The different consumption functions of products and product differentiation

This paper develops a monopolistic competition model to study the characteristics of products, such as quality improvement and product diversity (function-specialization and individualization), and the division of labor in production. Different from the ordinary economic model, our utility function includes these characteristics and reveals economies of function-specialization and individualization. Moreover, our production function includes these characteristics and reveals economies of vertical specialization and function-specialization. Through comparative static analysis, we find the optimal characteristics and their correlations with population, transaction costs, management efficiency and production technology, etc.product diversity, quality, theory of the firm, division of labor, monopolistic competition

The Organization of Production and Economic Development

A formalization of the Coase-Williamson-Cheung theory of the firm is used to examine the trade-off between the firm and the market as institutions for organizing production in a dynamic, general equilibrium model with increasing returns to labor specialization. The model considers the interaction of internal and external transaction costs and the gains to labor specialization in determining important aspects of the organization of production including the degree of labor specialization, the size and specialization of firms and the pattern of interfirm trade. Endogenous growth is driven by capital accumulation and the division of labor. The evolution of economic organization is characterized by increases in labor specialization, interfirm trade, firm specialization (vertical disintegration) and firm employment.development; endogenous growth; labor specialization; dynamic model; institutions; division of labor; growth; transactions costs; coordination; coordination costs; contract enforcement; organization; neoinstitutionalism; traditional economy; interpersonal exchange; theory of the firm; interpersonal exchange

A Multi-Country Approach to Factor Proporations Trade and Trade Costs

Classic trade questions are reconsidered by generalizing a factor-proportions model to multiple countries, multi-stage production, and country-specific trade costs. We derive patterns of production specialization and trade for a matrix of countries that differ in relative endowments (columns) and trade costs (rows). We demonstrate how the ability to fragment production and/or a proportional change in all countries’ trade costs alters these patterns. Production specialization and the volume of trade are higher with fragmentation for most countries but interestingly, for a large block of countries, these variables fall following fragmentation. Countries with moderate trade costs engage in market-oriented assembly, while those with lower trade costs engage in export-platform production. These two cases correspond to the concepts of horizontal and vertical affiliate production in the literature on multinational enterprises. Increases in specialization and the volume of trade accelerate as trade costs go to zero with and without fragmentation. Classification-

Effi cient Specialization in Ricardian Production

It is well known that the analysis of efficient specialization in Ricardian production with many countries and many commodities cannot be broken down to the simple case of two countries and two commodities. By drawing on some recent results of convex geometry and the theory of cephoids, this paper characterizes efficient patterns of incomplete specialization in the general case.Ricardian trade; efficient specialization; comparative cost; cephoids; deGua simplexes

Technological Interdependencies,Specialization and Coordination A Property Rights Perspective on The Nature of the Firm

This paper develops a property rights perspective on the nature of the firm. The basic idea is that learning by doing in production and coordination stem from experience in production and that user rights over productive assets are necessary in order to accumulate the experience needed to perform improvements in production. Accumulation of skills from learning by doing in production is accelerated by specialization in production. However, specialization introduces greater complexity and new kinds of tools and equipment and this creates uncertainty about the best way of coordinating specialized interdependent activities. The result may be bottlenecks in production and uneven development of components. Experimenting in coordination is necessary in order to eliminate these problems. It is argued that the Coasian notion of firms where coordination is provided by the direction of managers provides a cheap way of conducting the experiments needed to collect information on how best to coordinate interdependent activities.Property rights, specialization in production, firm, boundaries, learning

Technological Specialization as a Driving Force of Production Specialization

The paper analyses the impact of the technological specializations of the EU-15 countries on their production specializations. A neoclassically inspired empirical model is specified and estimated to explain for the considered countries the value added shares of the manufacturing industries in the area of R&D-intensive technology as well as in the area of the remaining technology by technological differences and relative factor endowments. Technological specialization is approximated by the patent stocks in the areas of leading-edge, high-level and the remaining technology, while further technological differences are captured by indices of transferable knowledge and fixed country effects. The empirical results show that the technological specializations of the EU countries are an important driving force of their production specializations.Factor Supply, Panel Data Analysis, Production Specialization, Technological Specialization,

Post-communist Transformation in Bulgaria – Implications for Development of Agricultural Specialization and Farming Structures

This paper incorporates a new inter-disciplinary methodology of the New Institutional and Transaction Costs Economics, and examines pace, factors and modes for post-communist agricultural specialization and farming structures development in Bulgaria. Firstly, it outlines the framework for analysis of economic specialization in transitional agriculture. Next, it presents the specific Bulgarian model for farming transformation characterizing with restitution of farmland in real borders and original locations, physical distribution of assets of ancient public farms into individual shares, rapid liberalization of markets and prices, and lack of public support to agriculture. Third, it specify factors for evolution of new farm structures and specialization such as badly specified and enforced property rights; big institutional, market and behavioral uncertainty; high assets specificity and dependency; lack of managerial experience; low incentives for long-term investment; ineffective public interventions etc. Next, it demonstrates how these factors affect organization and specialization of farming in the country explaining the evolution of a huge subsistence and part-time farming, production cooperation at a large scale, unprecedented concentration of resources in few business farms, widespread use of informal and integrated modes etc. Fifth, it analyzes the impact of transition on farm structures and agricultural specialization through changes in structure and share of agricultural GDP and employment, and distribution of activities between different types of farms. Finally, it clarifies efficiency of and extend of specialization in dominating large business farms, production cooperatives, and numerous small-scale unregistered farms.agricultural specialization, farm governance, transaction costs, comparative institutional analysis, Bulgarian agriculture

International specialization models in Latin America: the case of Argentina

The paper compares the Argentine specialization model with that of the other major Latin American countries. Given the lack of production data at disaggregate level, we rely on trade flow information from the WTA Statistics Canada database (3-digit SITC classification), available for most Latin American countries for a rather long time span (1980-2000). Our analysis, based on the Lafay Index of international specialization, shows that Argentina concentrates its comparative advantages in raw materials, agricultural and food products and exhibits, at the same time, serious deficiencies in the production of manufactures. This specialization pattern has remained remarkably stable over the last two decades, in spite of the major reforms implemented in many different fields. These features are shared with the other major Latin American countries, with the notable exception of Mexico, whose comparative advantages have changed dramatically in the same period, from raw materials (essentially oil) towards manufactures. Moreover, the products in which Argentina is specialized are among those for which world demand growth is structurally lower; this could eventually lead to a decreasing weight of Argentina in international markets.International trade; specialization model; revealed comparative advantages

TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY OF CHINESE GRAIN PRODUCTION: A STOCHASTIC PRODUCTION FRONTIER APPROACH

This article examines technical efficiency of the Chinese grain sector using the framework of stochastic production frontier. The results reveal that: the marginal products of labor and fertilizer are much smaller than that of land; human capital and farm-level specialization have positive effect on efficiency, land fragmentation is detrimental to efficiency, and elder farmers are as efficient as younger farmers. We also examine the effects of size, mechanization and geographic location. Simulation results show that significant output gains can be obtained by eliminating land fragmentation, improving rural education and promoting specialization and mechanization.Crop Production/Industries, Productivity Analysis,

Specialization, Factor Accumulation and Development

The Heckscher-Ohlin theory links specialization of production to relative factor endowments. Endowments are the result of accumulation in response to economic in-centives. Taking this into account allows us to reconcile wildly di¤erent predictions in the empirical literature about the e¤ect of capital accumulation on manufacturing output. We estimate the e¤ect of factor proportions on specialization in a cross-section of OECD countries. We show that using the estimation results alone, we cannot dis-tinguish between specialization driven by factor proportions, and specialization that is correlated with factor proportions for other reasons. But our results are consistent with evidence on sectoral factor intensities, which supports the H-O theory. Moreover, our model does a good job of predicting the substantial reallocation that takes place within manufacturing as countries grow. It explains 2/3 of the observed di¤erence in the pattern of specialization between the poorest and richest OECD countries.