scholarly journals Do Poor Countries Really Need More IT?

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maya Eden ◽  
Paul Gaggl
Keyword(s):  
Information Technologies ◽  
Technological Capabilities ◽  
It Use ◽  
Systematic Relationship ◽  
Industrial Composition ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
It Capabilities ◽  
Country Differences ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Productivity differences across countries are often attributed to differences in technological capabilities. This paper asks whether there are systematic cross-country differences in the adoption of information technologies (IT). We document a positive correlation between IT use and income, which weakens over time. However, given that IT use is an endogenous outcome of both technological capabilities and the abundance of complementary factors of production, it tends to over-state the degree of cross-country differences in technology. We propose two novel calibration approaches to address this problem. After accounting for endogenous differences in industrial composition, we find that there is no systematic relationship between income and IT capabilities.

scholarly journals Inventory Management, Product Quality, and Cross‑Country Income Differences

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 338-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernardo S. Blum ◽  
Sebastian Claro ◽  
Kunal Dasgupta ◽  
Ignatius J. Horstmann
Keyword(s):  
Product Quality ◽  
Inventory Management ◽  
Reduced Form ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
Quality Upgrading ◽  
Country Differences ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Export Destination ◽  
The One ◽  
Rich Countries

Previous research has documented that export shipments are “lumpy”— exporters make infrequent and relatively large shipments to any given export destination. This fact has been interpreted as implying that fixed, per shipment cost and inventory management decisions play a key role in international trade. We document here that exports from poor countries are considerably more lumpy—have higher fixed per shipment cost— than those from rich countries. Using a model of trade with inventory management, we estimate that the country at the ninetieth percentile of the distribution of per shipment costs has almost three times higher costs than the one at the tenth percentile. We show that these per shipment cost differences have a reduced-form representation given by an ad  valorem trade cost that varies with export country income (as in Waugh 2010 ). A calibrated version of the model that incorporates these estimates and allows for endogenous product quality reveals that cross-country differences in per shipment costs explain almost 40 percent of the observed cross-country differences in income. It also shows that policies that lower per shipment costs can lead to significant welfare gains, mainly due to induced quality upgrading. (JEL F12, F14, F43, G31, O16, O19)

scholarly journals Cross country industry betas

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 629-643
Author(s):  
Alberto Dell’Acqua ◽  
Emanuele Teti ◽  
Leonardo L. Etro ◽  
Marco Boero
Keyword(s):  
Linear Relationship ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Stock Markets ◽  
Stock Exchange ◽  
Emerging Market ◽  
Industrial Composition ◽  
Industrial Sectors ◽  
Structural Differences ◽  
Country Differences ◽  
Cross Country

We study the differences in the industrial composition between two stock market indices, the Italian FTSE MIB and the Chinese Shanghai Composite Stock Exchange. We argue that differences in the set of industry weights, measured through market capitalization, on different stock markets carry valuable information required for adjusting industry betas in an emerging market context. On the basis of 256 weekly observations of 1,020 companies belonging to 10 industrial sectors on the Italian and Chinese stock markets, we test the hypotheses that statistically significant cross-country differences in industry betas and industry weights exist and that cross-country differences in industry betas are linearly related to cross-country differences in industry weights. The empirical evidence gathered confirms the existence of cross-country structural differences in industry betas and industry weights, but confutes the hypothesis of a linear relationship between the two

scholarly journals Magnitude, global variation, and temporal development of the COVID-19 infection fatality burden

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Bohk-Ewald ◽  
Enrique Acosta ◽  
Tim Riffe ◽  
Christian Dudel ◽  
Mikko Myrskyla
Keyword(s):  
Quality Data ◽  
Limiting Factor ◽  
First Year ◽  
High Quality Data ◽  
Imperfect Data ◽  
Key Indicator ◽  
Country Differences ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Health And Mortality ◽  
Over Time

How deadly is an infection with SARS-CoV-2 worldwide over time? This information is critical for developing and assessing public health responses on the country and global levels. However, imperfect data have been the most limiting factor for estimating the COVID-19 infection fatality burden during the first year of the pandemic. Here we leverage recently emerged compelling data sources and broadly applicable modeling strategies to estimate the crude infection fatality rate (cIFR) in 77 countries from 28 March 2020 to 31 March 2021, using 2.4 million reported deaths and estimated 435 million infections by age, sex, country, and date. The global average of all cIFR estimates is 1.2% (10th to 90th percentile: 0.2% to 2.4%). The cIFR varies strongly across countries, but little within countries over time, and it is often lower for women than men. Cross-country differences in cIFR are largely driven by the age structures of both the general and the truly infected population. While the broad trends and patterns of the cIFR estimates are more robust, we show that their levels are uncertain and sensitive to input data and modeling choices. In consequence, increased efforts at collecting high-quality data are essential for accurately estimating the cIFR, which is a key indicator for better understanding the health and mortality consequences of this pandemic.

scholarly journals The Lack of Convergence of Latin-America Compared with CESEE

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (98) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bas Bakker ◽  
Manuk Ghazanchyan ◽  
Alex Ho ◽  
Vibha Nanda
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Latin America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Business Climate ◽  
Income Levels ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
Climate Indicators ◽  
Output Ratio ◽  
Country Differences ◽  
Cross Country

In the last few decades there has been little convergence of income levels in Latin America with those in the United States, in sharp contrast with both emerging Asia and emerging Europe. This paper argues that lack of convergence was not the result of low investment. Latin America is poorer because of lower human capital levels and lower TFP—not because of a lower capital-output ratio. Cross-country differences of TFP in turn are associated with differences in human capital, governance and business climate indicators. We demonstrate that once levels of human capital and governance are taken into account, there is strong conditional cross-country convergence. Poor countries with high levels of human capital, governance or business climate indicators converge rapidly. Poor countries without those attributes do not. We show that low investment is the result of low TFP and thus GDP growth—not the cause.

How Does Firm Size Explain Cross-Country Differences in Ownership Concentration?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fariborz Moshirian ◽  
Nguyen Thi Thuy ◽  
Jin Yu ◽  
Bohui Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Firm Size ◽  
Ownership Concentration ◽  
Country Differences ◽  
Cross Country

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Telesca Giuseppe
Keyword(s):  
Structural Analysis ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
The Past ◽  
Final Goal ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
Country Analysis ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Over Time

The ambition of this book is to combine different bodies of scholarship that in the past have been interested in (1) providing social/structural analysis of financial elites, (2) measuring their influence, or (3) exploring their degree of persistence/circulation. The final goal of the volume is to investigate the adjustment of financial elites to institutional change, and to assess financial elites’ contribution to institutional change. To reach this goal, the nine chapters of the book introduced here look at financial elites’ role in different European societies and markets over time, and provide historical comparisons and country and cross-country analysis of their adaptation and contribution to the transformation of the national and international regulatory/cultural context in the wake of a crisis or in a longer term perspective.

Connections Between Cultures: Using Empirical Distributions for Measuring Cultural Differences

2020 ◽  
pp. 002202212098237
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Messner
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Distance Measures ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
Empirical Distributions ◽  
Leibler Divergence ◽  
Country Differences ◽  
Cross Country

The past few decades have seen an explosion in the interest in cultural differences and their impact on many aspects of business management. A noticeable feature of most academic studies and practitioner approaches is the predominant use of national boundaries and group-level averages as delimiters and proxies for culture. However, this largely ignores the significance that intra-country differences and cross-country similarities can have for identifying psychological phenomena. This article argues for the importance of considering intra-cultural variation for establishing connections between two different cultures. It uses empirical distributions of cultural values that occur naturally within a country, thereby making intracultural differences interpretable and actionable. For measuring cross-country differences, the Gini/Weitzman overlapping index and the Kullback-Leibler divergence coefficient are used as difference measures between two distributions. The properties of these measures in comparison to traditional group-level mean-based distance measures are analyzed, and implications for cross-cultural and international business research are discussed.

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