EXPORT DIVERSIFICATION IN LOW-INCOME COUNTRIES: AN INTERNATIONAL CHALLENGE AFTER DOHA

This paper discusses major policy issues related to commodity dependence and export diversification in low-income countries. Contrary to some widely-held view, it argues that natural resources are not necessarily a ‘curse’ that condemns low-income countries to underdevelopment but can provide a basis for sustained export-led growth. Natural resource-based sectors have potential for export diversification. The OECD ‘mirror’ trade data indeed suggest that many different routes to diversification exist, including resource-based manufacturing and processing of primary products. However, these opportunities are far from being exploited in many low-income countries. This is because export diversification is typically a slow process, and this process needs to be sustained by an appropriate and coherent strategy, characterised by a combination of vision, co-ordination and management of conflicting interests. Moreover, the analysis of trade support services in two African countries points to a mismatch between private sector’s needs and services actually provided and to a limited institutional development of the trade and investment support network. The lessons for trade capacity building are important for Africa but are also relevant for other low-income countries.export diversification, resource curse, Doha development agenda, trade capacity building, trade support services

Accelerated Internationalisation by Emerging Multinationals: the Case of White Goods Sector

The emergence of a "second wave" of developing-country multinational enterprises (MNEs) in a variety of industries is one of the characterizing features of globalization. These new MNEs did not delay their internationalisation until they were large, as did most of their predecessors, and often become global as a result of direct firm-to-firm contracting. Many grow large as they internationalise conversely, they internationalise in order to grow large. This is a striking pattern which, if confirmed, indicates that enterprises from developing countries have pursued distinctive approaches to internationalisation. It is a further interesting hypothesis to investigate to what extent such firms, born as suppliers of established incumbents, have leveraged on their "latecomer" status to accelerate their internationalisation. This paper documents how emerging MNEs may follow quite different patterns to reach, or at least approach, global competitiveness. In particular, it investigates how three latecomer MNEs pursued global growth through accelerated internationalisation combined with strategic and organizational innovation. Haier (China), Mabe (Mexico) and Arcelik (Turkey) emerged as Dragon Multinationals in the large home appliances (so-called "white goods") industry. This is a producer-driven global value chain, characterized by mature technology and rapid delocalization to developing countries, where not only input costs are lower, but demand growth rates are higher - giving a decided latecomer advantage to these MNEs. Haier, Mabe and Arçelik leveraged their strategic partnership with established MNEs to upgrade their operations, evolving from the production of simple goods, into new product lines developed through their own design, branding and marketing capabilities. The recipe of their success has been the ability to treat global competition as an opportunity to build capabilities, move into more profitable industry segments, and adopt strategies that turn latecomer status into a source of competitive advantage. At the same time, their experiences show that there are many strategies and trajectories for going global.Internationalisation; latecomer; MNEs; white goods; Haier; Arcelik; Mabe

How Globalisation Improves Governance

Globalisation, governance and economic performance affect each other in very complex mutual relationships. In this paper, we establish a clear and well-circumscribed hypothesis: “is there an effect of globalisation on governance?” To test this hypothesis or, even more specifically, to test how openness can affect the quality of domestic institutions, we survey available theoretical explanations of causal relationships between globalisation and governance. Microeconomic theory helps us identify trade policy, competition by foreign producers and international investors, and openness-related differences in institution building costs and benefits, as three major transmission mechanisms through which openness affects a country’s corruption levels. Examining a large sample of countries covering a 20-year long period, we found robust empirical support for the fact that increases in import openness do indeed cause reductions in corruption, a crucial aspect of governance. The magnitude of the effect is also quite strong. After controlling for many cross-country differences, openness’ influence on corruption is close to one third of that exercised by the level of development. Some cautious policy conclusions are derived.Corruption, globalisation, governance, international trade.

Trade And Structural Adjustment Policies In Selected Developing Countries

The experience of the five examined industries (agro-food in Chile, cut flowers in Kenya,garment in Lesotho and in Mauritius and seafood in Thailand) demonstrates that non-traditional industries can emerge and achieved strong growth rates in very diverse settings in terms of geography and initial economic and social conditions. In most of these cases, the government adopted a relatively export-oriented, business- friendly attitude and adapted its policies as the industries developed. Hence, a key factor for successful structural adjustment has been the pro-active role of government in establishing an enabling economic and policy environment that allows local firms to operate on a level-playing field and strengthen their competitive edge in international markets. This highlights the importance of implementing trade policies in the framework of comprehensive development strategies and establishing a consultative national policy-making process for ensuring a coherent approach to trade and structural adjustment. The case studies also underscore that countries (government and industry) are compelled to constantly adapt in light of new sources of competition, growing wage levels, environmental constraints, technological advances and demanding product and process standards. Policy-makers in most countries under review are aware of this challenge. As a consequence, some of them have taken the initiative to set up specific mechanisms or programmes for further enhancing the competitiveness of existing export sectors and/or promoting emerging non-traditional export industries.Trade and structural adjustment, export diversification, trade capacity building

Lo stock di capitale nelle regioni italiane

L'interesse per lo studio delle dinamiche economiche regionali è stato a lungo ostacolato dalla carenza di dati utilizzabili. In questo lavoro si descrive la costruzione di una banca dati dello stock di capitale, sia privato che pubblico, nelle regioni italiane. Entrambi sono costruiti con la tecnica dell'inventario permanente. Il capitale privato - disponibile dal 1970 al 1995 per tre tipologie di beni è costruito utilizzando le serie degli investimenti fissi per branca utilizzatrice dell'industria, ottenute a partire da dati di diversa provenienza. L'investimento pubblico aggregato è ripartito per regione e per tipologia di bene utilizando i dati contenuti nella pubblicazione annuale dell'ISTAT ''Opere Pubbliche''. Utilizzando i dati di investimento così ottenuti, si calcolano le stime del capitale publico regionale, per nove categorie di beni, per gli anni dal 1970 al 1996

Accelerated Internationalisation by Emerging Multinationals: The Case of the White Goods Sector

The emergence of a "second wave" of developing-country multinational enterprises (MNEs) in a variety of industries is one of the characterizing features of globalization. This paper documents how emerging markets' MNEs (EM-MNEs) may follow quite different patterns to reach, or at least approach, global competitiveness. In particular, it investigates how three EM-MNEs pursued global growth through accelerated internationalization combined with strategic and organizational innovation. Haier (China), Mabe (Mexico) and Arçelik (Turkey) emerged as multinationals in the large home appliances (so-called "white goods") industry. The recipe for the success of these firms seems to lie in their ability to treat global competition as an opportunity to build capabilities, move into more profitable industry segments, and adopt strategies that turn latecomer status into a source of competitive advantage. At the same time, their experiences show that there are many strategies and trajectories for going global, consistent with a pluralistic conceptualization of globalization.The emergence of a "second wave" of developing-country multinational enterprises (MNEs) in a variety of industries is one of the characterizing features of globalization. This paper documents how emerging markets' MNEs (EM-MNEs) may follow quite different patterns to reach, or at least approach, global competitiveness. In particular, it investigates how three EM-MNEs pursued global growth through accelerated internationalization combined with strategic and organizational innovation. Haier (China), Mabe (Mexico) and Arçelik (Turkey) emerged as multinationals in the large home appliances (so-called "white goods") industry. The recipe for the success of these firms seems to lie in their ability to treat global competition as an opportunity to build capabilities, move into more profitable industry segments, and adopt strategies that turn latecomer status into a source of competitive advantage. At the same time, their experiences show that there are many strategies and trajectories for going global, consistent with a pluralistic conceptualization of globalization.Refereed Working Papers / of international relevanc

Programas de transferencias condicionadas en la región. Mecanismos de focalización desde una perspectiva comparada entre Uruguay y Costa Rica

El trabajo tiene como objetivo contextualizar y analizar los mecanismos de focalización que utilizan los Programas de Transferencias Condicionadas (PTC) en América Latina para seleccionar sus beneficiarios/as. Desde una perspectiva comparada se realiza una caracterización y evaluación de los desempeños de la focalización en dos casos de PTC de la región: el programa Asignaciones Familiares del Plan de Equidad (AFAM-PE) de Uruguay y el programa Avancemos de Costa Rica. A partir de evidencia reciente sobre la ventaja comparativa en términos de reducción de errores de exclusión e inclusión que demuestran los modelos con base en Inteligencia Artificial (IA) y Aprendizaje Estadístico (AE) para el caso de Costa Rica, se presentan resultados asociados y se problematiza acerca de las implicancias prácticas y éticas que tiene su utilización en la toma de decisiones con alto impacto social, como es el caso de los criterios de elegibilidad de los PTC. Se realizan ensayos para el caso de AFAM-PE, a partir del procesamiento de la Encuesta Continua de Hogares (ECH) de 2018, y se comparan rendimientos de los modelos basados en AE (Random Forest y Stochastic Gradient Boosting) con respecto al método econométrico (Probit) que sirven construir el Índice de Carencias Críticas (ICC) del Ministerio de Desarrollo Social (Mides) y definir la eligibilidad. Así también, se analiza y compara la importancia de las variables incluidas y se exploran modelos alternativos considerando otras variables predictoras posibles. Entre los resultados presentados se halla que los modelos de AE ensayados para el caso de AFAM-PE, al igual que lo indicaba la evidencia para el caso de Costa Rica, presentan ventajas significativas en cuanto a reducción de errores de exclusión e inclusión entre los menores de edad, logrando mayores niveles de exactitud en la clasificación de la población objetivo. En el caso del Random Forest, el cual presenta mejor rendimiento, se logra una reducción de 11,3 % de los errores con respecto al modelo Probit utilizado para la construcción del ICC.The work aims to contextualize and analyze the targeting mechanisms, used by Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs, in Latin America with the purpose of selecting their beneficiaries. From a comparative perspective, a characterization and evaluation of the performance of the targeting is carried out in two cases of PTC in the region: the Family Allowances program of the Equity Plan (AFAM-PE) of Uruguay and the Avancemos program in Costa Rica. Based on recent evidence on the comparative advantage, in terms of reduction of exclusion and inclusion errors, provided by the models based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Statistical Learning (SL) for the case of Costa Rica, associated results are presented and problematized in relation to the practical and ethical implications of its use in decision-making with high social impact, as is the case with the eligibility criteria of the PTC programs. Tests are conducted for the case of AFAM-PE, based on the processing of the Continuous Household Survey (ECH) of 2018, and performances of the models based on SL (Random Forest and Stochastic Gradient Boosting) are compared with respect to the econometric method (Probit) that serve to build the Critical Deficiency Index (ICC) of the Uruguayan Ministry of Social Development (Mides) and define eligibility. Likewise, the importance of the included variables is analyzed, compared and alternative models are explored considering other possible predictor variables. Among the results presented it is found that the models of SL tested for the case of AFAM-PE, as indicated by the evidence for the case of Costa Rica, have significant advantages in terms of reducing exclusion and inclusion errors among underage popula- tions, achieving higher levels of accuracy in the classification of the target population. In the case of the Random Forest, which has better performance, an 11.3 % reduction in errors is achieved with respect to the Probit model used for the construction of the ICC.Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovación (ANII) mediante la Beca de Maestría Nacional en Áreas estratégica