Argentina : trade patterns and challenges ahead

Argentinean export growth was impressive during the recent economic boom (2003-2007). However, decomposing export growth reveals that the extensive margin (increases in exports of existing products to existing markets) dominates, while the intensive margin (increases in exports of new products or new markets) contributes little to export growth. Argentina's trade product concentration has increased in the past 10 years, and the main export products remain overwhelmingly natural-resource intensive. The little diversification of non-primary exports limits the country’s ability to weather a decline in export commodity prices. The country has had some success finding new export markets, especially in Latin America, but should seek to develop deeper trade relationships with high GDP export destinations such as the European Union and the United States. Another challenge going forward is the relatively low sophistication of exports and limited integration into the global production chains, falling behind regional competitors such as Brazil. This calls for policy measures to improve the ability of existing firms to innovate and compete successfully in global markets.Economic Theory&Research,Trade Policy,Free Trade,Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Emerging Markets

Fiscal and social impact of a nominal exchange rate devaluation in Djibouti

Limited fiscal space limits Djibouti's ability to meet the Millennium Development Goals and improve the living conditions of its population. Djibouti's fiscal structure is unique in that almost 70 percent of government revenue is denominated in foreign currency (import taxes, foreign aid grants, and military revenue) while over 50 percent of government expenditure is denominated in local currency (wages, salaries, and social transfers). Djibouti's economic structure is also unusual in that merchandise exports of local origin are insignificant, and the country relies heavily on imported goods (food, medicines, consumer and capital goods). A currency devaluation, by reducing real wages, could potentially generate additional fiscal space that would help meet Djibouti's fundamental development goals. Using macroeconomic and household level data, the authors quantify the impact of a devaluation of the nominal exchange rate on fiscal savings, real public sector wages, real income, and poverty under various hypothetical scenarios of exchange-rate pass-through and magnitude of devaluation. They find that a currency devaluation could generate fiscal savings in the short-term, but it would have an adverse effect on poverty and income distribution. A 30 percent nominal exchange rate devaluation could generate fiscal savings amounting between 3 and 7 percent of GDP. At the same time, a 30 percent nominal devaluation could cause nearly a fifth of the poorest households to fall below the extreme poverty line and pull the same fraction of upper middle-income households below the national poverty line. The authors also find that currency devaluation could generate net fiscal savings even after accounting for the additional social transfers needed to compensate the poor for their real income loss. However, the absence of formal social safety nets limits the government's readiness to provide well-targeted and timely social transfers to the poor.Economic Theory&Research,Economic Stabilization,Rural Poverty Reduction,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Macroeconomic Management

What drives firm productivity growth ?

This paper presents new evidence on the causal links between changes in the business environment and firm productivity growth. It contributes to the literature in three important aspects. First, it constructs a unique database merging information from two large firm-level databases. The samples of both databases are merged on four criteria-country, sub-national location, firm size, and year-producing a panel of 22,004 firms in eight economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia,, Poland, Romania, Serbia, and Ukraine. Second, the paper addresses shortcomings of earlier studies, namely reverse causation, multicollinearity, and unreliable productivity estimates. Firm productivity growth is estimated drawing on corporate financial data from manufacturing firms included in the AMADEUS database. Changes in the business environment are estimated from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys conducted in 2002 and 2005. Multicollinearity problems in the full model regression are mitigated by constructing a set of six aggregate indicators of the business environment (using principal component analysis). The paper finds that, over the period 2001 to 2004, an increase of one standard deviation in infrastructure quality, financial development, governance, labor market flexibility, labor quality, and market competition raises the total factor productivity of the average firm by 9.8, 7.8, 3.2, 3.4, 5.8, and 3 percent, respectively. Lastly, the paper decomposes firm productivity growth and ranks the relative impact of changes in these six aspects of the business environment by country, by firm size, and by industry.E-Business,Banks&Banking Reform,Labor Policies,Governance Indicators,Economic Theory&Research

A Note on the String Dual of N=1 SQCD-like Theories

In this note we describe how N=1 SQCD-like theories with a large number of flavors can be given a dual description in terms of a string background containing a large number of additional D5-branes. The dual geometries account for the backreaction of the additional branes: they depend on the ratio between the number of flavors and colors of the gauge theory. This note is based on hep-th/0602027. We present here also a new set of solutions, which are not included in the original paper.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures. Contribution to the proceedings of the RTN project "Constituents, Fundamental Forces and Symmetries of the Universe" conference in Naples, October 9 - 13, 200

Nuove “possibilità di relazione”: l'Informale oltre l'Informale

La mostra Possibilità di relazione, allestita nel maggio del 1960 presso la galleria L'Attico di Roma e curata da Enrico Crispolti, Roberto Sanesi ed Emilio Tadini, ha un valore significativo rispetto al tessuto culturale italiano tra la fine degli anni cinquanta e l'inizio del decennio seguente. In occasione di quella esposizione, infatti, emergono, anche sul piano teorico grazie agli interventi in catalogo dei curatori e di alcuni degli artisti che vi partecipano, questioni importanti, relative ai caratteri precipui di una pittura che potremmo ascrivere all'area della Nuova Figurazione e al suo rapporto con il linguaggio Informale, che non viene rifiutato tout court, ma aggiornato rispetto a nuove esigenze comunicative, sentite ormai come ineludibili per gli artisti attivi all'aprirsi degli anni sessanta. Ponendosi in linea con le più avanzate ricerche artistiche internazionali, questa mostra si propone una nuova interpretazione dell'atto artistico, che va oltre l' Informale, senza rinnegarlo ma aprendolo a maggiori “possibilità di relazione”.The exhibition Possibilità di relazione, organized by curators Enrico Crispolti, Roberto Sanesi and Emilio Tadini at Galleria L’Attico in Rome in May 1960, is a valuable document of the cultural turmoil in Italy in the late Fifties and Early Sixties. On that occasion, important questions are raised, also on a theoretical level, by the curators and some of the artists who published their point of view in the catalogue: first of all, the specific characters of New Figuration painting and its relationship with the language of Informale, which is not entirely rejected, but rather brought up to date with the new need for communication artists are now feeling as inescapable. While erasing the gap with the most progressive statements of international art, the exhibit suggests a new interpretation of the very act of art-making, and goes past the Informale not by denying it, but by giving it better “possibilities of relationship”

Estimating the import content of Argentine exports

Despite recent efforts toward collecting evidence of vertical specialization for developed economies, scarce work has been dedicated to developing economies and to Argentina, in particular. The key contribution of this paper is to provide comparable estimates of vertical specialization as reflected in the imported content of exports in Argentina. Drawing on the 1997 input-output matrix for Argentina, the authors estimate that the imported content of the country’s exports is about 14.5 percent of total exports, lower than for other emerging economies. They also provide estimates of imported content for more disaggregated product categories.Water and Industry,Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Commodities,Agribusiness&Markets,Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems

La Casa del Fascio di Como e le sue "decorazioni". Uno strumento di comunicazione del potere

La Casa del Fascio costruita a Como da Giuseppe Terragni è, senza dubbio, uno dei capolavori del Razionalismo italiano, declinato secondo i personali modi dell'architetto comasco. Come ha giustamente notato Diane Ghirardo, però, non pare plausibile limitarsi ad una lettura esclusivamente formale dell'edificio. Il senso profondo e il valore stesso della Casa del Fascio, infatti, possono essere compresi appieno soltanto considerando quello che era il progetto originario dell'architetto, quindi senza trascurare il ricco apparato “decorativo” che dell'edificio era parte integrante. Pensiamo, cioè, ai pannelli fotomeccanici progettati da Marcello Nizzoli per la facciata, che furono realizzati anche se mai collocati in sede, e agli interventi di Mario Radice per la Sala del Direttorio e per il Salone delle Adunate, distrutti nell'immediato dopoguerra; a tale proposito, non dobbiamo dimenticare anche gli interventi decorativi progettati dall'architetto stesso per la Sala del Federale e la Sala intitolata a Gigi Maino. In quest'ottica, la Casa del Fascio si presenta sotto un'altra luce, come un edificio di grande valore funzionale, ma di notevole interesse anche sul piano comunicativo.Giuseppe Terragni’s ‘Casa del Fascio’ in Como undoubtedly stands out as a masterpiece of Italian ‘Razionalismo’, though inflected according to the architect’s peculiar language. However, as rightly noted by Diane Ghirardo, a merely formal analysis of the building is not plausible. The underlying meaning and the very value of the ‘Casa del Fascio’ are fully perceivable only by taking into consideration the original project, without overlooking the opulent ‘decoration’ specifically intended as an integral part of the building. That includes Marcello Nizzoli’s photomechanical panels for the façade, built but never actually put in place, and Mario Radice’s works for the ‘Sala del Direttorio’ and the ‘Salone delle Adunate’, both destroyed in the immediate post-war; also worth mentioning are the decorative projects by the architect himself for the ‘Sala Federale’ and the room entitled to Gigi Maino. From such a perspective, the ‘Casa del Fascio’ appears under a renovated light, as a building of great functional value, but also as a very interesting communicational device