Agglomeration economies with consistent productivity estimates

This paper investigates the relative impact of microeconomic agglomeration mechanisms on plant’s total factor productivity (TFP) using German establishment and employment level data. Contrasting different strategies to estimate TFP from plant level production functions reveals that not accounting for the endogeneity of input choices and not separating price effects from true productivity leads to underestimated agglomeration economies. Under the preferred TFP measure, labor market pooling, captured by the correlation of the occupational composition between one county-industry and the rest of the county, is found to have the largest impact. Besides, two knowledge spillover mechanisms, transmitted via job changes and public R&D funding, positively affect plant productivity. Except for job changes the result is even robust when the spatial units are broadened from counties to labor market regions. Testing for urbanization and localization economies, I find that TFP is higher in more specialized and larger counties, whereas sectoral diversity is of no importance at the county level.agglomeration economies, modifiable areal unit problem , TFP estimation, price bias, localization, urbanization economies

Minimum comparable areas for the period 1872–2010: an aggregation of Brazilian municipalities

The number of municipalities in Brazil has risen continually, and consequentially the delineation of spatial units varies substantially over time. The present paper develops a routine for the generation of time-consistent 'Minimum Comparable Areas' (AMC) for any arbitrary sub-period between two census years in the range between the first and last demographic census 1872-2010. It relies on recently compiled material by the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The corresponding Stata code is provided in the Appendix of the paper. Thus, the developed AMCs are immediately accessible and enable long-term panel studies with regional data.Desde a era imperial, o número de municípios no Brasil tem aumentado contínua e substancialmente. Essas mudanças na delimitação das unidades espaciais representam uma dificuldade para qualquer pesquisa que pretenda utilizar dados regionais de diferentes anos. O presente artigo desenvolve uma rotina para a geração de "Áreas Mínimas Comparáveis" (AMC) consistentes em tempo para qualquer subperíodo arbitrário entre dois anos de censo na faixa entre o primeiro e o último censo demográfico 1872-2010. Baseia-se em material compilado recentemente pelo Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE). O código correspondente em Stata é fornecido no Apêndice do artigo. Assim, os AMCs desenvolvidos são imediatamente acessíveis e permitem estudos de painel de longo prazo com dados regionais. &nbsp

Task trade and the employment pattern: The offshoring and onshoring of Brazilian firms

This paper studies the effect of an expansion of imported intermediate inputs on establishments' average task intensities and employment size in a middle-income country. I use confidential matched employer-employee data and information on trade transactions for the universe of Brazilian firms. Propensity Score Matching indicates that import expansion leads to an overall employment growth, higher intensities in routine and non-routine manual tasks and an increased share of intermediates exports. Thus our findings point out that intermediates imports represent onshored instead of offshored tasks. This result remains unchanged regardless of whether imports from high- or low-wage countries are considered

A breakdown of residual wage inequality in Germany

The present paper applies several regression-based decomposition methods to analyze the impact of region-, worker-, irm- and sector-speciic determinants on the wage level and the continuous increase in wage inequality between 1995 and 2007 in Germany. In contrast to prior studies, more than 50% of the wage dispersion and almost the entire increase in wage inequality are explained in this approach. Altogether, the entire growth of wage dispersion occurs within regions and changes in the composition of wage determinants are minor compared to changes in their returns. I find that occupational attributes are the most important wage determinant. Changes in the firm size premium in combination with assortative matching also depress wages in the bottom of the distribution while they increase wages at the top. Workers with an unemployment record or an occupation in the service, construction and logistics sectors particularly experience falling wages

High-wage workers and high-productivity firms: A regional view on matching in Germany

This paper analyzes assortative matching between employers and employees and its interrelations with the employment density of local labor markets in Germany. I devote attention to the identiication of accurate quality measures: plants' total factor productivity and workers' fixed effect. Two different methods then yield evidence in favor of positive assortative matching. The correlation between both quality measures is positive. Wage gains amount up to 4% when both quality levels are equal. In a fairly general matching model, this shape of the wage curve arises due to complementarities of qualities in the production function. When generally higher productivities and wages in dense regions (caused by agglomeration economies and sorting) are not controlled for, the strength of matching and wage gains are overestimated. I also find that regional differences in matching quality cannot be attributed to the local density and unemployment rate

Design Evaluation of the Universalization Fund for Telecommunication Services in Brazil

The Universalization Fund for Telecommunications Services Fust was designed in 2000 to provide public investments to expand services in areas that needed to be better covered by the telecom carries However since its creation the fund lacks effectiveness The study seeks to evaluate this public policy and explain the practically non-existent results and impacts until now Our contribution is to structure this public policy using a logic model and the program theory of change to understand and evaluate the fund s regulatory design The analysis recognizes that the recent changes in Fust s legislation have improved its architecture and governance following suggestions from the international literature on universalization funds Nonetheless some additional regulatory adjustments are suggested such as creating more restrictive mechanisms to block or reallocate the fund s revenues keeping its steering committee active discussing new sources of revenue and improving communication and transparenc

Agglomeration economies with consistent productivity estimates

This paper investigates the relative impact of microeconomic agglomeration mechanisms on plant's total factor productivity (TFP) using German establishment and employment level data. Contrasting different strategies to estimate TFP from plant level production functions reveals that not accounting for the endogeneity of input choices and not separating price effects from true productivity leads to underestimated agglomeration economies. Under the preferred TFP measure, labor market pooling, captured by the correlation of the occupational composition between one county-industry and the rest of the county, is found to have the largest impact. Besides, two knowledge spillover mechanisms, transmitted via job changes and public R&D funding, positively affect plant productivity. Except for job changes the result is even robust when the spatial units are broadened from counties to labor market regions. Testing for urbanization and localization economies, I find that TFP is higher in more specialized and larger counties, whereas sectoral diversity is of no importance at the county level

Impacto da qualificação nas trajetórias profissionais dos servidores públicos federais

O presente projeto de pesquisa tem os seguintes objetivos: 1. Descrever o contexto institucional que regula a formação adicional de servidores públicos do executivo federal. 2. Analisar de forma descritiva a formação adicional de servidores públicos do executivo federal durante o período recente, conforme a disponibilidade de dados. 3. Mostrar de forma descritiva a mudança entre cargos e a relação destas mudanças com a formação adicional. 4. Estimar quais características individuais, regionais e institucionais afetam a probabilidade de um servidor público do executivo federal buscar formação adicional. 5. Estimar os efeitos da formação continuada sobre a remuneração dos servidores usando modelos econométricos. 6. Estimar os efeitos da formação continuada sobre a probabilidade de mudar de cargo usando modelos econométricos.82 páginasGestão de PessoasGestão PúblicaProjeto Básico 123/2021/CGDADOS/DAE/ENA

Aufsätze über Lohn- und Produktivitätsdisparitäten: Empirische Studien mit regionalem Fokus in Deutschland und Brasilien

The present thesis is based on four articles in the areas of labor economics, regional science and international trade. I make use of different micro-level data sets to evaluate reasons for performance disparities between firms and between workers and evaluate the interrelation of these disparities with characteristics of local labor markets. Chapter 1 of this thesis provides a discrimination between the effects of several agglomeration externalities on firms’ total factor productivity. The identification of TFP is not trivial, however. I thereby correct for biases due to unobserved output prices and the endogeneity of agglomeration economies. Traditional reasons, such as specialization, diversity and size of the county, as well as the more detailed Marshallian agglomeration economies, namely knowledge spillovers and labor market pooling, are jointly tested. It turns out that labor market pooling is the quantitatively most important agglomeration mechanism. It is captured by the correlation of the occupational composition between one county-industry and the rest of the county. The intuition behind it is that a plant readily finds suitable staff if sectors, which employ similar workers, have a large extent in the same region. Labor market pooling is still the dominant agglomeration force if the spatial boundaries of regions are changed. In general, the data demonstrate that the strength of agglomeration economies varies largely between sectors. Only for a subset of industries, some positive evidence is detected for knowledge spillovers. Chapter 2 analyzes labor market pooling in greater detail, but with a slightly different modeling than in chapter 1. Here, the central aspect of labor market pooling is based on the quality of workers and firms. The main questions are if there is a systematic matching in the labor market and if this matching pattern creates advantages for both parties. I devote attention to the identification of accurate quality measures: plants' total factor productivity and workers' fixed effect. Two different methods then yield evidence in favor of positive assortative matching. The correlation between both quality measures is positive. Wage gains amount up to 4% when both quality levels are equal. In a fairly general matching model, this shape of the wage curve arises due to complementarities of qualities in the production function. When generally higher productivities and wages in dense regions (caused by agglomeration economies and sorting) are not controlled for, the strength of matching and wage gains are overestimated. I also find that regional differences in matching quality cannot be attributed to the local density and unemployment rate. Chapter 3 applies several regression-based decomposition methods to analyze the impact of region-, worker-, firm- and sector-specific determinants on the wage level and the continuous increase in wage inequality between 1995 and 2007 in Germany. In contrast to prior studies, more than 50% of the wage dispersion and almost the entire increase in wage inequality are explained in this approach. Altogether, the entire growth of wage dispersion occurs within regions and changes in the composition of wage determinants are minor compared to changes in their returns. I find that occupational attributes are the most important wage determinant. Changes in the firm size premium in combination with assortative matching also depress wages in the bottom of the distribution while they increase wages at the top. Workers with an unemployment record or an occupation in the service, construction and logistics sectors particularly experience falling wages. Chapter 4 studies the effect of an expansion of imported intermediate inputs on establishments’ average task intensities and employment size in a middle-income country. I use confidential matched employer-employee data and information on trade transactions for the universe of Brazilian firms. Propensity Score Matching indicates that import expansion leads to an overall employment growth, higher intensities in routine and non-routine manual tasks and an increased share of intermediates exports. Thus my findings point out that intermediates imports represent onshored instead of offshored tasks. This result remains unchanged regardless of whether imports from high- or low-wage countries are considered

SETTLEMENT COLONIES X EXPLOITATION COLONIES: FROM HEEREN TO ACEMOGLU

Este trabalho apresenta a evolução da tese de que o tipo de colonização inicial determina, ou condiciona, o futuro das sociedades. Smith (1776) já apresentava essa proposição e uma tipologia das colônias. Contudo, foram os autores alemães Heeren (1817) e Roscher (1856) os responsáveis pelo desenvolvimento da tese. Esses historiadores influenciaram o economista Leroy-Beaulieu (1902). E foi a partir desse economista francês que Caio Prado Júnior se baseou para aplicar a tese “colônia de povoamento versus colônia de exploração” ao caso brasileiro. Já nos Estados Unidos, a ideia ressurge nas obras de North (1955, 1959) e de Baldwin (1956). Mais recentemente, os historiadores econômicos Engerman e Sokoloff (1997) aprofundaram a questão, sem fazer referência aos autores europeus. Finalmente, Acemoglu, Johnson e Robinson (2001, 2002) levaram a tese para um público acadêmico mais amplo e apresentaram evidências econométricas. O trabalho conclui que o sucesso acadêmico da tese em questão decorre de sua flexibilidade. Os analistas favoráveis à economia de mercado podem atribuir o desenvolvimento econômico à qualidade institucional associada às colônias de povoamento. Já os mais críticos enfatizam o caráter espoliador das colônias de exploração.The paper compares various forms of the thesis which states that the type of colonization determines or shapes the fate of societies. Smith (1776) already presented this proposition and a typology of colonies. Yet the German authors Heeren (1817) and Roscher (1856) were responsible for the elaboration of the thesis. These historians influenced the economist Leroy-Beaulieu (1902). And it was from this French economist that Caio Prado Júnior took the thesis “settlement colony versus exploitation colony” and applied it to the Brazilian history. In the United States, the idea reappears in the works of North (1955, 1959) and Baldwin (1956). More recently, economic historians Engerman and Sokoloff (1997) elaborated on the issue but without reference to European authors. Finally, Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2001, 2002) spread the thesis to a wider academic audience and presented econometric evidences. The paper concludes that the academic success of the thesis stems from its flexibility. Market-friendly analysts can attribute economic development to the quality of institutions associated with settlement colonies, while the more critical ones emphasize the spoiling character of the colonies of exploitation