Is Learning by Migrating in Megalopolis Really Important?

This paper examines learning by migrating effects on the productivity of migrants who move to the "megalopolis" from rural areas utilizing the Thailand Labor Force Survey Data. The main contribution of this paper is to develop a simple framework to empirically test for self-selection on the migration decision and learning by migrating. The role of the characteristics of the urban labour market is also examined. In conclusion, we find self-selection effects test (1) positive among new migrants from rural area (i.e. "new entrants" to the urban labour market); and (2) negative among new migrants who move to rural areas (i.e. "new exits" from the urban labour market). These results suggest a natural selection (survival of the fittest) mechanism exists in the urban labour market.Self-selection, Learning by migrating, Survival of the fittest, Natural Experiment

Spatial Architecture of the Production Networks in Southeast Asia

The main purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the inter-firm production networks in Southeast Asian developing economies. Using firm-level data obtained from a questionnaire survey of manufacturing firms in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam in 2008, this paper presents the regional distribution of main customers and suppliers and their geographical proximity. Firm-level capabilities and transaction costs associated with specific inter-firm relationships would influence the distances between customers and suppliers. Ordered logistic estimations are carried out to examine factors affecting the spatial architecture of the production networks in the region.

Innovation in Linked and Non-linked Firms: Effects of Variety of Linkages in East Asia

This paper proposes a new mechanism linking innovation and network in developing economies to detect explicit production and information linkages and investigates the testable implications of these linkages using survey data gathered from manufacturing firms in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. In-house R&D activities, internal resources, and linkages with local firms and foreign firms play a role in reducing the costs of product and process innovation and search costs for finding new suppliers and customers. We found that firms with more varieties of information linkages achieve more types of innovations. Complementarities between internal and external sources of knowledge are also found.- innovation, linkages, sources of knowledge, dissimilarity, complementarities

Innovation in Linked and Non-linked Firms: Effects of Variety of Linkages in East Asia

This paper proposes a new mechanism linking innovation and networks in developing economies to detect explicit production and information linkages. It investigates the testable implications of these linkages using survey data gathered from manufacturing firms in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. In-house R&D activities, internal resources, and linkages with local and foreign firms play a role in reducing the costs of product-and process innovation, and the search costs of finding new suppliers and customers. We found that firms with more variety of information linkages achieve more types of innovation. Complementarities between internal and external sources of knowledge are also found.

Impacts of Incoming Knowledge on Product Innovation: Technology Transfer in Auto-related Industries in Developing Economies

This paper studies two questions on the role of networked sources of knowledge influential to product innovation. First: What is the extent of technology transferred through vertical linkages and public-private alliances, including university-industry linkages, in the phase of product improvement and development? Second: What types of knowledge are transferred from external technology sources? In a sample of ASEAN firms’ self-reported partner data restricted to automotive related industries, we found that direct linkages with MNC customers in foreign countries resulted in a lower propensity of product innovation. Indeed, incoming knowledge from MNC customers relating to the management of quality of existing products especially explained the lower propensity of product innovation. We also found that production linkages with MNC suppliers in foreign countries resulted in a higher propensity of product innovation. Incoming knowledge from MNC suppliers about quality controls explained a lower propensity of product innovation. These findings empirically indicate that networked sources of knowledge have a significant influence trade-off between maintaining existing operations and developing new products. The impacts of public-private alliances on innovation are sizable compared with the impacts of vertical linkages. Public-private alliances and vertical linkages offer knowledge with different effects on product innovation.

Linked versus Non-linked Firms in Innovation: The Effects of Economies of Network in Agglomeration in East Asia

This paper proposes a new mechanism linking innovation and network in developing economies to detect explicit production and information linkages and investigates the testable implications of these linkages using survey data gathered from manufacturing firms in East Asia. We found that firms with more information linkages tend to innovate more, have a higher probability of introducing new goods, introducing new goods to new markets using new technologies, and finding new partners located in remote areas. We also found that firms that dispatched engineers to customers achieved more innovations than firms that did not. These findings support the hypothesis that production linkages and faceâ€toâ€face communication encourage product and process innovation.Southeast Asia, East Asia, Technological innovations, Network, Communication, Business enterprises, Engineer Mobility, Innovation, Linkages

Career Crisis? Impacts of Financial Shock on the Entry-Level Labor Market: Evidence from Thailand

We utilize Thailand\u27s the financial crisis in 1997 as a natural experiment which exogenously shifts labor demand. Convincing evidence from the Thailand Labor Force Survey support the hypothesis that both employment opportunities and wages shrunk for new entrants after the crisis. We find that workers who entered before the crisis experienced job losses and wage losses. But these losses were smaller than those of new entrants after the crisis. We also find that new entrants after the crisis experienced a 10% reduction in the overtime wages compared to new entrants before the crisis

Chapter 3 Knowledge Exchanges and Innovation in Connected Firms: Evidence from Upstream-Downstream Relationships

This paper proposes evidences for linking innovation and knowledge exchanges in developing economies towards a comprehensive theory of new economic geography in the knowledge based spatial economy. Firms which dispatched engineers to customers achieved more innovations than firms which did not. Mutual sharing of knowledge also stimulates innovations. A just-in-time relationship is effective for dealing with upgrading production process. But such strong complementarities with partners are not effective for product innovation.. These evidences support the hypothesis that face-to-face communication and complementarities among production linkages have different roles in knowledge creation.Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Economic geography, Econometric model, Research & development, Technological innovations, Innovation, Network, Knowledge exchanges, Insider econometrics

A new empirical regularity in world income distribution dynamics, 1960-2001

The aim of this paper is to present a new empirical regularity in world income distribution using cross-country panel data, 1960-2001. It shows the fact that the real cross-country GDP per capita is significantly approximated to a geometric sequence, and that its common ratio is decreasing consistently during the period. It seems rather natural to believe that inequality is not necessarily permanent in our economy.

Are Job Networks Localized in a Developing Economy? Search Methods for Displaced Workers in Thailand

Effects of localized personal networks on the choice of search methods are studied in this paper using evidence of displaced workers by establishment closure in Thailand Labor Force Survey, 2001. For the blocks/villages level, there is less significant evidence of local interactions between job-seekers and referrals in developing labor markets. The effects of localized personal networks do not play an important role in the probability of unemployed job-seekers seeking assistance from friends and relatives. Convincing evidence from the data supports the proposition that both self-selection of individual background-like professions and access to large markets determine the choice of job search method