Foreign Owners and Plant Survival

In recent years, international capital flows of all types have increased dramatically and most governments have been actively encouraging inflows of direct investment. However, concerns remain that reliance on foreign multinationals may be a risky development strategy as foreign firms are likely to be less rooted in the local economy and may be quicker to close down production. This paper asks whether foreign owners are more likely to close plants than domestic owners. In Indonesia, plants with any foreign ownership are far less likely to close than wholly-owned domestic plants. However, the lower probability of shutdown is a result of the larger size of foreign plants rather than their nationality of ownership. Controlling for plant size and productivity, we find that foreign plants are significantly more likely to close than comparable domestic establishments.

Foreign Firms and Indonesian Manufacturing Wages: An Analysis With Panel Data

Wages in domestically- owned Indonesian manufacturing plants taken over by foreign firms increased sharply between the year before takeover and two years after takeover, relative to plants remaining in domestic ownership. Blue- collar wage levels in these plants had been less than 10 per cent above and white- collar wages more than 10 per cent below those in their industries a year before takeover. Two years after takeover both were more than 50 per cent above average. Wages in foreign plants taken over by domestic owners tended to rise less than average for their industries, although they remained above the domestic average. Thus, foreign firms did not select particularly high- wage plants to take over and it was foreign takeovers, rather than takeovers in general, that led to large An econometric analysis of the whole panel found that both foreign ownership throughout the period and foreign takeover resulted in higher wages relative to domestically- owned plants. The wage effects for white- collar employees were typically around twice those for blue- collar employees. Foreign takeovers were associated with large increases in blue- collar employment and both foreign and domestic takeovers with declines in white- collar employment. However, the employment changes were not strongly related to the wage changes.

Foreign Direct Investment and Wages in Indonesian Manufacturing

This paper asks two types of questions. One is about the behavior of foreign-owned firms in Indonesian labor markets and the other is about the effect of the presence of foreign-owned firms on Indonesian wages. We ask first whether foreign-owned plants pay a higher price for labor, that is, more than locally-owned plants for workers of a given quality, as we can measure it. We then ask whether foreign-owned plants pay a higher price for labor given the characteristics of the plants such as their size, industry, and location. The answer is that foreign firms do pay a higher price, and even a higher price given their plant characteristics. The second set of questions is whether a larger presence of foreign-owned plants results in higher wages in locally-owned plants and overall. Higher foreign presence leads to higher wages in locally-owned plants. Since the foreign plants also pay higher wages than locally-owned ones, the two factors together mean that higher foreign presence raises the general wage level in a province and industry.

Globalization and Imperfect Labor Market Sorting

This paper focuses on the ability of the labor market to correctly match heterogeneous workers to jobs within a given industry and the role that globalization plays in that process. Using matched worker-firm data from Sweden, we find strong evidence that openness improves the matching between workers and firms in export-oriented industries. This suggests that there may be significant gains from globalization that have not been identified in the past – globalization may improve the efficiency of the matching process in the labor market. On the other hand, we find no evidence that openness affects the degree of matching in import-competing industries. These results remain unchanged after adding controls for technical change at the industry level or measures of domestic anti-competitive regulations and product market competition. In addition, we find no evidence that technical change has any impact on the degree of matching at the industry level. Our results are also robust to alternative measures of the degree of matching, openness, or the trade status of an industry.Matching, Globalization, Firms, Workers, Multinational Enterprises, International Trade

A Study of Low GWP Refrigerants for Transport Refrigeration based on Hermetic Scroll Compressors with an Economizer

One hermetic scroll compressor with an economizer port that is built initially for R404A has been tested with R404A in a compressor calorimeter. The testing has been completed on several running conditions to create a compressor operating map. Based on this map, a compressor efficiency model has been created. This model has been used to calculate capacity, COP and discharge temperature for frozen and fresh conditions in the transport refrigeration application with R452A, R454A and R454C. The capacity, COP and discharge temperature for those frozen and fresh conditions are compared with R404A. Another hermetic scroll compressor with an economizer port that is built initially for R134a has been tested with R134a in a compressor calorimeter. The testing has been completed on several running conditions to create a compressor operating map. Based on this map, a compressor efficiency model has been created. This model has been used to calculate capacity, COP and discharge temperature for frozen and fresh conditions in the transport refrigeration application with R513A and R1234yf. The capacity, COP and discharge temperature for those frozen and fresh conditions are compared with R134a. Furthermore, a general comparison is made between the two different compressors and the two different refrigerants, where one is tested on R404A and the other is tested on R134a. In this case, COP and discharge temperature is compared. Since some of the refrigerants have glide characteristics, calculations based on dew-point and mid-point are compared

Bio-solar cells incorporating catalase for stabilization of thylakoid bioelectrodes during direct photoelectrocatalysis

pre-printThylakoid membranes have been proposed for electrochemical solar energy conversion, but they have been plagued with short term instability. In this paper, thylakoid membranes extracted from Spinacia oleracea were physically adsorbed onto Toray paper electrodes with and without catalase, followed by entrapment in a vapor deposited silica matrix. The bioelectrodes were tested using voltammetry and amperometry and tested in a complete photobioelectrochemical cell. Upon subsequent polarization experiments, a significant decrease in the maximum current density from 1.53 ± 0.13 μAcm−2 to 0.75 ± 0.14 μAcm−2 was observed without catalase present. When catalase was included in the anode, this current decrease was not observed, showing the importance of catalase to scavenge reactive oxygen species produced by the thylakoids during photoelectrocatalysis

Lower GWP Refrigerants Compared to R404A for Economizer Style Compressors

Two economizer style compressors are explored, where the high pressure liquid is sub-cooled with a heat exchanger while the evaporation side in the heat exchanger is connected to an intermediate port with higher pressure than the suction pressure and lower pressure than the discharge pressure. One of the compressors is a screw compressor and the other one is a scroll compressor. One of the compressors is an open shaft compressor and the other one is a hermetic style compressor. Both compressor styles have been modeled based on test data with R404A and at conditions mainly corresponding to TRU (transport refrigeration unit) applications. Those compressor models have been used to explore lower GWP refrigerants such as R407A, R407F, N-40a, DR7 and DR33. For each compressor model each alternative refrigerant is compared with the baseline refrigerant R404A, based on capacity, coefficient of performance and discharge temperature. GWP of the refrigerants are compared as well. There is also some discussion relative to the indirect GWP and how it can correlate to the compressors coefficient of performance