This paper investigates the role of social learning in the diffusion of a new agri cultural technology in Ghana. We use unique data on farmers' communication patterns to define each individual's information neighborhood. Conditional on many potentially confounding variables, we find evidence that farmers adjust their inputs to align with those of their information neighbors who were surpris ingly successful in previous periods. The relationship of these input adjustments to experience further indicates the presence of social learning. In addition, applying the same method to input choices for another crop, of known technol ogy, correctly indicates an absence of social learning effects. (JEL D83, 013, 033, Q16)

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Learning About a New Technology: Pineapple in Ghana

This paper studies the impact of a regional free trade agreement, MERCOSUR, on technology upgrading by Argentinean firms. To guide empirical work, I introduce technology choice in Melitz’s (2003) model of trade with heterogeneous firms. The joint treatment of the technology adoption and exporting choices shows that the increase in revenues produced by trade integration can induce exporters to upgrade technology. An empirical test of the model reveals that firms in industries facing higher reductions in Brazil’s import tariffs increase their investment in technology faster and exporters upgrade technology faster than other firms in the same industry.

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Trade Liberalization, Exports, and Technology Upgrading: Evidence on the Impact of MERCOSUR on Argentinian Firms

This book opens a fresh chapter in the debate on local enterprise clusters and their strategies for upgrading in the global economy. The authors employ a novel conceptual framework in their research on industrial clusters in Europe, Latin America and Asia and provide new perspectives and insights for researchers and policymakers alike.

Governance in global value chains

The literature on international trade and firm performance grows exponentially. This paper attempts to summarize what we learn from this literature to guide future empirical and theoretical work in this area. The focus is on the empirical part of the literature that consists of recently published papers using data for firms from manufacturing or services industries to study the links between international trade (exports and imports) and dimensions of firm performance (productivity, wages, profitability and survival).

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International trade and firm performance: a survey of empirical studies since 2006

Connections: An Introduction to the Economics of Networks by Sanjeev Goyal .

Recent empirical studies which utilize plant- or establishment-level data to examine globalization's impact on productivity have discovered many causal mechanisms involved in globalization's impact on firms’ productivity. Because these pathways have been broad, there have been few attempts to summarize the several and detailed mechanisms of self-selection and learning at the same time. This paper examines seven pathways so that the clear-cut consequences of the broad picture of globalization become visible. This strategy is useful for detecting missing links within and across the existing studies as well as for finding possible synergy effects among different mechanisms. Insightful policy implications may be derived from the comprehensive comparisons between the seven different pathways of globalization.

Globalization and productivity: a survey of firm‐level analysis

This paper proposes a new mechanism linking innovation and network in developing economies to detect explicit production and information linkages and investigates the testable implications of these linkages using survey data gathered from manufacturing frms in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. In-house R&D activities, internal resources, and linkages with local frms and foreign frms play a role in reducing the costs of product and process innovation and search costs for fnding new suppliers and customers. We found that frms with more varieties of information linkages achieve more types of innovations. Complementarities between internal and external sources of knowledge are also found.

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Innovation in Linked and Non-linked Firms: Effects of Variety of Linkages in East Asia

Does Kaizen create backward knowledge transfer to Southeast Asian firms

Purpose – In the globalized economy, it is becoming increasingly necessary for firms in emerging economies to adopt advanced knowledge and technology from external sources, both domestic and abroad. This paper aims to identify knowledge flows through domestic and international customer‐supplier relationships that cause gaps in quality assurance, cost reduction, and timely delivery among firms in emerging countries.Design/methodology/approach – The authors constructed an original dataset on production networks within manufacturing firms in Vietnam (including Hanoi and the surrounding region) and estimated statistical models for the relationship between face‐to‐face interactions within a supply chain and QCD (Quality, Cost, Delivery). Findings from in‐depth interviews with Japanese firms in emerging economies complement the quantitative analysis.Findings – The incidence of face‐to‐face interactions between two firms within a production chain via resident engineers significantly explains the variation in per...

Tomohiro Machikita

Papers

Globalization and productivity: a survey of firm‐level analysis

Innovation in Linked and Non-linked Firms: Effects of Variety of Linkages in East Asia

Does Kaizen create backward knowledge transfer to Southeast Asian firms

Knowledge transfer channels to Vietnam for process improvement

Does safety-oriented corporate social responsibility promote innovation in the Thai trucking industry?