On the Latin American Growth Paradox: A Hindsight into the Golden Age

In 1950, Latin American countries capabilities were promising, and the subcontinent was thought to have a big potential for convergence. In order to understand why this prediction was not fullled, we apply in this paper the framework set by Fagerberg and Srholec (2008). Our study of the economic evolution of Latin America during the Golden Age (1950-1975) is based on historical data on economic, political and social variables from 18 countries. We use a factor analysis to classify our 20 indicators into ve dimensions: the level of "industrialization", "human capital", the "macroeconomic fundamentals", "politics" and "religion". We nd that only the quality of human capital and the presence of Roman Catholics signicantly and positively aected Latin American economic growth in this period, while the determinants traditionally put forward in the empirical growth literature, such as technical change and openness, did not. Finally, the positive correlation between the religion and education variables reveals that this result is partly related to the role of the Catholic Church as an educational institution.Growth; Development; Convergence; Factor Analysis; Latin America;Economic History; Golden Age.

Firm export diversification and change in workforce composition

The objective of this paper is to show that part of the fixed cost of firms’ trade expansion is due to the acquisition of new internal capabilities (e.g. technology, production processes or skills), which imply a costly change in the firm’s internal labor organisation. We investigate the relationship between a firm’s structure of labor, in terms of relative number of managers, and the scope of its export portfolio, in terms of product-destination varieties. The empirical analysis is based on a matched employer- employee dataset covering the population of French firms from tradable sectors over the period 2009-2014. Our analysis suggests that market expansion, and in particular export diversification, is associated with a change in the firm’s workforce composition, namely an increase in the number of managerial layers and in the ratio of managers. We show how these results are consistent with a simple model where the complexity of a firm’s operations increases in the number of product-destination couples exported, and where managers’ role is to address the unsolved problems arising from such increased complexity of operation

Unpacking Economic Uncertainty: Measuring the Firm, Sector and Aggregate Components

We introduce a novel method for measuring economic uncertainty at the firm, sector, and aggregate levels using sales volatility and validate it by comparison with existing macroeconomic uncertainty measures. We use Compustat firms data in the period 2000-2022 to construct our uncertainty measures for the U.S. economy. Our findings highlight that 1) macroeconomic conditions are the predominant source of firms’ uncertainty, 2) diverse firm traits yield notable heterogeneity, and 3) the manufacturing sector exhibits the highest uncertainty among sectors. Our findings shed light on the importance of firm and sectoral heterogeneity in studying uncertainty and its effects on economic activit

Dynamics of Investment and Firm Performance: Comparative evidence from manufacturing industries

If the relation between investment and economic growth is well established in the macroeconomic literature, the existence of a similar link at the level of the firm has been challenged by empirical work. This paper investigates the channels linking investment and firm performance in the French and Italian manufacturing industries. It does so by putting forth a novel methodology to identify investment spikes that corrects for size dependence. While maintaining the desired properties of a spike measure, our chosen proxy retrieves the expected relation between investment and firm performance. Ex-ante, more efficient and fast growing firms display a higher probability to invest; in turn, after an investment spike has taken place the group of investing firms shows further gains in performance. Finally, expansionary investment episodes, as proxied by the opening of new plants, have a negative effect on profitability while they are associated with higher sales and employment levels

L'impact attendu du CICE sur les exportations:Une analyse à partir de données d'entreprises

Nous étudions l'impact potentiel du CICE sur le comportement d'exportation des firmes françaises. Notre méthodologie combine des paramètres estimés ex-ante avec l'intensité de traitement observée ex post pour réaliser une évaluation des effets attendus. Selon nos résultats, un effet non négligeable du CICE sur la marge intensive des exportations peut être attendu. Le montant de la créance de 2013 devrait permettre d'observer, à terme, un surplus d'exportations de 1 %, alors que la créance CICE de 2014 permettrait un surplus de 1,3 %. En revanche, le CICE ne devrait pas avoir un impact sensible sur l'entrée de nouveaux exportateurs ou sur la survie d'anciens exportateurs qui seraient devenus plus compétitifs grâce au dispositif. L'entrée et la sortie du marché international sont très faiblement liées au coût salarial. Cependant, si le CICE se traduit à terme par une hausse de l'investissement, d'autres canaux de transmission pourraient influencer la marge extensive du commerce international

L'impact attendu du CICE sur les exportations : une analyse à partir de données d'entreprises

Nous étudions l'impact potentiel du CICE sur le comportement d'exportation des firmes françaises. Notre méthodologie combine des paramètres estimés ex-ante avec l'intensité de traitement observée ex post pour réaliser une évaluation des effets attendus. Selon nos résultats, un effet non négligeable du CICE sur la marge intensive des exportations peut être attendu. Le montant de la créance de 2013 devrait permettre d'observer, à terme, un surplus d'exportations de 1 %, alors que la créance CICE de 2014 permettrait un surplus de 1,3 %. En revanche, le CICE ne devrait pas avoir un impact sensible sur l'entrée de nouveaux exportateurs ou sur la survie d'anciens exportateurs qui seraient devenus plus compétitifs grâce au dispositif. L'entrée et la sortie du marché international sont très faiblement liées au coût salarial. Cependant, si le CICE se traduit à terme par une hausse de l'investissement, d'autres canaux de transmission pourraient influencer la marge extensive du commerce internationa

Firm export diversification and change in workforce composition

The objective of this paper is to show that part of the fixed cost of a firm’s trade expansion is due to the acquisition of new internal capabilities (e.g., technology, production processes or skills), which implies a costly change in the firm’s internal labor organization. We investigate the relationship between a firm’s labor structure, in terms of the relative number of managers, and the scope of its export portfolio, in terms of its product-destination varieties. The empirical analysis is based on a matched employer-employee dataset covering the population of French firms from tradable sectors over the period 2009-2015. Our analysis suggests that market ex- pansion, both through export entry and export diversification, is associated with a change in the firm’s workforce composition, namely an increase in the number of managerial layers. These results are generally confirmed with the use of an instrumental variable approach to control for reverse causality. We show how these results are consistent with a simple model, where the complexity of a firm’s operations increases with the number of product-destination couples ex- ported and the manager’s role is to address the unsolved problems arising from such increased operational complexity

Micro and macro policies in the Keynes + Schumpeter evolutionary models

This paper presents the family of the Keynes+Schumpeter (K+S, cf. Dosi et al, 2010, 2013, 2014) evolutionary agent-based models, which study the effects of a rich ensemble of innovation, industrial dynamics and macroeconomic policies on the long-term growth and short-run fluctuations of the economy. The K+S models embed the Schumpeterian growth paradigm into a complex system of imperfect coordination among heterogeneous interacting firms and banks, where Keynesian (demand-related) and Minskian (credit cycle) elements feed back into the meso and macro dynamics. The model is able to endogenously generate long-run growth together with business cycles and major crises. Moreover, it reproduces a long list of macroeconomic and microeconomic stylized facts. Here, we discuss a series of experiments on the role of policies affecting i) innovation, ii) industry dynamics, iii) demand and iv) income distribution. Our results suggest the presence of strong complementarities between Schumpeterian (technological) and Keynesian (demand-related) policies in ensuring that the economic system follows a path of sustained stable growth and employmen

Micro and macro policies in the Keynes +Schumpeter evolutionary models

Abstract This paper presents the family of the Keynes+Schumpeter (K+S, cf. Dosi et al, J Econ Dyn Control 34 1748–1767 2010, J Econ Dyn Control 37 1598–1625 2013, J Econ Dyn Control 52 166–189 2015) evolutionary agent-based models, which study the effects of a rich ensemble of innovation, industrial dynamics and macroeconomic policies on the long-term growth and short-run fluctuations of the economy. The K+S models embed the Schumpeterian growth paradigm into a complex system of imperfect coordination among heterogeneous interacting firms and banks, where Keynesian (demand-related) and Minskian (credit cycle) elements feed back into the meso and macro dynamics. The model is able to endogenously generate long-run growth together with business cycles and major crises. Moreover, it reproduces a long list of macroeconomic and microeconomic stylized facts. Here, we discuss a series of experiments on the role of policies affecting i) innovation, ii) industry dynamics, iii) demand and iv) income distribution. Our results suggest the presence of strong complementarities between Schumpeterian (technological