Is China’s Textile Industry Still a Labour-Intensive Industry?

Is China’s textile industry (CTI) still a laboor-intensive one? To answer this question, this study measures the capital-labour intensity and technology intensity of CTI and its sub-sectors during 2006-2018, then applies factor intensity classification and cluster analysis to identify their industrial attributes. The results show that CTI and its sub-sectors are still the labour- and non-technology-intensive. All the indexes of capital-labour intensity and technology intensity of CTI and its sub-sectors are below 100, lower than the average of industry sectors, indicating that they are not separate from the category of labour-intensive industry and still heavily dependent on labour. And cluster analysis verifies the industrial classification results. So CTI still needs to keep on increasing its capital intensity and technology intensity to achieve the goal of industrial transformation and upgrading in the future.

Impact of Policy and Factor Intensity on Sustainable Value of European Agriculture: Exploring Trade-Offs of Environmental, Economic and Social Efficiency at the Regional Level

Although sustainable development is a topic broadly discussed in the literature in relation to existing policy stimulus, a holistic approach to the implementation of sustainability in agriculture—for which there are three dimensions (economic, social and environmental)—is still missing. A regional approach, which averages the entire EU region, could therefore be useful in the long term for recommending directional guidelines for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of key groups of CAP instruments and factor intensity on the three above-mentioned aspects of sustainability in the 2004–2017 period, with the assumption that they are all reciprocally related. This goal was achieved by measuring sustainability using the modified sustainable value approach combined with frontier-based nonparametric assessment and applying structural equation modelling, including multilevel random intercept. This research highlights trade-offs between environmental, economic and social efficiency and checks the impact of the EU CAP schemes on the sustainability of environmental, economic, and social dimensions in agriculture. Despite common indications of trade-offs, particularly between economic performance and eco-efficiency, our study shows that in the long term, such feedback has not occurred in any EU regions. Moreover, there are positive interactions between all three dimensions of sustainability from a cross-sectional perspective. The analysis of the impact of CAP subsidies proves that the current system of agri-environmental, set-aside and rural development payments has been effective in the long term, although broader implementation of environmental schemes in regions with lower labour productivity may negatively affect social sustainability.

Economic potential of agro-food production in the Republic of Serbia

This research conducted a structural and analysis of the foreign trade position of the Republic of Serbia, with special emphasis on agricultural and food products, in order to provide detailed information regarding current trends, measuring the level of comparative advantage and international position in the world and European markets. The obtained results indicate the elements that have a limiting effect on the development of this type of production. Using the RCA Index methodology and the Lafay's Index, the link between the food industry and the character of industrial exchange was established, which is measured by the Grubel Lloyd's Index. The structure of exports was analyzed from the aspect of factor intensity, so the existence of negative values of a comparative advantage and intensive goods was confirmed. Finally, we believe that the results obtained have contributed to the unraveling of available instruments, the eventual efficient use of which would help rural development, and thus the overall economic development of the Republic of Serbia.

Empirical Study of Industrial Classification, Structure, and Factor Intensity: An Enquiry into Dwindling Labor Intensity in a Labor-Surplus Economy

In the process of economic growth, industrial structure exhibits changes in terms of factor intensity, output, and employment. This study presents the dynamics of industrial structure by empirically investigating the factor intensity and employment at distinct derived categories of registered Indian manufacturing industries. To probe the industrial structures, the study proposes empirical approaches for classification of industries based on use-based classification and factor intensity. The results reveal the dwindling trend of labor intensity across categories of industries implying technological progress, on the one hand, and employment concerns, on the other. An investigation of employment scenario reveals a heartening finding for the current industrial structure: both labor-intensive and capital-intensive (CI) industries exhibit increasing employment trends. In contrast with the conventional perception, capital goods industries are found to absorb an increasing amount of labor relative to capital. Accordingly, in the recent years, CI industries drove employment generation while adopting technological progress resulting from capital deepening and thereby maintained a high labor productivity.

A Note on Unemployment of Unskilled Labor due to COVID-19 led Restriction on Migration and Trade

To combat COVID-19 the entire world has resorted to global lockdown implying restriction on international labor migration and trade. This paper aims to check the effect of such restrictions on the unemployment of unskilled labor in the source country. In competitive general equilibrium framework with three goods and four factors, restriction on migration raises unemployment for given factor intensity. The results remain same even in a slightly different structure of the economy. In case of trade restriction, however, the rise or fall in unemployment depends on both the structure of the economy and the factor intensity assumption.

Financialization of Non-financial Industries, United States, 1980-2006

Non-financial firms have become substantially dependent on financial revenues. However, the timing and intensity of financialization vary by industry. We investigate variation in the level of financialization among different non-financial industries in the United States from 1980 to 2006. We first illustrate how unique incidents and regulatory changes influenced different industries’ financialization trajectories. We also conduct a statistical analysis to examine three types of industry-level determinants: profitability, uncertainty, and factor intensity. We find that these determinants have high explanatory power regarding interindustry variation in financialization. An industry-level analysis allows us to better understand the role of historical, institutional, and industrial factors in the financialization process which have been overlooked in structure-oriented research.

Unemployment of Unskilled Labor due to COVID-19 led Restriction on Migration and Trade

To combat COVID-19 the entire world has resorted to global lockdown implying restriction on international labor migration and trade. This paper aims to check the effect of such restrictions on the unemployment of unskilled labor in the source country. In competitive general equilibrium framework with three goods and four factors restriction on migration raises unemployment for given factor intensity. The results remain same even in a slightly different structure of the economy. In case of trade restriction, however, the rise or fall in unemployment depends on both the structure of the economy and the factor intensity assumption.