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We examine the relationship between offshoring and the labor market in an occupational choice model of trade and endogenous growth where workers are employed on the basis of their individual skill levels. Trade liberalization leads to offshoring and reduces employment in the manufacturing sector. Displaced workers move into traditional and innovation sectors according to their skill levels, shaping real wages and aggregate productivity in the manufacturing sector. The paper aims to show how inter-sectoral labor market adjustments, highlighted by skill heterogeneity, could be a possible explanation for the simultaneous rise in productivity and reduction in real wages that have coincided with the sharp escalation of offshoring activities in the U.S. manufacturing sector since 2004. ( JEL F16, F23, J24) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research and development (R&D) has a large effect on both state output and total factor productivity in the long run. Our estimates for the private sector of the U.S. states from 1963 to 2007 show that the R&D elasticity averages 0.056-0.143. The implied returns to state Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from R&D spending are 82-211%. There are also positive R&D spillovers, with 70-80% of the total returns accruing to other states. We also find that states with more human capital have higher own- and other-R&D elasticities, and those in lowest tier of economic development have the least own-state R&D elasticity but the highest other-R&D elasticity. In addition, we find that the positive effect of R&D spillovers across states is larger when we consider R&D spillovers across states based on economic similarity of R&D across sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overview: Dollar surge brings mixed consequences The strengthening dollar is now becoming a significant factor for global growth and our forecasts. The tradeweighted dollar is up 2.5% over the last month and over 12% on a year ago., Driving the latest rise are growing expectations of US rate hikes while monetary policy in many other major economies is headed in the opposite direction., The beginning of ECB QE has prompted a further slide in bond yields and the euro - which at 1.06/US$ is on course to fulfill our forecast of near-parity by year-end. Weak data in Japan also raises the chance of a further expansion of QE there later this year., We remain relatively positive about the advanced economies: we forecast G7 GDP growth at 2.2% for 2015 and 2.3% next. This month we have revised up German growth for 2015 to 2.4% - a four-year high., Robust US growth and a strong dollar are good news for the advanced economies. US import volume growth firmed to over 5% on the year in January, while the dollar surge potentially boosts the share of other advanced countries in this growing market., But for the emerging economies the picture is mixed. A stronger US may boost exports, but rising US rates are pulling capital away: there has been a slump in portfolio inflows into emergers in recent months. Emerging growth may also suffer from higher costs of dollar funding and a rising burden of dollar debt as currencies soften - the more so if US rates rise faster than markets expect., Moreover, emergers are also under pressure from a slowing China. Chinese import growth has been weak of late and commodity prices remain under downward pressure. A notable casualty has been Brazil, which we have downgraded again this month - GDP is expected to slump 1.1% this year., Emerging GDP growth overall is expected to slip to 3.7% this year, the lowest since 2009. And excluding China, emerging growth will be only 2.2% - the same as the G7 and the worst performance relative to the advanced economies since 1999. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that financial market development contributed to the rise in the skill premium and residual wage inequality in the United States since the 1980s. We present an endogenous growth model with imperfect credit markets and establish how improving the efficiency of these markets affects modes of production, innovation, and wage dispersion between skilled and unskilled workers. The experience of U.S. states following banking deregulation provides empirical support for our hypothesis. We find that wages of skilled workers increased by between 0.5% and 6.3% following deregulation while those of unskilled workers fell by between 3.5% and 8.7%. Similarly, residual (or within-group) inequality increased; the 90-50 percentile ratio of residuals from a Mincerian wage regression and their standard deviation increased by 4.2% and 1.7%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide new evidence on patterns of structural change in advanced economies, reconsidering the stylised facts put forward by , , and . Since 1980, the services sector has overwhelmingly predominated in the economic activity of the European Union, Japan, and the US, but there is substantial heterogeneity among services. Personal, finance, and business services have low productivity growth and increasing shares in employment and GDP. By contrast, shares of distribution services are constant, and productivity growth is rapid. We find that the labour share in value-added is declining, while the use of ICT capital and skilled labour is increasing in all sectors and regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We reconsider the out-of-sample forecasting ability of a large number of financial variables with respect to real output growth over the 1985:1-1999:4 period We show that models including financial variables display almost no forecasting ability relative to an autoregressive benchmark model over this period according to a mean squared forecast error metric. However, tests based on forecast encompassing indicate that many financial variables do, in fact, contain information that is useful for forecasting real output growth over the 1985:1-1999:4 out-of-sample period. Our results suggest that the extant literature exaggerates the demise of the forecasting power of financial variables with respect to real activity since the mid-1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]