Trade and Employment in Developing Countries, Volume 1

Trade and Employment in Developing Countries, Volume 1

Author: National Bureau of Economic Research

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1981

Total Pages: 559

ISBN-13: 0226454924

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Monograph comprising a comparison of developing country trade policy effects on employment - presents an evaluation of export promotion trends, import substitution and protectionist measures (incl. Export subsidies, foreign exchange control, import taxes, quota systems, etc.), and discusses relations with labour intensiveness and employment creation, impact on factor market distortion, commodity and industrial product composition in trade, etc. References.


Shifting Patterns of Comparative Advantage: Manfactured Exports of Developing Countries

Shifting Patterns of Comparative Advantage: Manfactured Exports of Developing Countries

Author: Alexander J. Yeats

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 60

ISBN-13:

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Labor -intensive goods are the developing countries' strongest export items -- and the United States is the chief import market for these goods. What's more, the industrial countries can expect increasing competition in the 1990s in clothing, footwear, leather products, wood manufactures, and some primary metal manufactures.


Unit Labor Costs and Manufacturing Sector Performance in Africa

Unit Labor Costs and Manufacturing Sector Performance in Africa

Author: Karmen Naidoo

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Several studies have highlighted that African manufacturing wages are higher than comparator countries at similar levels of development, which contributes to the continent's lower levels of manufacturing competitiveness. This paper derives unit labor costs - average wages relative to productivity - for two-digit manufacturing sectors across a wide range of developed and developing countries over the 1990-2015 period. We benchmark the unit labor costs to China and estimate the impact of relative unit labor costs on manufacturing sector value added, employment, investment and exports. We find that relative unit labor costs have a smaller effect on manufacturing performance in Africa relative to other developing regions. Further, we find that for Africa, the level and growth of labor productivity have a quantitatively stronger and more robust effect on manufacturing performance than the level and growth of real wages. The results have important implications for industrial policy in African countries.


Trade and Employment in Developing Countries, Volume 1

Trade and Employment in Developing Countries, Volume 1

Author: Anne O. Krueger

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2007-12-01

Total Pages: 559

ISBN-13: 0226455033

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This first book of a three-volume study examines the way trade policies in developing countries affect the level and composition of employment. There is special emphasis on the effects of import substitution policies that attempt to make a country self-sufficient by producing local substitutes for imports, as compared with policies that further the expansion of imports. Ten countries are studied: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, the Ivory Coast, Pakistan, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia, and Uruguay. The contributors to the volume analyze the link between trade strategies and employment within a common framework, and the analyses of trade policy include the level and structure of protection, the relation of trade policy to labor demand, the labor intensiveness of trade, and the extent of distortions in factor markets and their effects on trade.


Can Africa Export Manufactures?

Can Africa Export Manufactures?

Author: Ibrahim Elbadawi

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 23

ISBN-13:

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Abstract: May 1999 - Africa's poor performance in manufactured exports in the 1990s (relative to East Asia) appears to be largely the result of bad policies-especially policies that affect transaction costs. Elbadawi analyzes the determinants of manufactured exports in Africa and other developing countries, guided by three pivotal views on Sub-Saharan Africa's (Africa's) prospects in manufactured exports: Adrian Woods holds that Africa cannot have comparative advantage in exports of labor-intensive manufactures (even if broadly defined to include raw material processing) because its natural resources endowment is greater than its human resources endowment (endowment thesis); Paul Collier argues that, for most of Africa, unusually high (policy-induced) transaction costs are the main source of Africa's comparative disadvantage in manufactured exports (transaction thesis); A third approach (Elbadawi and Helleiner) emphasizes the importance of stable, competitive real exchange rates for profitability of exports in low-income countries (exchange rate-led strategy). Elbadawi tests the implications of these three views with an empirical model of manufactured export performance (manufactured exports' share of GDP), using a panel of 41 countries for 1980-95. His findings: Corroborate the predictions of the transaction thesis, in that transaction costs are major determinants of manufactures exports. Investing in reducing these costs generates the highest payoff for export capacity; Lend support for the exchange rate-led strategy. After controlling for other factors, ratios of natural resources per worker were not robustly associated with export performance across countries, but this cannot be taken as formal rejection of the endowment thesis - unless one is prepared to assume that manufactured exports' share of GDP was highly correlated with ratios of manufactured to aggregate (or primary) exports. But this is not unlikely. This paper-a product of Public Economics, Development Research Group-is part of a larger effort in the group to research manufactures exports' competitiveness. The author may be contacted at [email protected].


Manufacturing for Export in the Developing World

Manufacturing for Export in the Developing World

Author: Gerry Helleiner

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 1995-09-07

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1134804830

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In recent years, much has been made of the success of developing countries, particularly in East Asia, which have achieved economic growth by manufacturing goods which are then exported to developed economies. Case studies of five countries uncover serious potential difficulties in maintaining the pace of manufacturing for export in the developing countries, and shows that there is no simple relationship between import liberalization and manufacturing for export.


Trouble in the Making?

Trouble in the Making?

Author: Mary Hallward-Driemeier

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2017-10-12

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1464811938

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Technology and globalization are threatening manufacturing’s traditional ability to deliver both productivity and jobs at a large scale for unskilled workers. Concerns about widening inequality within and across countries are raising questions about whether interventions are needed and how effective they could be. Trouble in the Making? The Future of Manufacturing-Led Development addresses three questions: - How has the global manufacturing landscape changed and why does this matter for development opportunities? - How are emerging trends in technology and globalization likely to shape the feasibility and desirability of manufacturing-led development in the future? - If low wages are going to be less important in defining competitiveness, how can less industrialized countries make the most of new opportunities that shifting technologies and globalization patterns may bring? The book examines the impacts of new technologies (i.e., the Internet of Things, 3-D printing, and advanced robotics), rising international competition, and increased servicification on manufacturing productivity and employment. The aim is to inform policy choices for countries currently producing and for those seeking to enter new manufacturing markets. Increased polarization is a risk, but the book analyzes ways to go beyond focusing on potential disruptions to position workers, firms, and locations for new opportunities. www.worldbank.org/futureofmanufacturing