Liberalizing international trade in services: Challenges and opportunities for developing countries

Several developments in international trade in services impact strongly on developing countries: First, the world-wide diffusion of information technologies (IT) has created new export opportunities for developing countries in IT services. Second, the recently proclaimed Millennium Development Goals for poverty reduction can only be attained if key services are provided more efficiently in developing countries - particularly through the liberalization of service imports. Third, in the ongoing Doha Development Round (DR) of trade negotiations, developing countries are asked to formally commit to liberalizing their service imports under the terms of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Developing countries will benefit from liberalizing service imports if liberalization enhances competition on the supply side. This is typically the case for producer services, such as domestic and international transport, financial services, and telecommunications. The lifting of restrictions on the market access by foreigners (including through direct investment) will often improve service quality or lower prices and thereby enhance the international competitiveness of downstream industries. In Doha Development Round negotiations, therefore, developing countries may find it useful to commit to liberalizing imports of producer services. By contrast, the benefits of import liberalization are less clear for some consumer services where supply is subject to network monopolies (e.g., water and energy distribution) or demand is constrained by poverty (health care, education). Here, achieving a socially optimal level of supply may require carefully calibrated government policies, possibly with international donor support. For developing countries, such sectors should not be priority areas for commitments on service imports under the GATS. Most service exports by developing countries, especially IT services transmitted electronically, face few import barriers in industrialized countries. However, under the GATS, service exports may also be delivered through temporary movement of natural persons, e.g., developing country nationals working in industrialized countries without becoming residents there. If Doha Development Round negotiations were to increase opportunities for such temporary labor migration, the benefits to developing countries could be huge. --

Pricing an Extension Service for Organic Farmers and Growers

The organics sector is expanding rapidly and the Board of Organics Aotearoa New Zealand considers that the future provision of an extension service is needed to underpin the ability of producers to efficiently convert to organic systems and then to further develop the sustainability of their systems. This project commissioned by Organics Aotearoa New Zealand in 2008 considers four possible organisational structures for delivering such a service. The first possible structure is a complete extension service for organic producers that combines national coordination, standard setting and information management with a local problem-solving and sector development service. Option 2 is a more centralised option, especially useful for producers at the beginning of their system conversions to organics when advice to them can be more prescriptive. Option 3 provides decentralised learning opportunities for producers out in the regions and so is more of a “bottom-up” approach to extension. Option 4 is a user-pays option where only those people directly involved in a project need make any contribution to the costs of the extension service. Option 1 requires funding for each producer of more than $250 per annum and needs over$2 million gross income before the full service could be provided. Option 2 requires 2000 producers to be financially viable and funding of less than the equivalent of $250 per annum per grower. Option 3 requires 7000 producers involved before the costs are reduced to the equivalent of less than$250 per annum per grower. Option 4 would be viable with funding equivalent to less than $250 per annum per grower. The Board wanted an extension service that minimised central overheads, provided a variety of learning styles, and served the needs of both organic start-ups and established producers. It was recommended to the Board of Organics Aotearoa that they proceed with Option 3. The Board decided that Option 2 better fitted the resources that they had available, and this approach has been working well.Organic, extension, governance, funding, Crop Production/Industries, Demand and Price Analysis, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy,

Myerscough College : report from the Inspectorate (FEFC inspection report; 62/95 and 64/98)

The Further Education Funding Council has a legal duty to make sure further education in England is properly assessed. The FEFC’s inspectorate inspects and reports on each college of further education according to a four-year cycle. This record comprises the reports for periods 1994-95 and 1997-98

Efficiency and productivity of Singapore’s manufacturing sector 2001-2010: An analysis using Simar and Wilson’s (2007) bootstrapped truncated approach

This paper seeks to explain the lagging productivity in Singapore’s manufacturing noted in the statements of the Economic Strategies Committee Report 2010. Two methods are employed: the Malmquist productivity to measure total factor productivity change and Simar and Wilson’s (J Econ, 136:31–64, 2007) bootstrapped truncated regression approach. In the first stage, the nonparametric data envelopment analysis is used to measure technical efficiency. To quantify the economic drivers underlying inefficiencies, the second stage employs a bootstrapped truncated regression whereby bias-corrected efficiency estimates are regressed against explanatory variables. The findings reveal that growth in total factor productivity was attributed to efficiency change with no technical progress. Most industries were technically inefficient throughout the period except for ‘Pharmaceutical Products’. Sources of efficiency were attributed to quality of worker and flexible work arrangements while incessant use of foreign workers lowered efficiency

Iowa Department of Commerce, Iowa Insurance Division Performance Report, FY 2006

Agency Performance Repor

Iowa Department of Commerce, Iowa Insurance Division Performance Report, FY 2007

Agency Performance Repor

Temporary help services and the volatility of industry output

To gain a better understanding of how fluctuations in output influence firms' decision to hire temporary workers, the authors examine the relationship between output volatility and the use of temporary labor. They find that, all things being equal, temporary employment is higher in states with more volatile industries and lower in states with a relatively high degree of co-movement of industry output fluctuations.Temporary employees ; Employment (Economic theory)

Labor Productivity: Developments Since 1995

[Excerpt] The paper also explores the reasons for the productivity acceleration and concludes that it likely stemmed from developments in the information technology (IT) sector, including faster technological change in the production of IT goods and the boom in business investment in those goods. Although widely accepted, that explanation raises two questions: Why did productivity growth accelerate further during a period—the years since the 2001 business-cycle peak—when IT investment fell substantially? And why did European economies fail to experience a similar productivity surge even though they had access to the same IT goods that were available in the United States? The paper outlines several possible answers to those questions but concludes that further research will be necessary before economists can provide a consensus answer