Suchergebnisse

Under communism, workers had their wages set according to a centrally-determined wage grid. In this paper we use new micro data on men to estimate returns to human capital under the communist wage grid and during the transition to a market economy. We use data from the Czech Republic because it is a leading transition economy in which the communist grid remained intact until the very end of the communist regime. We demonstrate that for decades the communist wage grid maintained extremely low rate of return on education, but that the return increased dramatically and equally in all ownership categories of firms during the transition. Our estimates also indicate that men's wage-experience profile was concave in both regimes and on average it did not change from the communist to the transition period. However, the de novo private firms display a more concave profile than SOEs and public administration. Contrary to earlier studies, we show that men's inter-industry wage structure changed substantially between 1989 and 1996.

This book concentrates on Senegal's urban industrial sector, which has performed poorly despite a relatively mature base at independence, considerable investment since, and preferential trade agreements. The authors combine institutional analysis with econometric estimation to provide an understanding of the functioning of Senegal's industrial labor market and to evaluate the effects of public policy in several key areas. Of special concern are the effects of different forms of ownership of firms, the value of export-oriented development, and government regulation. Also evaluated are the impact of trade unions, organizational characteristics of firms, ethnic and skill composition of the labor force, and training and educational programs within Senegal

Globalization brings opportunities and pressures for domestic firms in emerging market economies to innovate and improve their competitive position. Using recent data on firms in 27 transition economies, we test for the effects of globalization through the impact of increased competition and foreign direct investment on domestic firms' efforts to raise their capability (innovate) by upgrading their technology or their product/service (improving quality or developing a new one), taking into account firm heterogeneity. We find support for the prediction that competition has a negative effect on innovation, especially for firms further from the frontier, and that the supply chain of multinational enterprises and international trade are important channels for domestic firm innovation. We do not find support for the inverted U effect of competition on innovation. There is partial support for the hypothesis that firms in a more pro-business environment invest more in innovation and are more likely to display the inverted U relationship between competition and innovation. -- Competition ; innovation ; emerging markets ; spillovers

We use firm-level data and national input-output tables from 17 countries over the 2002-2005 period to test new and existing hypotheses about the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the efficiency of domestic firms in the host country (i.e., spillovers). Providing evidence from a larger sample of countries and greater variety of firms than existing studies, with separate estimates by firm size, age, and sector, we show: a) backward spillovers (stemming from supplying a foreign firm in the host country or exporting to a foreign firm) are consistently positive; b) horizontal spillovers are mostly insignificant but positive for older firms and firms in the service sector; d) forward spillovers (from purchasing from foreign firms or importing) are also positive only for old and service sector firms. We find no support for the hypothesis that spillovers are greater for FDI with more advanced technology. While efficiency of domestic firms' is affected by the business environment, the strength of FDI spillovers is not, either when measured by the degree of corruption, bureaucratic red tape or by differences across regions that vary in terms of development. Testing whether spillovers vary with the firm's "absorptive capacity" we find: i) distance from the efficiency frontier tends to dampen horizontal spillovers in manufacturing and backward spillovers among old firms; ii) whereas firms with a larger share of university educated workforce are more productive, they do not enjoy greater FDI spillovers than firms with less educated workers. FDI spillovers hence vary by sectors and types of firms. -- FDI ; spillovers ; transition economies ; efficiency