- Número: 157
- Autor(es): Ana Martins, Guida Nogueira and Eva Pereira
- Mês: Janeiro
- Ano: 2021
Outsourcing is one of the main drivers behind economic globalization, especially international outsourcing. In general terms it refers to the process of moving stages of production to external providers, either domestic (usually labelled as domestic outsourcing) or international (commonly labelled as offshoring or simply outsourcing). Over time, technological advances in transportation and ICT developments, led to a substantial rise in this phenomenon, growing in extent and nature, from simple to more complex tasks related to both manufactures and services supply. International outsourcing is usually expected to reduce production costs and to increase efficiency, however it has received substantial attention from policy makers for its potential negative consequences on the labour market. This paper combines Portuguese firm-level data from the International Sourcing surveys and longitudinal administrative business record data, to explore the impacts of the sourcing status on a variety of firms’ performance measures specially focusing on employment, competitiveness and productivity. The results suggest that international sourcing has an ambiguous effect on firm level total employment, but a positive effect on both the subset of workers that receive a salary (a proxy to employees) and on R&D jobs, coupled with an increasing effect on firm level total labour costs. Alongside these results, our findings also show that offshoring has a positive causal effect on both firm-level export intensity and trade balance, however the efficiency gains hypothesis was not confirmed. In fact, the results show that newly offshoring firms experienced lower labour productivity growth with a negative effect on both capital stock and capital per person employed.
- Número: 156
- Autor(es): Ricardo Pinheiro Alves
- Mês: Agosto
- Ano: 2020
The coordination of economic policies is seen as a requirement of EMU, although there is no strong economic rationale for it. After the 2008-2010 crises a complex surveillance mechanism was implemented where the European Semester had the role to coordinate economic and social policies in order to obtain real convergence between countries and prevent further instability. However, it has been ineffective in helping Southern countries to converge, deepening existing divisions and threatening further exits after the UK. This ineffectiveness and a democratically flawed decision-making process ask for a change in the framework of policy coordination. The proposed solution mixes an idle approach based on fiscal transfers with an engaged one where coordination over significant spillover effects between countries and cooperation based on Pareto improvements are the rules. It reinvigorates the governance of the single market, focuses on the spatial distribution of economic activity and it is a decentralized answer to the common threat of division. Moreover, it complies with the two core ideas of the EU project: democracy, from which peace depends, and development within a market economy where countries are free to choose their way of development.
- Número: 155
- Autor(es): Susana Peralta, João Pereira dos Santos and Duarte Gonçalves
- Mês: Julho
- Ano: 2020
We provide causal estimates of the impact of short-term rental regulations by exploiting a quasi-natural reform implemented in the city of Lisbon. In November 2018, the municipality of Lisbon banned the registry of new short-term rental properties in some neighborhoods. We rely on two administrative data sets on short-term rental registries, between 2015 and 2019, and house transactions between 2017 and 2019. We also use data on Airbnb rental prices since 2018. We employ a difference-in differences estimation taking advantage of the spatial discontinuity in the registry ban. We document a spike in new registries between the announcement and the implementation of the ban, driven by domestic incumbent owners. Airbnb prices do not seem to react to the ban. Both the number of transactions and house prices decreased after the reform, mostly in two-bedroom flats. Our findings confirm a sizeable impact of short-term rentals on real estate prices, concentrated in a segment of smaller houses.
- Número: 154
- Autor(es): F. Alexandre, P. Bação, J. Cerejeira, H. Costa e M. Portela
- Mês: Julho
- Ano: 2020
Since late 2014, Portuguese Governments adopted ambitious minimum wage policies. Using linked employer-employee data, we provide an econometric evaluation of the impact of those policies. Our estimates suggest that minimum wage increases reduced employment growth and profitability, in particular for financially distressed firms. We also conclude that minimum wage increases had a positive impact on firms’ exit, again amplified for financially distressed firms. According to these results, minimum wage policies may have had a supply side effect by accelerating the exit of low profitability and low productivity firms and, thus, contributing to improve aggregate productivity through a cleansing effect.
- Número: 153
- Autor(es): Luca David Opromolla and Giordano Mion and Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano
- Mês: Julho
- Ano: 2020
Understanding why certain jobs are ‘better’ than others and what implications they have for a worker’s career is clearly an important but still relatively unexplored question. We provide both a theoretical framework and a number of empirical results that help distinguishing ‘good’ from ‘bad’ jobs in terms of their impact on a worker’s lifetime wage income profile through wage jumps occurring upon changing job (‘static effects’) or through increases in the wage growth rate (‘dynamic effects’). We find that the distinction between internationally active firms and domestic firms is a meaningful empirical dividing line between employers providing ‘good’ and ‘bad’ jobs. First, in internationally active firms the experience-wage profile is much steeper than in domestic firms, especially for managers as opposed to blue-collar workers. Second, the higher lifetime wage income for managers in internationally active firms relies on the stronger accumulation of experience that these firms allow for and on the (almost) perfect portability of the accumulated dynamic wage gains to other firms. Static effects are instead much more important for blue-collar workers. Finally, the distinction between internationally active and domestic firms is relevant also at a more aggregate level to explain cross-sectional differences in wages among workers and spatial differences in average wages across regions within a country.
- Número: 152
- Autor(es): Pedro S. Martins
- Mês: Junho
- Ano: 2020
As work changes, firm-provided training may become more relevant; however, there is little causal evidence about the effects of training on firms. This paper studies a large training grants programme in Portugal, contrasting successful firms that received the grants and unsuccessful firms that did not. Combining several rich data sets, we compare a large number of potential outcomes of these firms, while following them over long periods of time before and after the grant decision. Our difference-in-differences models estimate significant positive effects on take up (training hours and expenditure), with limited deadweight; and that such additional training led to increased sales, value added, employment, productivity, and exports. These effects tend to be of at least 5% and, in some cases, 10% or more, and are robust in multiple dimensions of the analysis.
- Número: 151
- Autor(es): Henrique Alpalhão, Marta Lopes, João Santos and José Tavares
- Mês: Junho
- Ano: 2020
We investigate the causal relationship between local government expenditure and private firm performance, using the quantity and naming of civil parishes within each municipality as an instrumental variable. Religious denominations are taken as a proxy for strong local identity, which likely increases competition for resources between neighboring parishes. We explore a dataset on the universe of private firms, local government expenditure categories and socio-economic indicators for all mainland Portuguese municipalities, in a period encompassing both normal and crisis times. The number of parishes per municipality, as exogenously set by the central government, and the number of parishes that display religious denominations are both used as instruments that explain local government spending, indirectly impacting firm performance. We find that both display considerable power in determining total primary and current spending, which then positively impacts private firms' sales and value added. Using religious denominations is found to yield a particularly potent instrument, confirming and expanding the baseline results. In a field that mostly relies on natural experiments for instrumental variable frameworks, our proposed instruments are both easily obtainable and powerful.
- Número: 150
- Autor(es): Pedro N. Ramos, João Ferreira, Luís Cruz e Eduardo Barata
- Mês: Maio
- Ano: 2020
Os modelos input-output propõem-se representar as interdependências setoriais, a densa rede das relações entre produções de diferentes produtos, no seio de uma economia. Às interdependências setoriais juntam-se muitas vezes relações entre espaços regionais. Na última década, o desenvolvimento de modelos inter países, cobrindo toda a economia mundial, permitiu à análise input-output conquistar importância crescente, uma vez que permite traçar e caracterizar, detalhadamente, cadeias globais de valor. O eclodir da crise da COVID-19 vem reforçar a importância da análise da estrutura setorial das economias e acentuar ainda mais o interesse pelas cadeias de valor à escala mundial. É notório que a paralisação das economias, por razões sanitárias, pode deixar sem componentes imprescindíveis várias empresas, muitas vezes noutro(s) continente(s), levando à interrupção dos seus processos produtivos. Também a alteração dos perfis de procura poderá ter consequências dramáticas, e diferenciadas nos diferentes cantos do mundo. Usando o modelo World Input-Output Database (WIOD), desenvolvemos um exercício hipotético em que dividimos os produtos em essenciais e não essenciais, e admitimos uma quebra para metade da procura final dos não essenciais. Admite-se um choque simétrico, mas os países são atingidos com intensidade díspar, em função da desigual estrutura das suas economias. O objetivo é o de descortinar tendências, permitindo identificar quais os mais afetados pelo efeito da alteração do padrão global do consumo, nomeadamente em termos do Valor Acrescentado Bruto e do comércio internacional.
- Número: 149
- Autor(es): Paulo Matos and Pedro Neves
- Mês: Abril
- Ano: 2020
Quaternary activities have been on the rise, as a consequence of the increasing technological developments and work automation, as they are expected to have an impact on both the future of the job market and the overall economy. As such, and considering that Total Factor Productivity (TFP) constitutes a main driver of output growth, we propose to study its determinants for the quaternary sector. First, we establish several criteria to build our own definition of quaternary activities, as they are not acknowledged in national accounts or other statistics. For such purpose, our empirical assessment is based on a firm level panel dataset, comprising Portuguese firms, between 2006 and 2017. Secondly, we employ the Levinsohn and Petrin (2003)’s methodology to estimate TFP at the firm level. Finally, through a second stage estimation, we build a fixed effects model based on several determinants said to impact firms' TFP, and establish a comparison with the remainder sectors of economic activity. Both descriptive statistics of the database and the final regression outputs provide evidence that quaternary activities differ from the remainder in several characteristics. Our results show that innovation, wage premium and international openness rise the level of TFP, while indebtedness presents an opposite correlation. The age and size of the firm show a non linear relationship with TFP.
- Número: 148
- Autor(es): Ana Rodrigues Bidarra
- Mês: Abril
- Ano: 2020
A economia digital revolucionou a estrutura tradicional e o funcionamento dos mercados. Os dados pessoais são considerados o “novo petróleo” da actividade económica, um recurso fundamental cuja recolha e análise em larga escala são potenciadas pelo desenvolvimento das TIC. A simbiose entre Big Data e Big Analytics pode promover um ambiente concorrencial benéfico, para empresas e consumidores, mas à medida que se expandem as fronteiras da inovação e da ciência surgem preocupações que colocam em causa esta nova dinâmica de mercado. Pugnamos que, na circunstância em que as empresas concorrem nos mercados digitais orientados por dados e os consumidores, enquanto titulares de dados pessoais, são negativamente afectados, designadamente pelo decréscimo da qualidade do tratamento dos dados pessoais, há lugar à intersecção entre o direito da concorrência e o direito da protecção de dados que justifica uma intervenção coordenada com vista à análise holística das questões suscitadas. As plataformas digitais multilaterais com modelos de negócio assentes na monetização de Big Data através da publicidade apresentam um desafio aos instrumentos de concorrência tradicionais, baseados no preço, que se encontram desadequados para proceder a uma apreciação cabal destes mercados. Através da análise da decisão da CE na operação de concentração Facebook/WhatsApp demonstramos a necessidade de melhor compreensão do funcionamento das plataformas multilaterais e a premência na adequação das ferramentas de análise jusconcorrenciais à apreciação das concentrações motivadas por dados num contexto digital.
