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Goods Sector (goods + sector)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	83%

Selected Abstracts

Intersectoral Labor Mobility and the Growth of the Service Sector

ECONOMETRICA, Issue 1 2006
Donghoon Lee
One of the most striking changes in the U.S. economy over the past 50 years has been the growth in the service sector. Between 1950 and 2000, service-sector employment grew from 57 to 75 percent of total employment. However, over this time, the real hourly wage in the service sector grew only slightly faster than in the goods sector. In this paper, we assess whether or not the essential constancy of the relative wage implies that individuals face small costs of switching sectors, and we quantify the relative importance of labor supply and demand factors in the growth of the service sector. We specify and estimate a two-sector labor market equilibrium model that allows us to address these empirical issues in a unified framework. Our estimates imply that there are large mobility costs: output in both sectors would have been double their current levels if these mobility costs had been zero. In addition, we find that demand-side factors, that is, technological change and movements in product and capital prices, were responsible for the growth of the service sector. [source]

The Changing Structure of the UK Economy: Implications for the Current Account

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK, Issue 2 2005
Article first published online: 4 MAY 200
In common with other developed countries, the UK has seen the relative importance of the service sector grow, accounting for an ever greater share of employment and output , a trend that has accelerated over recent decades. At the same time, globalisation means that international trade is of increasing importance as a share of UK expenditure. With the traded goods sector dwindling in importance, what are the implications for the current account? This paper examines the changing structure of the UK economy and prospects for the current account. Although the current account is expected to remain in deficit for the foreseeable future, the size of the deficit is likely to remain manageable as growing surpluses from trade in services and investment income offset a widening goods deficit. [source]

Can Market Power Influence Employment, Wage Inequality and Growth?

METROECONOMICA, Issue 2-3 2003
Alberto Bucci
We introduce an efficiency wage mechanism into an innovation-driven growth model. Due to asymmetric information problems the labour market is segmented and homogeneous workers may be employed either in the non-competitive intermediate sector or in the competitive research sector. We analyse the impact that the monopoly position enjoyed by intermediate firms in the product market may have on employment, wage inequality and growth, and the sectoral distribution of workers. We find that the lower the product market competition in the capital goods sector, the higher the research employment, the lower the intermediate sector employment and the higher the growth rate. The relationships between growth and inequality, on the one hand, and between growth and employment, on the other, are both negative. [source]

Optimal environmental and industrial policies and imperfect agglomeration effects

REGIONAL SCIENCE POLICY AND PRACTICE, Issue 2 2009
Daisuke Ikazaki
Agglomeration; technology; environment Abstract This paper examines a simple general equilibrium model that considers problems related to agglomeration, technology, and the environment. First, it is shown that the manufactured goods sector converts from classical technology with constant returns to scale to modern technology with increasing returns to scale as the regional population increases. The optimal pollution level might be an inverted-U shape with respect to population if optimal environmental policy is adopted. Second, the optimal population level of conversion is not attained in the market economy. The labour that is devoted to the manufactured goods sector in the market economy is too small. So, we derive the optimal subsidy rates to the manufactured goods sector to make resource allocation optimum. Third, we consider migration using the two-region model. One region becomes a large city and the other region becomes a rural area if the total population is large. The industrial policy tends to extend the population difference between city and rural areas. On the other hand, if the total population is small, a symmetric point will be stable equilibrium. [source]

The Overvaluation of Sterling Since 1996: How the Policy makers Responded and Why,

THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 512 2006
David Cobham
A large and sustained nominal appreciation in 1996-8 led to a serious and continuing overvaluation of sterling which has been associated with severe pressure on the manufacturing sector. The policy makers had difficulty in understanding past and forecasting future movements of sterling. They considered, but rejected, suggestions for foreign exchange market intervention and suggestions that interest rates should be set differently to reduce the overvaluation and relieve pressure on the tradable goods sector. One reason was that the exchange rate might react to such decisions in an erratic way. But if that is so the monetary framework needs to be revisited. [source]

SECTOR-SPECIFIC EXTERNALITIES AND STATUS PREFERENCES IN THE UZAWA-LUCAS MODEL,

THE JAPANESE ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 3 2008
KOICHI KAWAMOTO
This paper shows that introducing preferences for social status based on human capital holdings modifies the finding of Gómez (2004) that sector-specific externalities associated with human capital in the goods sector do not violate the optimality of the competitive economy in the Uzawa,Lucas model. The effect of an increase in the degree of sector-specific externalities is qualitatively the same as that of an increase in the strength of the desire for status. Hence, paradoxically, a greater degree of sector-specific externalities makes human capital accumulation more excessive from the social point of view. [source]