Showing posts with label productivity growth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label productivity growth. Show all posts

Friday, November 13, 2020

13/11/20: The economy has two chronic illnesses (and neither are Covid)

My column for The Currency this week covers two key long-term themes in the global economy that pre-date the pandemic and will remain in place well into 2025: the twin secular stagnations hypotheses and the changing nature of the productivity. The link to the article is here; https://thecurrency.news/articles/28224/the-economy-has-two-chronic-illnesses-and-neither-are-covid/


 

Sunday, February 24, 2019

24/2/19: Buybacks vs Capex


U.S. corporates spending or 'investing' over the last 10 years:

  • CapEx ($6.4T), including often non-productive M&As
  • Buybacks ($4.9T) and 
  • Dividends ($3.4T) 


via @mbarna6

Just another reminder why productivity growth is not being aided by cheap credit.

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

9/1/19: Twin Secular Stagnations Thesis: Productivity Growth


For those of you following my coverage of the Twin Secular Stagnations thesis, here is more recent evidence on sluggish productivity, via @soberlook and @oxfordeconomics;
In simple terms, post-2008 crises, we have not recovered in terms of productivity growth in the advanced economy. This is one of the core blocks to the supply-side part of the TSS thesis: a permanently lower expansion in productivity, driven by a range of factors, including demographics and technological innovation (the nature of).

Friday, July 13, 2018

12/7/18: Romania's Uneven convergence Path: 2007-2018


A new World Bank report, led by Donato De Rosa, covers Romania's reforms and economic development experience. Worth a read! |
"From Uneven Growth to Inclusive Development : Romania's Path to Shared Prosperity" https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29864.

Quick summary:

  • "Romania’s transformation has been a tale of two Romanias: one urban, dynamic, and integrated with the EU; the other rural, poor, and isolated."
  • "Reforms spurred by EU accession boosted productivity ...GDP per capita rose from 30 percent of the EU average in 1995 to 59 percent in 2016."
  • "Today, more than 70 percent of the country’s exports go to the EU, and their technological complexity is increasing rapidly... the gross value added of the information and communications technology (ICT) sector in GDP, at 5.9 percent in 2016, is among the highest in the EU."
  • "Yet Romania remains the country in the Union with by far the largest share of poor people, when measured by the $5.50 per day poverty line (2011 purchasing power parity)".  More than 26% of country population lives below that poverty line, "more than double the rate of Bulgaria (12%)."


  • "While Bucharest has already exceeded the EU average income per capita and many secondary cities are becoming hubs of prosperity and innovation, Romania remains one of the least urbanized countries in the EU, with only 55 percent of people living in cities."
  • "Overall, access to public services remains constrained for many citizens, particularly in rural areas, and there is a large infrastructure gap, which is a drag on the international competitiveness of the more dynamic Romania and limits economic opportunities for the other Romania in lagging and rural areas."
The positive effects of Accession were frontloaded, when it comes to structural reforms:
  • "Romania was invited to open negotiations with the EU in December 1999.  Until Romania joined in January 2007, EU accession remained an anchor for reforms, providing momentum for the privatization and restructuring of SOEs and for regulatory and judiciary reforms."
  • "Output gradually recovered, and until 2008 the country enjoyed high but volatile growth... Unemployment was on a declining trend, but youth and long-term unemployment remained elevated. Skills and labor shortages became increasingly widespread. High inactivity persisted stubbornly, particularly among women. Gains in labor force participation were modest overall. ...Inequality increased further, as large categories of people—the Roma in particular—continued to be excluded from the benefits of growth."
  • "Although output has recovered since 2008, institutional shortcomings have compounded the effects of the crisis, contributing to significant setbacks in poverty reduction, and are again leading to macroeconomic imbalances."
  • "Fiscal consolidation during 2009–2015 has helped place economic growth on a strong footing. However, lack of commitment and underfunding for the delivery of public services and poor targeting of social programs have contributed to the negative income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution (the so-called bottom 40) in 2009–2015, with poverty remaining above pre-crisis levels, and inequality still among the highest in the EU."

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

13/3/18: Another Brick in the Secular Stagnation Wall


Another brick in the Secular Stagnation Wall: global productivity growth has now collapsed in all major groups of economies:


And the short-lived blip to the upside over the late 2014 in the advanced economies is now... well, short-lived.

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

17/7/17: New Study Confirms Parts of Secular Stagnation Thesis


For some years I have been writing about the phenomena of the twin secular stagnations (see here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2015/07/7615-secular-stagnation-double-threat.html). And just as long as I have been writing about it, there have been analysts disputing the view that the U.S. (and global) economy is in the midst of a structural growth slowdown.

A recent NBER paper (see here http://www.nber.org/papers/w23543) clearly confirms several sub-theses of the twin secular stagnations hypothesis, namely that the current slowdown is

  1. Non-cyclical (extend to prior to the Global Financial Crisis);
  2. Attributable to "the slow growth of total factor productivity" 
  3. And also attributable to "the decline in labor force participation".

Saturday, September 3, 2016

3/9/16: Innovation policies scorecards: Euro Area and BRIC


An interesting, albeit rather arbitrary (in terms of methodology) assessment matrix for innovation environment rankings across a range of countries, via EU Commission.

Here are the BRIC economies:


All clustered in the “Above Average Harmful Policies” (negative institutional factors) and “Below Average / Average Beneficial Policies” (positive institutional factors). Surprisingly, however, India sports the worst innovation policies environment, followed by China (where “Beneficial Policies” are, of course, skewed by state supports for key sectors). Russia comes in third (where the beneficial policies are most likely skewed to the upside by so-called strategic sectors, also with heavy state involvement). You might laugh, because with Brazil being fourth 'least detrimental' environment for innovation, the EU rankings are clearly at odds with actual innovation outcomes (https://www.globalinnovationindex.org/userfiles/file/reportpdf/GII-2015-v5.pdf) where
  • China = rank 29
  • Russia = rank 48
  • Brazil = rank 70
  • India = rank 81


Looking at the contrasting case of key advanced economies with strong supports, one wonders how much of Ireland’s policy environment is due to multinationals’ accommodation and just how on earth can such an ‘innovation-centric’ economy be so ‘average’ in terms of its innovation policies despite hundreds of millions pumped into supporting indigenous innovation. 



Then again, look at Finland with its stellar innovation policies culture and… err… economy in total coma


Makes you think… 

Friday, May 27, 2016

26/5/16: After the Crisis: Why the Slowdown in Productivity Growth?


My article for Cayman Financial Review 2Q 2016 is out, covering the structural nature of labour productivity growth decline in post-crisis economy: see here http://caymanianfinancialreview.cay.newsmemory.com/ pages 66-67 or click on images below to enlarge:




Tuesday, November 24, 2015

24/11/15: Europe's Dead Donkey of Productivity Growth


Remember the mythology of European productivity miracles:

  1. The EU is at least as competitive as the U.S. (with Lisbon Agenda completed, or rather abandoned);
  2. The EU growth in productivity is structural in nature (i.e. not driven by capital acquisition alone and not subject to cost of capital effects); and
  3. The EU productivity growth is driven by harmonising momentum (common markets etc) at a policy level, with the Euro, allegedly, producing strong positive effects on productivity growth.
Take a look at this chart from Robert J. Gordon's presentation at a recent conference:
The following observations are warranted:
  • EU convergence toward U.S. levels of productivity pre-dates major policy harmonisation drives in Europe and pre-dates, strongly, the creation of the Euro;
  • EU productivity convergence never achieved parity with the U.S.;
  • EU productivity convergence was not sustained from the late 1990s peak on;
  • The only period of improved productivity in the EU since the start of the new millennium was associated with assets bubble period (interest rates and credit supply).
Darn ugly!

But it gets worse. Since the crisis, the EU has implemented, allegedly and reportedly, a menu of 'structural' reforms aiming at improving competitiveness.  Which means that at least since the end of the crisis, we should be seeing improved productivity growth differentials between Europe and the U.S. And the EU case for productivity growth resumption is supported by the massive, deeper than the U.S., jobs destruction during the crisis that took out a large cohort of, supposedly, less productive workers, thereby improving the remainder of the workforce levels of productivity.

Here is a chart from the work by John Van Reenen of LSE:


Apparently, none of this happened:
  • EU structural reforms have been associated (to-date) with much lower productivity growth post-crisis than the U.S. and Japan;
  • EU jobs destruction during the crisis has been associated with lower productivity increases than in the U.S. and Japan;
  • All EU programmes to support growth in productivity, ranging from the R&D supports to investment funding for productivity-linked structural projects have produced... err... the worst outcome for productivity growth compared to the U.S. and Japan.
And the end result?

I know, I know... a Genuine Productivity Union, anyone?...

Thursday, June 4, 2015

4/6/15: Trend-spotting Out in 3 Key Charts


If you want to understand the German (and the Euro area) economy key trend, here are three charts:




Source for all: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/05/21/family-support-in-graying-societies/#

Combined, these imply one thing and one thing only: Domestic Demand (Investment + Consumption + Government Spending) can be sustained [in theory] over the next decades by just one thing: "Government Spending". In practice, the bad news is: such spending is neither hugely productive, nor feasible in current levels of indebtedness worldwide. Worse [from economic perspective] news: much of this spending will be swallowed by health & end-of-life services that will not be increasing the productive capacity of our societies.

In the mean time, logic of the above two charts implies:

  1. Increased build up of external imbalances (current account surpluses in more extremely ageing countries);
  2. Increased savings not suitable (due to risk profiles) for private investment (hence higher retail & long-term demand for highly rated bonds and equity, as opposed to higher growth bonds and equity); 
  3. Reduced domestic consumption;
  4. Heating up tax competition on the side of capturing revenues (as opposed to incentivising higher growth);
  5. Growing reliance on 'hidden' taxes (e.g. currency devaluations and indirect taxation) to amplify (1) and (4);
  6. Current 'peak productivity' generation (chart 3 above) is screwed on the double, and productivity growth curve going forward is downward-sloping, most likely even if we control for technological innovation.

All six points currently are at play. Draw your own conclusions.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

13/8/2014: The Dutch Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Paradox


Staying the course of the previous two posts, here is another interesting study relating to entrepreneurship, this time looking into policy supports dimension.

The paper by Stam, Erik, titled "The Dutch Entrepreneurial Ecosystem" (July 29, 2014, http://ssrn.com/abstract=2473475) looks at the entrepreneurial ecosystem "in the Netherlands: how it has evolved, why the rate of solo self-employment has increased and how the entrepreneurial ecosystem can be adapted to increase productive entrepreneurship." This is of interest well beyond the Netherlands, as many (all) European countries are pursuing development of such ecosystems and as many European countries have witnessed significant increases in the rates of individual self-employment (self-employment with no related employees).

The authors "summarize and extend the entrepreneurial ecosystem literature with a model that includes framework conditions (formal institutions, culture, physical infrastructure, and demand) and systemic conditions (networks, leadership, finance, talent, new knowledge, and support services) that affect entrepreneurial outputs (entrepreneurial activity) and outcomes indicating value creation (productivity, income, employment and well-being)."

Per authors: "The Netherlands has seen a remarkable rise of independent entrepreneurship in the last decade. However, this rise of independent entrepreneurship reveals to be predominantly a rise in solo self-employment, not an increase in growth oriented and innovative entrepreneurship."

This is a common problem to Ireland: "The rise of self-employment in the Netherlands seems to have lowered unemployment rates, but it is unlikely that the rise of self-employment and new firm formation has positively affected innovation and in the end productivity growth over the period 1987-2013."

But the Netherlands self-employment rise is also idiosyncratic in part: "This rise of self-employment and new firm formation and stagnation of innovation is what we label the Dutch Entrepreneurship Paradox. Especially favorable fiscal treatment of self-employed, and an increasing demand for flexible labor, stimulated the growth in the number of solo self-employed since the early 2000s. There is a major policy task not to let entrepreneurship be a driver of productivity decline (or at best a flexible belt in the labor market), but to stimulate productive entrepreneurship instead." It is worth noting that in the majority of European countries, the solo self-employment is actually penalised via tax systems, rather than supported, as in the Netherlands.

On the policy front, to "increase productive entrepreneurship in the Netherlands, we propose four policy actions. Each action addresses a change in one of the four framework conditions of the entrepreneurial ecosystem:

  • Changing formal institutions to enable labor mobility (development and circulation of talent); 
  • Opening up public demand for entrepreneurs, to provide finance for new knowledge creation and application; 
  • Stimulating a culture of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial leadership; 
  • Adapting or creating physical infrastructure to enhance knowledge circulation and networks."


Monday, July 21, 2014

21/7/2014: Russian Economy 1995-2008: Growth Drivers and Future Potential


Very insightful paper on Russian economic growth - sources and drivers - over the period of 1995-2008. "When high growth is not enough:
Rethinking Russia’s pre-crisis economic performance" by Ilya Voskoboynikov and Laura Solanko (BOFIT Policy Brief 6/2014: www.bof.fi/bofit_en) looks at the role of labour productivity, capital deepening and tech/multifactor productivity contributions to growth.

Here are some of the findings:

"The Russian economy experienced a long period of growth from the mid-1990s to the 2008 financial crisis with annual GDP per capita growth averaging 3.7 % between 1995 and 2008." So spectacular growth compared to pre-1995 period and this much is known.

"According to the prevailing narrative, this growth was mainly driven by sustained increases in multifactor productivity stemming from removal of distortions created under the planned Soviet economy."

But was it?

"Using newly available, internationally comparable, data and the growth accounting methodology of Timmer and Voskoboynikov (2014), we argue that average annual multifactor productivity growth amounted to 2.6% over the period. This remarkably high growth indicates that productivity growth accounted for about 56% of Russia’s economic growth in the 13 years before to the global financial crisis."

More: "We found that MFP growth explained over 70 % of total value-added growth in the period 1995–2001, but less than 50% in the 2003–2008 period. As the contribution of labor held relatively constant at around 10%, our finding implies that increases in capital inputs, and, consequently, investments to fixed capital, have been even more important than previously thought for economic growth in Russia."

Capital deepening and upgrades are the core drivers on both value added and productivity growth sides. What about sectoral decomposition?

"Detailed analysis of industry-level data reveals that economic growth has been driven by two broad sectors: extended oil & gas and high-skill-intensive (HSI) services."

Per oil & gas sector: "Our analysis clearly shows that growth in the extended oil & gas has been driven by increases in capital inputs, i.e. investments into fixed capital. Given the huge investments in oil and gas pipelines, oil export terminals, and the commissioning of new gas fields commissioned in past decade, we find this quite plausible."

On High-Skill-Intensive sectors side: "Since the end of our data sample in 2008, investment growth has slowed in the wake of the global financial crisis and increased uncertainly over the general business climate in Russia. The rapid growth in HIS services such as financial services largely represented a catching up with more advanced markets. The level of multifactor productivity in relation to German levels in the high-skill intensive sectors climbed from just 12% at the start of the observation period to almost 50% at the end."

Key conclusion: "Neither rapid growth in investment in the extended oil & gas sector nor rapid catching-up in technology intensive service industries is likely to spur Russia’s growth in the next decade. This underlines the urgency of identifying and exploiting new growth drivers for Russia."

I am not sure I agree. For a number of reasons:

  1. MFP and capital productivity growth have been concentrated in high-skills services and energy sectors. Next, there is room for substantial modernisation of capital base one technological utilisation in other sectors. That is a major potential source for growth into the future decade or two.
  2. Labour productivity growth has ben sluggish and lagging the MFP growth. This is primarily down to demographic effects, which are by now being extinguished. This opens up new frontiers for growth in labour productivity in all sectors of economy, but primarily in sectors other than high-skills services and energy.
  3. Structural reforms, if enacted, can open up Russian markets as platforms for exports to the Eurasian Economic Union states - a potential that is already there and can be further enhanced with suitable reforms.


So even from the top-level view, there are at least three major growth drivers that are yet to be explored.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

15/5/2014: Jobs & Employment: Lot Done, More to Do, Still


The is an unedited version of my Sunday Times article from April 27.



As cooperative organisations go, Paris-based OECD is one of the more effective ones. Its regular assessments of member states economic policies and performance drill into various sectors and often flash light into the darker corners of policy formation and implementation that are often untouched by the likes of the IMF, the central banks and the EU Commission.

Good example is the OECD’s third annual review of Ireland's Action Plan for Jobs, published this week.

The review starts by highlighting the positive achievements to-date set against the Action Plan targets and the realities of the unemployment crisis we face.

After hitting the bottom of the Great Recession, Irish labour markets have recorded a rebound in 2013. As the result of the robust jobs creation in the economy, Irish employment levels rose by around 60,000 in 12 months through Q4 2013. New jobs additions were broadly based across various sectors and predominantly concentrated in full-time employment segment. All of which is the good news.

Being a diplomatic, politically correct body, the OECD does not question the aggregate numbers of new jobs recorded. As this column noted on numerous occasions before, the 60,000 figure includes a large number of jobs in agriculture – a number that generates more questions than answers. But from the point of view of the OECD and indeed the Irish Governments 2012 Action Plan for Jobs, quality is a distant goal, while quantity is the primary objective. By this metric, as OECD notes, Ireland is now well on track to deliver on the interim target of 100,000 new jobs by 2016.

Still, accolades aside, Irish non-agricultural employment is lingering at 39 percent of total population – implying a dependency ratio that is comparable with that seen in the late 1990s. Official unemployment counts are around 253,000 and factoring in those in State training programmes the number rises to over 330,000. 16 percent of our total Potential Labour Force is currently not in employment. A things get even scarier when we add all people searching for jobs, underemployed, unemployed that have been discouraged from looking for work, those in State training programmes and the net emigration of working age adults. By this metric, the broadest joblessness rate in the country stands at around 32 percent.

Unlike the Government, faced with the above numbers, the OECD recognises that the Action Plan target of 100,000 new jobs by 2016 is a reflection of our public culture of low aspirations. "While Irish policymakers can take some satisfaction in the economy’s return to growth and recent robust job growth, significant challenges lie ahead if the country is to rapidly bring down the unemployment rate," said report authors. Anodyne a statement for you and me this screams a serious warning to the Government in OECD’s language.

There are legitimate concerns and uncertainties about the pace of the labour market recovery. At peak of employment in Q3 2007, there were 2.17 million people working in our economy. At the bottom of the Great Recession, in Q1 2012 that number fell to 1.825 million. In Q4 2013 the number employed was 1.91 million or 76,000 above the trough, but almost 260,000 below the peak. Meanwhile, Irish working age population has grown by some 93,700 despite large net outflows due to emigration. In other words, jobs creation to date has not been enough to fully compensate for demographic changes in working age population.

Beyond headline unemployment numbers, Ireland is facing a huge crisis of long-term joblessness, the crisis that was recently covered in depth by this column. With it, there is a significant risk that improved jobs creation in the future is not going to provide employment for those out of work for more than a year.

While reversing emigration and accommodating for growing population will require much higher rate of new employment growth than we currently deliver, the Government’s Medium Term Economic Strategy published this year is aiming to bring employment levels to 2.1 million in by 2020. This means thirteen years after the on-set of the crisis our employment is expected to still fall short of the pre-crisis peak.


Which begs a question: who will be the unemployed of tomorrow?

OECD is rather serious on this subject. "Tackling unemployment and ensuring that high cyclical unemployment does not become structural and persistent are important challenges. A relentless focus on activating those most vulnerable to alienation from the labour market will be even more important than aggregate job creation targets in this regard."

In other words, according to the OECD, long-term unemployed, youth out of jobs and out of education, as well as those with low skills and of advanced working age are at a risk of becoming structurally (re: permanently) unemployed, even if the Government targets under all existent strategies are met.

Much of this stems from the sectoral breakdown of jobs being created and types of jobs that are growing in demand in modern workplace.

For example, the OECD praises the Government for focusing Action Plan "on private sector-led, export-oriented job creation by getting framework conditions right and continually upgrading the business environment". But export-led growth is not going to do much for our high levels of long-term unemployment. Jobs creation in exporting sectors is directly linked to modern skills sets and high quality of human capital. Long-term unemployment is linked to lower skills and/or past skills in specific sectors, such as construction. To make a dent in an army of long-term jobless we need domestic growth. To make this growth sustainable, we need productivity enhancements in domestic sectors and SMEs that require employment of higher skills in these sectors. There is a basic contradiction inherent in these two drivers of recovery: skills in supply within the pool of long-term unemployed are not matched to skills in demand within the modernising economy.

Something has to be done to address this dichotomy.

Under various policy reforms enacted during the crisis, Ireland witnessed introduction of significant changes to the benefits system, employment programmes, as well as reduced levels and duration of unemployment insurance cover. In addition, the Government used restructuring of training programmes to introduce a new concept of one-stop support centres, Intreo, which are being rolled out across the country. All of this is in line with previous OECD and Troika recommendations and much of it is needed.

But, as OECD notes, six years into the crisis, more remains to be done.

The OECD identifies Government's flagship activation programme, JobBridge as "large and expensive" and insufficiently targeted to help the most disadvantaged groups. In other words, JobBridge has became a synonym for unpaid apprenticeship for recent graduates instead of being a stepping stone from unemployment to a job requiring moderate re-skilling. OECD also highlights the risk of State training programmes effectively delaying job searches by the unemployed or reducing their job search efforts.

Beyond the above, the OECD points to the risk that the longer-term and lower-skilled unemployed may fall outside the resources and remit cover of the new agencies - the SOLAS and the Intreo.

With all reforms to-date, the OECD highlights the lack of willingness on behalf of the Government to rationalise some of the labour market programmes, even where there is clear and available evidence of their low effectiveness.

One example is the long-established Community Employment Programme (CEP), which accounts for a full one third of all spending on activation programmes. Data available to the Government strongly shows that CEP is not cost-effective and has a spotted track record in terms of securing the participants return to regular employment. Instead of the CEP, the Irish state should focus resources on developing a modern apprenticeship programme that can replace existent ineffective schemes. This focus on market skills-based training available under the apprenticeship system, supported by the OECD report, is in line with policy suggestions presented in this column in the recent past and with the Entrepreneurship Forum report published last year.


The OECD report also provides a detailed analysis of the institutional reforms that are needed to deliver sustainable jobs creation in Ireland in line with the Government agenda. There is a need to mobilise employers to engage with the Government programmes to develop employment and skills systems that can address future demands in the real economy. Instead of craft-focused and manual professions-oriented training, Ireland needs more MNCs and SMEs-driven skills acquisition and upgrading programmes.

The OECD also stresses the need for stimulating productivity growth by developing more skills-intensive domestic sectors. Unlike the Irish authorities, the OECD is painfully aware that aggregate productivity growth, jobs creation and skills development must be anchored to indigenous sectors and enterprise, including the SMEs, and not be relegated to the domain of the SMEs and exports-oriented producers alone.


In all of this, the report highlights a major bottleneck in the Irish human capital development systems – dire lack of training and up-skilling programmes available to SMEs and early stage companies that are capable of supplying skills that are in actual demand in the markets and that can simultaneously drive forward productivity growth and innovation in Irish enterprises.

Slightly paraphrasing Fianna Fail’s GE2002 posters: in the case of Government delivery on jobs and unemployment, “A lot done. Even more to do.”





Note: PLS1 indicator is unemployed persons plus discouraged workers as a percentage of the Labour Force plus discouraged workers.  

PLS3 indicator is unemployed persons plus Potential Additional Labour Force plus others who want a job, who are not available and not seeking for reasons other than being in education or training 






Box-out:

Since the early days of the EU, one of the most compelling arguments in support of the common European currency was the alleged need for eliminating the volatility in the exchange rates. It remains the same today. High uncertainty in the currency markets, the argument goes, acts to depress international trade and distorts incentives to transact across borders. Alas, theory aside, the modern history puts into doubt the validity of this argument. During the 1990s, prior to the creation of the euro, Irish current account surpluses averaged 1.9 percent of GDP just as the economy was going through a period of rapid accumulation of capital - a process that tends to put pressure on current account balance. Still, in the decade before the euro introduction, Ireland's external balance ranked fifth in the European Economic Area. During the first decade of the euro, owing to the massive credit bubble, Irish current account balance collapsed to an annual average of -2.3 percent of GDP. Since hitting the bottom of the crisis, our performance rebound saw current account swinging to an average annual surplus of 7 percent. Alas, this reversal of fortunes ranks us only 7th in the EEA. In fact, since 2000 through today, non-euro area economies of Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland have consistently outperformed Ireland in terms of current account surpluses. Cumulatively Swiss economy generated external balances of 135 percent of GDP between 2001 and 2013, Swedish economy 88 percent and Danish economy 51 percent of GDP. Irish cumulated current account balance over that period is a deficit of 9 percent of GDP. Let's put the matters into perspective: between 1990 and 1999 Irish economy generated a total surplus of USD12.5 billion. Since the introduction of the euro, our cumulated current account deficit stands at USD23.5 billion. At current blistering rates of current account surpluses, it will take us another five years to achieve a current account balance across the entire period of 30 years. Meanwhile, deprived of the alleged benefits of currency stabilisation, Denmark accumulated curret account surpluses of USD149 billion between 2001 and the end of 2013, Sweden USD378 billion and Switzerland USD645 billion. The euro might be a good idea for a political union or for PR and advertising agencies spinning its alleged benefits to European voters, but it has not been all too kind to our own trade balances.






Friday, October 19, 2012

19/10/2012: FDI: It ain't all it is claimed to be...



Quite an interesting little study out of the US worth reading (link here to an earlier version).

Christian Fons-Rosen, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, Bent E. Sørensen, Carolina Villegas-Sanchez, and Vadym Volosovych just published a working paper titled "Where are the Productivity Gains from Foreign Investment? Evidence on Spillovers and Reallocation from Firms, Industries and Countries".

The paper identifies "the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on host economies by separating positive productivity (TFP) effects of knowledge spillovers from negative effects of competition."

"Policymakers around the world have welcomed this development and encouraged it given the perceived benefits of FDI such as technology transfer, knowledge spillovers, and better management practices. Several macro-level studies confirm these predictions by documenting a positive correlation between aggregate growth and aggregate FDI flows (see Kose, Prasad, Rogoff, and Wei (2009)). Researchers argue that this positive correlation between FDI and growth is a result of knowledge spillovers from multinationals and their foreign-owned affiliates to domestic firms in the host country."

Unfortunately, as the authors point out, "there is no direct causal evidence at the firm-level supporting this view for a large set of countries. Available evidence lacks external validity and the existing findings vary to a great extent between developed countries and emerging markets depending on the focus of the particular study".

The point raised is that "Any finding of a positive relation between foreign owner- ship and domestic productivity can be an artifact of (a) foreigners investing in productive firms in productive sectors and (b) exit of low productivity domestic firms following foreign investment. Establishing a causal effect of FDI on productivity (directly on foreign owned firms and indirectly via spillovers on domestic firms) is challenging: to identify such an effect, firm and sector specific selection effects must be accounted for, as well as the possibility of dynamic effects through the exit of weak domestic firms."

"The second difficulty in the quest for identification arises from the simultaneity problem. Foreign investment may be correlated over time with higher productivity of affiliates, or higher productivity of domestic firms with whom they interact; however, dynamic patterns might be driven simultaneously by time varying factors other than foreign ownership."

To control for the above, the study uses "a unique new firm/establishment-level data set covering the last decade for a large set of countries (60 countries) with information on economic activity, ownership stake, type, sector, and country of origin of foreign investors."

Top of the line conclusion is that:
"Controlling for foreigners potentially selecting themselves into productive firms and sectors, we show that the positive effect of FDI on the host economy’s aggregate productivity is a myth.
-- Foreigners invest in high productivity firms and sectors, but do not increase productivity of the acquired firms nor enhance the productivity of the average domestic firm.
-- In emerging markets, we find that the productivity of acquired firms increases but the effect is too small to significantly affect the aggregate economy.
-- For domestic firms, a higher level of foreign investment in the same sector of operation leads to strong negative competition effects in both developed and emerging countries.
-- In developed countries, we find evidence of positive spillovers through knowledge transfers only for domestic firms with high initial productivity levels operating within the same broad sector as the multinational investor but in a different sub-sector.
-- Our results confirm the predictions of the new new trade and FDI literature, in that more productive firms select themselves into exporting and FDI activities."

Oops!

More damning:
"Our preliminary results show that foreign owned firms/multinational affiliates are more productive … in developed countries; however, …this effect in developed countries is solely driven by future fundamentals (growth potential); i.e., growing firms becoming foreign-owned."

Double Oops!

Next:
"We find evidence of positive spillovers from foreign activity only when we look at a finer sectoral classification where the domestic firms are not direct competitors of the foreign firms and where domestic firms are at the top of the productivity distribution." Now, let's face it, folks, in MNCs-dominated sectors, Irish firms are not exactly a shining example of being at the top of the productivity distribution (except perhaps in ICT services, but most certainly not in pharma or medical devices or financial services). Which means that by and large we should not expect significant spillovers from the MNCs to Irish firms.


PS: Sadly, the study was not able to incorporate data from Ireland, because - to use polite authors' expression - Ireland belongs to a group of countries with 'Problematic Data Coverage' (aka dodgy data) for Manufacturing firms 2002-2007.