Alfred J. Field

A Ten-Region Model of World Trade

Over the last two decades a number of important contributions have been made to the quantitative analysis of the pattern of world trade. It is possible to break down these contributions into three broad categories: (a) comprehensive studies of the changes in the pattern of world trade using non-econometric techniques such as the pathbreaking work of the League of Nations [1] which analysed the network of world trade between 1928 and 1938; the work of Thorbecke which extended the previous analysis to 1956 [12] and Maizels [3]; (b) econometric attempts at explaining trade:Rows between individual countries and regions by way of essentially single equation models such as the contributions of Tinbergen [10], Poyhonen [6] and Linneman [2]; and, (c) transmission models which attempted to estimate quantitatively the main relationships between the level of domestic economic activities in the various countries and the international transactions. Perhaps most representative of this class of models are those of Neisser and Modigliani [4], Polak [5], Rhomberg [7] and Rhomberg and Boissonneault [8].

The impact of gender and working life cycle position on the likelihood and accumulation of formal on-the-job training

The literature concerning the influence of race and gender on layoff likelihood suggests that differences persist between whites and blacks as well as males and females even after controlling for factors expected to influence personal productivity. However, it appears that formal on-the-job training has often not been adequately accounted for. This paper uses direct objective measures of formal on-the-job training to examine the influence of gender and working lifecycle stage on the likelihood of participating in formal on-the-job training programs and on the duration of these on-the-job training experiences for program participants.

A Note on Teaching the Marshall-Lerner Condition.

This article will be of particular interest to teachers of the intermediate course in international economics. It provides a technique for teaching the effect of devaluation on a countrys trade balance in a simplified way without dilution of substance. It should serve to bring the Marshall-Lerner condition out of the appendix and into the classroom.

The Impact of Formal On-the-Job Training

The literature concerning the influence of race and gender on layoff likelihood (Blau and Kahn 1981) and wages (flanagan 1974; Corcoran and Duncan 1979; Blau and Beller 1984; Blinder 1973) reveals that after controlling for factors expected to influence personal productivity, differences persist between whites and blacks as well as males and females. These differences are often attributed, among other things, to discrimination, although culture may play a role, particularly with respect to unemployment differentials. However, it is possible that important personal characteristics likely to alter an individual’s productivity, such as formal on-the-job training, have not been adequately accounted for. If a substantial correlation exists between formal on-the-job training, the missing variable, and some of the traditional set of variables used in wage and layoff equations, conventional models are misspecified, resulting in biased coefficient estimates that possibly overstate the role of discrimination. Proxies such as tenure (Parsons 1972; Duncan and Hoffman 1979), job classification (Oi 1962; Mincer 1962; Rosen 1966) and wage growth (Lazear 1979a; 1979b) have been used as measures of on-the-job training. Although these proxies may appropriately represent informal on-the-job training, they are unlikely to accurately measure an individual’s formal on-the-job training activities.

An estimate of the textile and clothing sector production function for selected countries in the early 1970s

Abstract This paper describes the results of the estimation of sector wide production functions for textiles and clothing for nine industrialized and five industrializing countries in the early 1970s. Special attention is paid to relative differences between countries, especially with respect to the changing role and productivity of labor. Although somewhat primitive in nature, the results suggest that this is a fruitful way to gain a better understanding of the changing international division of labor at the sector level.

Input aggregation and the U.S. tariff structure

not adequately accounting for the nature of inputs, existing effective tariff rate estimates contain a conceptual error. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the presence of this error leads to consistent and serious underestimation of the protection given to value added in final goods industries in the U.S. economy. The nature of this error is explained in Section II, followed by a proposed procedure for attempting to correct the error in Section III. Section IV then describes data and procedures utilized to arrive at a new set of U.S. effective rate estimates and discusses the results.