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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
| By: | Allan Collard-Wexler; Jan De Loecker |
| Abstract: | We measure the impact of a drastic new technology for producing steel -- the minimill -- on the aggregate productivity of U.S. steel producers, using unique plant-level data between 1963 and 2002. We find that the sharp increase in the industry's productivity is linked to this new technology, and operates through two distinct mechanisms. First, minimills displaced the older technology, called vertically integrated production, and this reallocation of output was responsible for a third of the increase in the industry's productivity. Second, increased competition, due to the expansion of minimills, drove a substantial reallocation process within the group of vertically integrated producers, driving a resurgence in their productivity, and consequently of the industry's productivity as a whole. |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:13-06&r=hme |
| By: | Bertacchini Enrico; Friel Martha (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | In the last decades, industrial design has been increasingly recognized as a sector combining elements of both artistic creativity and economic innovation. Using a unique dataset encompassing information on 326 top designers, 242 firms and 935 products from 1913 to 2000, we investigate the main patterns of the industrial des ign industry. First, we analyze the worldwide evolution of the creative sector in terms of industry structure, changes in product materials and agglomeration dynamics of both firms and designers. Second, we provide a preliminary quantitative investigation of designers’ creativity life-cycles. The paper contributes to the cultural economics literature by shedding light on the relations between creativity and innovation in creative industries |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:201311&r=hme |
| By: | Massimiliano Mazzanti; Francesco Nicolli; Marianna Gilli |
| Abstract: | We take a sector based perspective to investigate the EU economic, environmental and innovation performances. We correlate the various sector performances taking into account the role of changing specialization. In addition, we examine sector environmental performances related factors through shift-share decomposition analysis. We show that vivid divergences in environmental, economic and innovation performances exist between EU countries. The leading role of Germany emerges, with strong underpinnings in its economic specialization rooted on manufacturing. France excels in some services, while Italy suffers. Germany and Sweden more than others present win win economic-environmental sector performances. On the basis of our investigation economic and environmental performances are effectively potentially interrelated. Examples of integrated innovation-economic-environmental performances appear. Nevertheless, the sector view highlights that the underpinnings of macro performance rely on various structural change and innovation elements. Further research could investigate how composition effects and innovation changes correlate towards the achievement of sustainable economic development. |
| Keywords: | Environmental innovation; economic performance; decomposition; meso economics |
| JEL: | Q53 Q55 |
| Date: | 2013–01–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udf:wpaper:2013042&r=hme |
| By: | John Foster |
| Abstract: | It is argued that the explosive growth experienced in much of the World since the middle of the 19th Century is due to the exploitation and use of fossil fuels which, in turn, was made possible by capital good innovations that enabled this source of energy to be used effectively. Economic growth, it is argued, has been due to an autocatalytic co-evolution of energy use and the application of new knowledge relating to energy use. A simple 'evolutionary macroeconomic' model of economic growth is developed and tested using almost two centuries of British data. The empirical findings strongly support the hypothesis that growth has been due to the presence of a 'super-radical innovation diffusion process.' Also, the evidence suggests that large and sustained movements in energy prices have had a very significant long term role to play. The paper concludes with an assessment of the implications of the findings for the future prospects of economic growth in Britain and the possible lessons that can be learned about the future of the global economy. |
| Date: | 2013–03–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2013-01&r=hme |
| By: | Christian Bidard |
| Abstract: | In order to extend the theory of value and the trade-off property to economic systems with lands, Ricardo reduced their study to that of productive systems without lands by considering the marginal agricultural methods. Sraffa generalised the analysis to prices of production and rejected the notion of order of cultivation. The strategy works sometimes for extensive cultivation, fails in most cases of intensive cultivation, and always when the net product of agriculture is increased by making use of corn saving methods in industry. |
| Keywords: | Land, rent, Ricardo, Sraffa, trade-off |
| JEL: | B12 B51 D24 D33 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2013-8&r=hme |
| By: | Xosé Luis Quiñoá López (Department of Quantitative Economics, University of Santiago de Compostela) |
| Abstract: | Beginning from the economic meaning of indecomposability in an Leontief-type system and then modifying the size of the measure units of the different goods through consecutive approximations, the original system is turned into another, structurally equivalent, one whose technological matrix A is such that each column sum is equal to the maximum eigenvalue of the original matrix that admits 1 = (1,...,1) as left positive eigenvector, from where we deduce the main Perron-Frobenius theorem. |
| Keywords: | Leontief system, Units size, Consecutive approximations, Perron-Frobenius |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edg:anecon:0052&r=hme |
| By: | Berardi, N.; Gautier, E.; Le Bihan, H. |
| Abstract: | Using micro price data covering the Great Recession period, we document new facts on price rigidity in France: (i) each month, 17% of prices are changed versus 23% in the United States. When sales are excluded, only 14% of prices are modified in France versus 15% in the United States; (ii) the distribution of price changes is dispersed with a lot of large and very small price changes; (iii) price increases are more frequent in January and September, even after controlling for sales; (iv) price changes related to sales and product replacements are less driven by inflation variations than regular price changes; (v) the monthly inflation rate is correlated to the frequencies of price decreases and increases. The volatility in the sizes of price increases and decreases is mainly due to sales and promotions; (vi) during the Great Recession, the patterns of price adjustment were only slightly modified: the frequency, average size and dispersion of price decreases increased a little. |
| Keywords: | price stickiness, inflation, consumer prices, sales, product substitution. |
| JEL: | E31 D40 L11 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:425&r=hme |
| By: | Boris E. Bravo-Ureta (University of Connecticut); Jeremy Jelliffe (University of Connecticut); Adam Rabinowitz (University of Connecticut); Joyce Meader (University of Connecticut); Richard Meinert (University of Connecticut); Joseph Bonelli (University of Connecticut); Sheila Andrew (University of Connecticut) |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zwi:outrep:14&r=hme |