Search results for "Capital intensity"
showing 10 items of 14 documents
The Real Effects of Bank Branch Deregulation at Various Stages of Economic Development: The European Experience
2011
This paper provides evidence on the links between financial deregulation and economic performance in a European context. Specifically, we study the relaxation of bank branching restrictions in Spain which triggered off a remarkable inter-regional expansion of savings banks which was coincidental with an unprecedented period of sustained growth. Although related questions have been largely investigated for the US, the European experiences remain largely unexplored. An additional contribution is the use of quantile regression techniques which, unlike traditional OLS regression analysis, do not focus on the “average effect for the average province”. This change of focus helps to overcome the d…
The devil is in the details : Capital stock estimation and aggregate productivity growth : an application to the Spanish economy
2020
The variables that contribute to explaining the major puzzles and paradoxes in macroeconomics and economic growth literature always appear related, directly or indirectly, to capital stock and depreciation. Depreciation defined in a narrow sense refers only to physical wear and tear, but in a broader sense, it also includes economic deterioration and obsolescence. In this study, we explore the link between these two depreciation concepts, the capital deepening and total factor productivity (TFP) growth. We propose a double growth accounting framework that allows us to establish a relationship between variables in statistical terms and variables in economic terms. Then, with Spanish data for…
Human capital in OECD countries: Technical change, efficiency and productivity
2003
The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of human capital in the productivity gains of the OECD countries in the period 1965-90, breaking down the productivity gains into technical change and gains in efficiency. For this purpose we use both a stochastic frontier approach and a non-parametric approach (DEA) and calculate Malmquist indices of productivity. The results obtained indicate the existence of both a level effect (a higher level of human capital raises labour productivity) and a rate effect (a higher level of human capital affects positively the rate of technical change) associated with human capital. The differences among countries in endowments of human capital have worked aga…
Renewable electricity producing technologies and metal depletion: A sensitivity analysis using the EROI
2015
International audience; More and more attention is being paid to renewable technologies because they are seen as a great opportunity to disengage our society from its dependence on fossil fuels. Such flow-based energy resources that rely on solarenergy are supposed to lead us toward a sustainable energy future. However, because of their high capitalintensity, renewable technologies require large amounts of matter, including both common and rare metals.These metals require energy for their production, and more specifically for their extraction. The energy costassociated with metal extraction is linked to mineral ore grade, meaning that as depletion progresses, energycost increases. In additi…
A Spatial Multilevel Analysis of Italian SMEs Productivity
2009
Abstract In this paper, we adapt multilevel analysis methods to investigate the spatial variability of SMEs' productivity across the Italian territory, and account for differences in the socio-economic context. Our results suggest that to properly capture the variability of the data, it is important to allow for both spatial mean and slope effects. Social decay has the expected negative impact. However, while this effect is larger on firms with smaller capital intensity, firms with higher capital intensity seem to be less affected by geography. Greater territorial heterogeneity emerges among those firms with lower capital to labour ratios. Une analyse spatiale a plusieurs niveaux de la prod…
Labour Market Regulations and Capital Intensity
2018
What is the impact of labour market regulations as measured by the OECD indicator of employment protection legislation (EPL) on capital and skill composition? Precisely, this study investigates the effects of changes in EPL on changes in four types of capital and three components of labour skill. They include construction, non-ICT, ICT, and R&D capital components on the one hand, and low-, medium-, and highly-skilled labour on the other. Our analysis is grounded on a large country–industry panel dataset of fourteen OECD countries, and eighteen manufacturing and market service industries, from 1988 to 2007. It shows that strengthening EPL lowers ICT capital and, even more severely, R&…
Channels through Which Human Capital Inequality Influences Economic Growth
2011
This paper empirically investigates the theoretical predictions of some of the channels through which human capital inequality may discourage investment and growth. In a cross section of countries over the period 1960–2000, findings reveal that, all other things being equal, a greater degree of human capital inequality increases fertility rates and reduces life expectancy, which in turn hampers the accumulation rates of human capital. This effect is reinforced in the countries where individuals find it difficult to access credit. Extensive sensitivity analyses show that the results are robust across specifications and are not driven by atypical observations, endogenous regressors, or unobse…
Throwing the Spanner in the Works: The Mixed Blessing of FDI
2014
FDI is generally attributed to have positive impact for developing countries. In contrast, this paper shows that foreign capital inflows may cause an economy to be stuck in a middle-income trap. Introducing a simple capital market imperfection into a standard neoclassical (open-economy) model of growth, I show that FDI crowds out domestic investment when countries are still growing. If profitable investments are pursued by foreign capital owners, this does reduce chances for domestic entrepreneurs that they would have otherwise been able to take, by means of economy-wide savings. The long term losses due to the crowding-out effect occur despite the short-term gains that sudden capital inflo…
Estimation of the stock of capital in Spain
2000
The paper presents the methodology and results of the estimation of the endowments of capital in the Spanish economy. It distinguishes between endowments of public capital and private capital. The series corresponding to the public sector cover the period 1955–97 and consider seven categories (or functions). The estimates are disaggregated by 17 regions and 50 provinces. The level of disaggregation is regional and provincial (NUTS2 and NUTS3 in European terminology). The private capital series cover the period 1964–97 and consider 17 sectors of production, with disaggregation at regional level. The information refers to two variables: gross formation of fixed capital (in current and constan…
A multidimensional concept of uncertainty and its influence on the entry mode choice: An empirical analysis in the service sector
2006
Abstract To date there is limited empirical evidence as to how the nature of uncertainty determines the mode of entry into international markets. The aim of this work is to further analyse this relationship by presenting a multidimensional concept of uncertainty within the context of the service sector. Given the complexity and heterogeneity of this sector, we propose that uncertainty influences the choice of entry mode, but that the choice patterns may be different according to the type of service. From a sample of 328 decisions of entry into international markets, this study identifies differences in entry mode choice patterns between capital intensive service firms and knowledge intensiv…