Search

This paper examines the move into upstream and downstream global value chain (GVC) activities by 11 Asian countries. We use international input–output tables in combination with employment data and measure the number of workers in each country involved in manufactures GVC. Jobs are classified by business function based on occupational information, such as R&D, fabrication, logistics, sales and marketing. In most Asian countries, we find a faster employment increase in R&D and other support services relative to fabrication activities between 2000 and 2011. However, the participation in GVC and the pace of upgrading appears to differ substantially across Asian countries. We use a structural decomposition method to explore the role of trade, consumption and technological change in accounting for changes in countries' involvement in GVC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a comprehensive new data source to document basic facts about geographic concentration among industries in India from 1998 to 2013. Unlike previous studies, our data allow us to accurately measure industrial concentration at the district level and cover manufacturing and services, as well as the formal and informal sectors. Our most striking finding is that average levels of industrial concentration fell dramatically between 1998 and 2013, driven by steep reductions in capital‐intensive manufacturing industries. We provide suggestive evidence that this increasing dispersion may be due to improvements in interregional transportation coupled with inefficient land management policies and limited labor mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the channels through which the middle class may matter for consumption growth. Using several different middle-class measures and a panel of 105 developing countries spanning the period 1985-2013, we find that a larger middle class influences consumption growth primarily through higher levels of human capital accumulation. There is also a significant direct effect of middle-class size on consumption growth, which is more pronounced in the latter half of the sample, the 2000-2013 period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While India is among the world's largest producers and exporters of apparel products, the sector has not performed to its potential. This study analyzes why this might be so from the perspective of the structure of production in the sector, the most striking aspect of which is a firm size distribution heavily dominated by small firms. Using nationally representative firm-level and labor force survey data, we argue that the dominance of firms operating at scales too small to apply modern production and management technologies is one proximate reason for India's relative underperformance. Further, we note that India's labor regulations and the associated enforcement regime are important policy drivers of Indian firms' tendency to avoid placing 'too many workers under one roof'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the differences in the measures of: (i) profits of an enterprise obtained from a detailed set of questions on incomes and expenses of the enterprise, versus profits obtained through a single direct question; and (ii) gross value added (GVA) obtained using the production approach as the difference between output and intermediate consumption from a detailed set of questions on incomes and expenses, versus GVA using the income approach by asking a few questions on factor incomes, and a single direct question on profits. We use data from the 56th round survey of unorganized manufacturing conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization of India during the period July 2000-June 2001. We also examine if the differences vary with the characteristics of the enterprises, and suggest further empirical research to develop suitable tools for providing accurate measurements of informal sector enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use a recently constructed cross-country data set on absolute poverty to examine whether there is regional and sectoral variation in the relationship between poverty and economic growth. We find that the poverty-growth linkage is strongest in East Asia and that this linkage is essentially driven by growth in the industrial sector. By contrast, industrial growth has had little positive impact on poverty reduction in any other region. These findings are consistent with the notion that East Asia's greater success in poverty reduction lies in its greater openness and market orientation, which created a pattern of labor-intensive industrial growth that led to a rapid growth in employment and poverty reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors use firm-level data from Indian manufacturing industries to explore the determinants of exports, focusing on the role played by technology. The empirical analysis, which distinguishes between a firm's decision to export and the volume of its exports conditional on its having decided to export, reveals that investments in technology via R&D and technology transfer agreements can facilitate the entry of Indian firms into export markets. However, their influence on the volume of exports is fairly limited. Factors with a more broad-based influence on both export participation and volumes include labor intensity and, especially, firm size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the use of country-level panel data on per capita gross domestic product and measures of health and education in comparing East Asia's progress to increase incomes with its progress to improve health and education results. It is suggested that East Asia shows to be the only region showing evidence of convergence among developing countries.