J Swiston
and
Stella Tam
This paper constructs an industry-level dataset of productivity across advanced economies, showing that Korea’s labor productivity and total factor productivity levels are below the median of other advanced economies. We identify sizable industry-level productivity gaps in Korea with respect to the global frontier, especially in market-oriented services. Using the OECD’s Product Market Regulation (PMR) Indicators, we show that tighter PMRs slow industry-level productivity growth, and these effects occur across all areas of PMRs—state control, barriers to entrepreneurship, and barriers to trade and investment—and through several detailed indicators. These effects are transmitted through higher product prices and unit labor costs of industries exposed to regulation. The results confirm the potential for Korea to boost overall productivity and growth through PMR reforms, especially by lowering barriers in service and network sectors, reducing restrictions applying to trade and investment, and evaluating the scope of government involvement in the economy.
Keywords:
Korea; productivity; product markets; regulation; growth; labor productivity distribution; OECD product market regulation; regulation-productivity linkage; OECD PMR indicators structure; IMF Product Market Regulation; PMR indicator; productivity comparison; productivity measurement; Total factor productivity; Commodity markets; Labor productivity; Trade barriers; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
The Effect of Tariffs in Global Value Chains
Johannes Eugster
,
Ms. Florence Jaumotte
,
Ms. Margaux MacDonald
, and
Mr. Roberto Piazza
This paper empirically investigates the impact of tariffs when production is organized in global value chains. Using global input-output matrices, we construct four different tariff measures that capture the direct and indirect exposure to tariffs at different stages of the production chain for a broad set of countries and industries. Our results suggest that tariffs have significant effects on economic outcomes, including on countries and sectors not directly targeted. We find that tariffs higher up and further down in the value chain depress value added, employment, labor productivity and total factor productivity to varying degrees. We find no benefits for the sector that enjoys additional protection, yet there is some evidence of economic activity being diverted, i.e. positive effects on value added and employment from tariffs imposed on competitors. Our paper relates to recent innovations in theoretical gravity models and provides an empirical assessment of possible long-term effects of recent trade tensions.
Keywords:
Tariffs; global value chains; value added; productivity; IMF working paper research Department; tariff measure; employment from tariff; tariff war; upstream tariff; effect of tariff; Tariffs; Total factor productivity; Labor productivity; Exports; Imports; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Sizing Up the Effects of Technological Decoupling
Rui Mano
,
Johannes Eugster
,
Mr. Dirk V Muir
, and
Mr. Shanaka J Peiris
This paper proposes channels through which technological decoupling can affect global growth, and embeds these different layers in a global dynamic macroeconomic model. Multiple scenarios are considered that differ along two dimensions: (i) the coalition of countries (hubs) that initiate the decoupling, and (ii) whether non-hub countries are also forced to decouple via ‘preferential attachment’ – i.e. by aligning themselves with the hub they trade most with. All global technology hubs lose across scenarios, and losses are largest under preferential attachment. Smaller countries with relations that straddle multiple hubs generally lose, whereas those whose trade is heavily concentrated with one hub may gain due to reduced competition under some scenarios. Technological fragmentation can lead to losses in the order of 5 percent of GDP for many economies.
Keywords:
Technological decoupling; trade; non-tariff barriers.; non-tariff barriers; China-United States; R&D number; innovation drive; United States stop; world trade f low; sectoral trade elasticity; high-tech goods trade; Labor productivity; Productivity; Spillovers; Exports; Trade balance; Global; Asia and Pacific
Cover IMF Working Papers
The Macroeconomic Effects of Structural Reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean
Mr. Antonio David
,
Mr. Takuji Komatsuzaki
, and
Samuel Pienknagura
This paper estimates the macroeconomic effects of structural reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) using the dataset constructed by Alesina et al. (2020). We find that large changes in the reform index have positive effects on GDP and employment that reach 2 percent after 5 years. Furthermore, reforms boost investment, exports, imports, and reduce export concentration, in addition to favoring tradable sectors. Nonetheless, the results also indicate that the effects of reforms have not been uniform across different segments of the population. These findings bring to the forefront the need to consider accompanying policies to ensure that reforms promote inclusive growth. Moreover, evidence from country case studies using the synthetic control method point to heterogeneous effects of reforms on income per capita.
Keywords:
WP; reform; product market; liberalization; structural reform; reform index; finance reform; total factor productivity; reform reversal; trade reform index; reforms index lead; reform episode; reform effort; reform convergence; reform impetus; reform agenda; Structural reforms; Employment protection; Commodity markets; Total factor productivity; Trade liberalization; Caribbean; South America; Central America; Global; Latin America; Macroeconomic Effects; product market reform; employment protection reforms index lead; financial market reform
Cover IMF Working Papers
Trade, Productivity and (Mis)allocation
Antoine Berthou
,
John Jong-Hyun Chung
,
Kalina Manova
, and
Charlotte Sandoz
We examine the gains from globalization in the presence of firm heterogeneity and potential resource misallocation. We show theoretically that without distortions, bilateral and export liberalizations increase aggregate welfare and productivity, while import liberalization has ambiguous effects. Resource misallocation can either amplify, dampen or reverse the gains from trade. Using model-consistent measures and unique new data on 14 European countries and 20 industries in 1998-2011, we empirically establish that exogenous shocks to export demand and import competition both generate large aggregate productivity gains. Guided by theory, we provide evidence consistent with these effects operating through reallocations across firms in the presence of distortions: (i) Both export and import expansion increase average firm productivity, but the former also shifts activity towards more productive firms, while the latter acts in reverse; (ii) Both export and import exposure raise the productivity threshold for survival, but this cut-off is not a sufficient statistic for aggregate productivity; (iii) Efficient institutions, factor and product markets amplify the gains from import competition but dampen those from export access.
Keywords:
WP; math display; total factor productivity; International trade; export demand; import competition; productivity; allocative efficiency; misallocation; aggregate productivity; resource misallocation; employment share; real value; productivity gain; firm productivity; Exports; Imports; Trade liberalization; Competition; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Australia: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
This Selected Issues paper investigates the drivers of business investment in Australia, focusing on the non-mining sectors. The paper also identifies aggregate-level drivers for non-mining business investment by looking at long-term trends. It delves into firm-level investment behavior and assesses the role of credit availability and uncertainty in different types of firms. Long-term empirical and simulation-based analyses suggest that global factors such as rising policy uncertainty and weaker commodity prices have been key drivers of the slowdown, while in the short term, a renewed escalation in US–China trade tensions could spill over to investment and growth in Australia. Yet, domestic factors are also at play, including domestic policy uncertainty and financial constraints, especially for smaller and younger firms. The pace of product market reforms can also impact business investment. Australia can promote business investment by reducing domestic policy uncertainty, easing credit constraints for small- and medium-sized enterprises, incentivizing research and development, and continuing with product market and tax reforms.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; investment; product market; Australia; investment slowdown; product market reform; intangible investment; uncertainty indices; venture capital; Non-mining business investment; R&D investment; panel regression; Private investment; Commodity markets; Trade policy; Productivity; Terms of trade; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Productivity Growth and Value Chains in Four European Countries
Ms. Izabela Karpowicz
and
Mrs. Nujin Suphaphiphat
Advanced economies have been witnessing a pronounced slowdown of productivity growth since the global financial crisis that is accompanied in recent years by a withdrawal from trade integration processes. We study the determinants of productivity slowdown over the past two decades in four closely integrated European countries, Austria, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, based on firm-level data. Participation in global value chains appears to have affected productivity positively, including through its effect on TFP when facilitated by higher investment in intangible assets, a proxy for firm innovation. Other contributors to productivity growth in firms are workforce aging, access to finance, and skills mismatches.
Keywords:
WP; firm; global value chain; increase productivity; firm Innovation proxy; productivity dynamics; data availability; firm level; Labor productivity; Productivity; Total factor productivity; Capital productivity; Global value chains; Global; Europe; firms; GVC