Using the Asymptotically Ideal Model to estimate the impact of knowledge on labour productivity: An application to Taiwan in the 1990s.

This paper examines the impact of embodied and disembodied knowledge on labour productivity in Taiwan’s manufacturing industry, using the Asymptotically Ideal Model. The model is estimated on a panel of 27,754 firms observed from 1992 to 1995, using three estimations procedures: fixed-effect regression, random-effect GLS, and Hausman-Taylor estimation. Our findings show that, in traditional industries, labour productivity is mostly driven by embodied knowledge, whereas in high-tech industries, labour productivity depends on both embodied and disembodied knowledge. The latter result may be the consequence of the Industrial Upgrading Statute implemented in Taiwan after 1991.Asymptotically Ideal Model; Disembodied Knowledge; Embodied Knowledge; Labour Productivity; Newly Industrialized Countries.

Embodied labour in music work

This paper frames the work of performance as embodied labour in order to understand the contingent production of particular music performances. It is an interdisciplinary account that sits at the intersection of the sociology of work, culture and the body. The concept of embodied labour is developed with reference to the complex account of materiality – of bodies and things – present in Tim Ingold’s account of skill. This material account of skill is used to inform use to develop already of well established conceptualizations of body labour: craft, emotional and aesthetic labour through a reading of how these dimensions of embodied labour make possible the work of performance

Internal versus External Labour Flexibility : The Role of Knowledge Codification.

This article uses a competence-based approach to the firm in order to analyse the recent destabilisation of internal labour markets. We argue that increasing knowledge codification made possible by the diffusion of information and communication technologies has made competences less dependent upon individuals. Knowledge has been increasingly embodied in firms themselves which has played an important role in lowering the relative cost of human resource management strategies based on external labour flexibility. As a consequence, recourse to external labour markets has developed, which may harm firms' innovative capabilities in the long run.Competences; knowledge codification; information technologies; internal labour markets;

Education, Reputation or Network? Evidence from Italy on Migrant Workers Employability

The strong adverse selection that immigrants face in hosting labour markets may induce them to adopt some behaviours or signals to modify employers’ beliefs. Relevant mechanisms for reaching this purpose are personal reputation; exploiting ethnic networks deeply-rooted in the hosting country; and high educational levels used as an indirect signal of productivity. On this last point, the immigrant status needs a stronger signal compared to that necessary for a local worker, and this may lead the immigrant to accept job qualifications which are lower than those achievable through the embodied educational level. This could explain the over education problem that characterizes many countries, Italy included. The aim of the paper is to investigate whether the above mentioned mechanisms are adopted by immigrants in Italy, a crucial country for EU immigration flows, and if they are useful in increasing immigrants’ likelihood of employment. The empirical analysis has been conducted using the dataset from a national Labour Force Survey which provides information on 6,860 documented immigrants. We estimate a logit model for immigrants’ likelihood of being employed, focusing on the above mentioned mechanisms: reputation, ethnic networks and educational level. Moreover we concentrate on the interaction effects of the mechanisms and investigate whether one of them wins on the others. Results show that each of the three mechanisms is statistically and economically significant and exerts positive influence: all factors contribute to increasing the immigrant’s probability of being employed. Anyway, a high level of education increases the probability of being employed more than the belonging to ethnic networks deeply-rooted in Italy. The specific embodied capital of workers matter relatively more. This is relevant for labour public policies in this specific realm since the human capital lever is a possible direct target of various public policies and private human capital investments.Educational Qualifications, Migrant Networks, Immigrant Employability, Reputation, Segmented Labour Markets

Towards a Psychoanalytic Concept of Affective-Digital Labour

This article draws on the argument that users on corporate social media conduct labour through the sharing of usergenerated content. Critical political economists argue that such acts contribute to value creation on social media and are therefore to be seen as labour. Following a brief introduction of this paradigm, I relate it to the notion of affective labour which has been popularised by the Marxist thinkers Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. To them, affective labour (as a sub-category of immaterial labour) denotes embodied forms of labour that are about passion, well-being, feelings of ease, immaterial products and generally a kind of communicative relationality between individuals. I point to some problems with a lack of clarity in their conceptualisation of affective labour and argue that the Freudian model of affect can help in theorising affective labour further through a focus on social media. According to Freud, affect can be understood as a subjective, bodily experience which is in tension with the discursive and denotes a momentary feeling of bodily dispossession. In order to illustrate those points, I draw on some data from a research project which featured interviews with social media users who have facial disfigurements about their affective experiences online. The narratives attempt to turn embodied experiences into discourse

Identifying Determinants of German Inflation: An Eclectic Approach

The paper applies an equilibrium correction model to discuss impacts of monetary, labour and external factors on the German inflation. The approach presented is of eclectic character and allows for examination which variables representative for various inflation theories matter empirically when analysing inflation processes in Germany. The results obtained suggest that inflation in Germany is determined by adjustment processes on the market of production factors, external shocks embodied in import prices, level of capacity utilisation and monetary policy actions.equilibrium correction model, inflation modelling, Germany

FACTORS LIMITING INVESTMENT IN HUMAN CAPITAL IN MACEDONIA

There is a strong link among investments in human capital, economic growth and human development. Since human capital (improvements in the quality of human labour) is embodied technical progress in labour (knowledge and skills), the economic development depends on advances in technological and scientific knowledge, economic development depends on the investments in human capital. The first part of the paper outlines the two key concepts related to investment in human capital - the basic economic concept and the human development concept. The second part is related to the limitations regarding the investment in human capital in Macedonia, expressed through four major dimensions: 1) poverty and inequality; 2) economic policy; 3) absence of a clear link between economic growth (GDP per capita) and human quality of life (HDI) and 4) the access of individuals to the capital market and to information.Investment in human capital; Human development; Economic growth and development; Economic policy.

Defining and identifying the knowledge economy in Scotland: a regional perspective on a global phenomenon

The development and growth of a knowledge economy has become a key policy aim forgovernments in all advanced economies. This is based on recognition that technologicalchange, the swift growth of global communications, and the ease of mobility of capital across national borders has dramatically changed the patterns of international trade and investment. The economic fate of individual nations is now inseparably integrated into the ebb and flow of the global economy. When companies can quickly move capital to those geographical locations which offer the best return, a country's long term prosperity is now heavily dependent on its abilityto retain the essential factors of production that are least mobile. This has led to apremium being placed on the knowledge and skills embodied in a country's labourforce, as it has become a widely accepted view that a country which possesses a high level of knowledge and skills in its workforce will have a competitive advantage overothers with a lower domestic skill base. Knowledge and skills are thought to be thebasis for the development of a knowledge economy

Labour and capital saving technical change in telecommunications

The Australian telecommunications sector is being improved and extended through substantial recent investment in intelligent technology such as digital switching, fibre optics, satellite and cellular transmission, and the Internet. These technologies are being progressively integrated with technology from the broadcasting, computer and electronics industries, providing a unified information infrastructure for information transmission and processing. Technological progress embodied in new equipment has the effect of increasing the efficiency of the factors of production. Such efficiency increases can be biased towards a particular factor. For instance, the impact of labour-augmenting technical change is a decline in the cost of labour per unit of production. When such biases are apparent the relativity between the costs of labour and capital per unit of production is changed. In the longer term, technical change can impact on the rate of employment growth and also on the rate of capital accumulation. In this study the Australian telecommunications cost structure is examined for the period 1919 to 1988. To measure labour saving and capital saving technical change a translog cost model is estimated. Multiproduct telecommunications cost studies typically employ the translog cost model (Evans and Heckman, 1984; Roller, 1990a; 1990b; Shin and Ying, 1992; McKenzie and Small, 1997). The translog model places no a priori restrictions on substitution possibilities among the factors of production, and allows scale economies to vary with the level of output.