Trade, technical progress and the environment: the role of a unilateral green tax on consumption

The paper proposes a two-country general equilibrium model of endogenous growth and trade between two regions, North and South, with different environmental standards. Pollution is a by-product of consumption and in order to abate it the northern region unilaterally imposes a green tax on consumption. As the tax affects domestic demand of consumer goods according to their pollution intensities, regardless of where those goods are produced, the model shows that such a unilateral environmental policy can increase the speed of technological change and pollution abatement in both regions.Trade, environment, consumption externality, technological change

Endogenous growth and trade liberalization between asymmetric countries

The paper presents a general equilibrium model of endogenous growth and trade between two countries, an advanced country (A) and a backward country (B). The development stage is summarized by the level of knowledge stock accumulated through R&D investments. The latter generates technological progress that intermediate goods producing firms, operating under increasing returns to scale and monopolistic competition, perform to obtain process innovations (reduction of production costs) when they are incumbents, or product innovations if they are new entrants. The model shows that convergence in long-run growth rates can be obtained even in absence of international technology spillover, in which case, under the assumption of no variety overlap, the gain from trade will be only static. Dynamic effects will be delivered instead in presence of an initial overlap in the varieties produced in the two countries, together with a wide gap in unit production costs. In this case it is shown that the impact of trade liberalization on firms profits might generate a cumulative causation process which may lead to a polarization of innovative productions in the advanced country.endogenous growth; trade liberalization; scale effect.

Environmental regulation and revealed comparative advantages in Europe: is China a pollution haven?

The relocation of more polluting industries in poorer countries due to gaps in environmental standards is known as the pollution haven effect, whereby the scale and the composition of output change across countries. Changes in the composition of the output mix might translate into changes of comparative advantages across countries, as revealed by trade flows. This paper focus on this issue and looks at the changes of bilateral revealed comparative advantages (RCAs) in the last decade between China and the major fourteen EU countries (EU14). Using industry level data on bilateral trade, air pollution, water pollution and several measures of environmental stringency, we find that, controlling for other factors that may have affected RCAs, such as labor costs, on average our EU14 countries have kept or improved their advantages with respect to China in both water polluting industries (such as paper and agro-based industries) and air polluting industries (such as basic metals and chemicals), while they have lost competitiveness in the more clean industries (such as machinery and fabricated metals).revealed comparative advantages, environmental regulation, industrial pollution

Technology transfer and economic growth in developing countries: an econometric analysis

In this paper we investigate two potential channels of international technology transfer towards developing countries: trade and foreign direct investments. We study the extent to which, through these channels, research and development expenditures (R&D) performed by advanced countries affect total factor productivity (TFP) levels in a panel of 45 developing countries over the period 1980-2000. Paying particular attention to the potential spillovers effects stemming from human capital, we estimate a TFP equation using the FMOLS technique. Our findings show that both channels induce substantial technology transfer across countries. In addition each developing country, for a given amount of foreign R&D, enjoys bigger spillovers the higher its educational level.Technology transfer, Economic growth, Trade, FDI

Assessing the vulnerability of emerging Asia to external demand shocks: the role of China

The paper assesses the vulnerability of China to external shocks via the indirect negative effect of a slow-down in exports on domestic demand for investment. In the last decade China has increased its dependence on external demand, particularly from the advanced countries; at the same time it has become a primary destination market for goods produced in the rest of emerging Asia. Since 2001 investment expenditures have represented a key driver of Chinese GDP growth; as a very large share of activity in the manufacturing sector is export oriented, we expect fixed capital investment in this sector to be highly related to exports. Overcoming serious shortcomings in available data, we estimate an investment equation for the period 1993-2006 and find an elasticity of investment to exports in the manufacturing sector in the range between 0.9 and 1. Taking into account the dominant contribution of capital accumulation to Chinese GDP growth, we conclude that the growth effects of an external demand shock could become significant when taking into account the domestic investment channel.exports, investment, elasticity

Comparative Advantage Patterns and Domestic Determinants in Emerging Countries: An Analysis with a Focus on Technology

During the last two decades a number of emerging economies have become deeply engaged in technology-intensive production. This has been reflected in their international trade specialization shifting from labour-intensive goods towards capital-intensive ones, and in rapid productivity gains across all manufacturing activities. The paper investigates for a sample of sixteen emerging countries, the linkages between the pattern of revealed comparative advantages (RCAs), captured by a modified version of the Lafay index of international trade specialization, and the competitiveness structure of the domestic manufacturing sector, measured by a set of industry and country-specific variables. Positive and large RCAs are found to be associated with low unit labour costs in both low-technology (high labour-intensive) and medium- or high tech sectors. On the other hand, domestic accumulation of physical capital is associated with positive and large RCAs in medium- or high technology sectors. The international disadvantage (negative RCAs) in technology-intensive production tends to deepen for countries with low human capital, whereas it diminishes for countries with large domestic markets importing technology through foreign capital goods.revealed comparative advantages, technological up-grading

Households' savings in China

This paper studies the determinants of Chinese households’ saving. Domestic saving in China is the highest in the world in terms of GDP and it is mirrored in a large and persistent current account surplus. First, we show that notwithstanding the rising contribution of government and firms to national savings, they stand out because of households’ behaviour. Our econometric analysis proceeds from the work of Modigliani and Cao (2004) that explained rising personal saving in China within the life-cycle hypothesis. We prove that their explanation is insufficient. Then, using panel data and exploiting differences among provinces and between urban and rural households, we show that there is a significant dissimilarity in savings decisions in urban and rural areas and that motives other than those envisaged in the life-cycle model might play a major role, above all precautionary savings and liquidity constraints. Our results suggest that to reduce the propensity to save of Chinese households it is necessary to improve the provision of social services and to facilitate access to credit.China, saving rate, precautionary savings

Bistable Clustering in Driven Granular Mixtures

The behavior of a bidisperse inelastic gas vertically shaken in a compartmentalized container is investigated using two different approaches: the first is a mean-field dynamical model, which treats the number of particles in the two compartments and the associated kinetic temperatures in a self-consistent fashion; the second is an event-driven numerical simulation. Both approaches reveal a non-stationary regime, which has no counterpart in the case of monodisperse granular gases. Specifically, when the mass difference between the two species exceeds a certain threshold the populations display a bistable behavior, with particles of each species switching back and forth between compartments. The reason for such an unexpected behavior is attributed to the interplay of kinetic energy non-equipartition due to inelasticity with the energy redistribution induced by collisions. The mean-field model and numerical simulation are found to agree qualitatively.Comment: 23 pages, 12 figure

Estrategia de recuperación de un sector de la Cuenca Matanza Riachuelo mediante fitorremediación asistida por microorganismos

Varios grupos de investigación trabajan desde hace tiempo con el fin de diseñar estrategias de saneamiento integral para la cuenca Matanza Riachuelo, que sean de bajo costo y buena aceptabilidad social. La implantación de humedales artificiales basados en especies macrófitas de diferente porte se presenta como una alternativa promisoria. En ese contexto se ha documentado que algunos microorganismos asociativos o endófitos podrían ser especialmente útiles para maximizar el crecimiento de tales especies, así como para optimizar la remoción de tóxicos orgánicos o inorgánicos y la recuperación de los niveles de O 2 disuelto en el agua. Sobre la base de esta idea, investigadores del CONICET, de la UBA y de la Agencia de Protección Ambiental del Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (APRA) han emprendido un trabajo colaborativo que apunta a diseñar una estrategia de fitorremediación asistida por microorganismos tomando como base el caso del arroyo Cildáñez.Fil: Zawoznik, Myriam. Universidad de Buenos AiresFil: Bigi, Roxana. Buenos Aires. Agencia de Protección AmbientalFil: Marconi, Patricia L.. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y TécnicasFil: Groppa, María Daniela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnica

Thermal convection in mono-disperse and bi-disperse granular gases: A simulation study

We present results of a simulation study of inelastic hard-disks vibrated in a vertical container. An Event-Driven Molecular Dynamics method is developed for studying the onset of convection. Varying the relevant parameters (inelasticity, number of layers at rest, intensity of the gravity) we are able to obtain a qualitative agreement of our results with recent hydrodynamical predictions. Increasing the inelasticity, a first continuous transition from the absence of convection to one convective roll is observed, followed by a discontinuous transition to two convective rolls, with hysteretic behavior. At fixed inelasticity and increasing gravity, a transition from no convection to one roll can be evidenced. If the gravity is further increased, the roll is eventually suppressed. Increasing the number of monolayers the system eventually localizes mostly at the bottom of the box: in this case multiple convective rolls as well as surface waves appear. We analyze the density and temperature fields and study the existence of symmetry breaking in these fields in the direction perpendicular to the injection of energy. We also study a binary mixture of grains with different properties (inelasticity or diameters). The effect of changing the properties of one of the components is analyzed, together with density, temperature and temperature ratio fields. Finally, the presence of a low-fraction of quasi-elastic impurities is shown to determine a sharp transition between convective and non-convective steady states.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication on Physical Review