Global Productivity Distribution and Trade in Processed Food Industries

The emerging literature on firm heterogeneity suggests that trade liberalization raises industry average productivity by forcing its least productive firms to exit. Consequently, resources and market shares are reallocated toward the industry¡¯s more productive firms. We extend firm-heterogeneity models of international trade to a cross-country setting to investigate the effects of trade liberalization on global productivity distribution, and resource and market share reallocation in processed food industries. We approximate the global productivity distribution using a kernel density estimator in 5 processed food industries for every period during 1993-2000. We find that the global productivity distribution shifts to the right with liberalized international trade. Moreover, countries with faster productivity growth than the global average benefit from trade liberalization by acquiring a larger share of global markets and resources.Agribusiness, International Relations/Trade,

Greening Supply Chains in China: Practical Lessons From China-Based Suppliers in Achieving Environmental Performance

Presents case studies of how five China-based suppliers are meeting international buyers' environmental requirements. Examines management processes; effective low-cost ways to reduce water pollution; and the roles of multistakeholders and third parties

Indecomposable representations and oscillator realizations of the exceptional Lie algebra G_2

In this paper various representations of the exceptional Lie algebra G_2 are investigated in a purely algebraic manner, and multi-boson/multi-fermion realizations are obtained. Matrix elements of the master representation, which is defined on the space of the universal enveloping algebra of G_2, are explicitly determined. From this master representation, different indecomposable representations defined on invariant subspaces or quotient spaces with respect to these invariant subspaces are discussed. Especially, the elementary representations of G_2 are investigated in detail, and the corresponding six-boson realization is given. After obtaining explicit forms of all twelve extremal vectors of the elementary representation with the highest weight {\Lambda}, all representations with their respective highest weights related to {\Lambda} are systematically discussed. For one of these representations the corresponding five-boson realization is constructed. Moreover, a new three-fermion realization from the fundamental representation (0,1) of G_2 is constructed also.Comment: 29 pages, 4 figure

Welfare Effects of Technological Convergence in the Food Industries

In this paper we investigate the welfare effects of technological convergence in the food industries. We extend Krugman's (1980) monopolistic competition model to allow for technological differences between two (groups of) countries. Technological convergence is reflected in a narrowing inter-country gap between fixed or marginal production cost, and the effects of convergence on output composition, factor rewards, trade pattern, and consumer welfare are derived. The theoretical predictions are examined and confirmed using an internationally comparable dataset.Agribusiness,