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Machinery Industry (machinery + industry)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	50%

Selected Abstracts

Technological and organizational changes as determinants of the skill bias: evidence from the Italian machinery industry

MANAGERIAL AND DECISION ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2006
Mariacristina Piva
Recent empirical literature has introduced the ,Skill Biased Organizational Change' (SBOC) hypothesis, according to which organizational change can be considered as one of the main causes of the skill bias (increase in the number of highly skilled workers) exhibited by manufacturing employment in developed countries. This paper focuses on the importance of the SBOC with respect to the more traditional ,Skill Biased Technological Change' in driving the skill composition of workers in the Italian machinery sector. A dynamic panel data analysis is proposed which uses a unique firm-level dataset. The results show that both skilled and unskilled workers are negatively affected by technological change, while organizational change,which in turn may be linked to new technologies,is positively linked to skilled workers. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Following America into the second industrial revolution: new rules of competition and Ontario's farm machinery industry, 1850,1930

THE CANADIAN GEOGRAPHER/LE GEOGRAPHE CANADIEN, Issue 4 2002
CORDON M. WINDER
Despite the hiatus in farm expansion from 1880 to 1900, Canadian-owned Massey-Harris became a competitive multinational corporation as American branch plants arrived in Ontario. This equivocal performance in Canada's agricultural implements industry poses problems for explanations of Canada's branch plant economy. Most commentators blame an ill-conceived National Policy for promoting and protecting inefficient industry and frustrating industrial development. In reviewing their explanations, I use systematic comparisons among plants as well as between the Ontario, New York, Ohio, and Illinois industries. I argue that Canada's National Policy was an effective industrial policy that promoted competitive implement manufacture under the constraints of Victorian era technology. Problems emerged in the 1880s, however, as Chicago firms developed mass production in harvesting machinery, and these became entrenched as gasoline tractor development swept the industry after 1900. Ontario firms struggled, but they outperformed competitors in New York and Ohio, who had been industry leaders in] 880. Canada's branch plant economy in the farm machinery industry was made in Chicago and by mechanical engineers, not in Ottawa and by politicians. En dépit de l'hiatus dans l'expansion du pare agricole entre 1880 et 1900, la société canadienne Massey-Harris est devenue une grande société multinational compétitive lorsque des usines-succursales américaines ont fait leur arrivée en l'Ontario. Cette baisse de performance de I'Industrie canadienne de fabrication d'outils et d'engins agricoles pose des problèmes sur le plan de l'explication de l'économie des usines-succursales canadiennes. Pour la plupart des analystes, cette situation serait due à une politique nationals mal-conçue. Celle-ci aurait favorisé et protégé une Industrie inefficace, et ainsi frustré le développement industriel. En passant en revue ces analyses, je procède à une série de comparisons systématiques, d'une part des usines entre elles et, d'autre part, entre les industries de New York, de l'Ohio et de l'lllinois. J'avance que la Politique nationale canadienne etait une politique industrielle efficace qui a su promouvoir une Industrie de fabrication d'outils et d'engins agricoles compétitive dans le cadre de la technologie de l'époque victorienne et de ses contraintes. Des problèmes, qui ont fait leur apparition au cours des années 1880, suite à l'adoption par les sociétés de Chicago de la production de masse des moissonneuses, ont perduré suite à l'arrivée en masse des tracteurs à essence après 1900. Ce fut un moment très difficile pour les sociétés de l'Ontario mais elles réussirent à battre leurs concurrents de New York et de l'Ohio qui étaient leaders de l'industrie en 1880. Dans l'industrie des engins agricoles, le sort de l'économie des usines-succursales était décidéà Chicago, par des ingénieurs en mécanique agricole, non à Ottawa, par des hommes politiques. [source]

Estimation of the Investment Thresholds of Large Japanese Manufacturers

THE JAPANESE ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 4 2000
Yuzo Honda
We approximate the investment threshold by the point at which a logistic curve has the largest curvature of convexity. Our threshold estimates are 1.82 and 1.51 in Tobin's marginal Q for machinery manufacturers and chemical/metal manufacturers, respectively. These numbers lie in between the two estimates calculated by Barnett and Sakellaris for US manufacturers. Our estimates exceed one in all industries, which also agrees with Dixit and Pindyck's analytic result. The threshold for the electrical machinery industry is higher than the others. An increase in uncertainty raises the investment threshold, while an appreciation in asset value lowers it. JEL Classification Numbers: C23, E22. [source]