Productivity, distribution, and market concentration: unveiling secular trends

El presente trabajo de investigación identifica la estructura de mercado del sector Curtido y Adobo de Pieles en el Ecuador CIIU: C151101 y tiene como objetivo establecer la relación entre rentabilidad, costos y concentración de mercado. Se calculó el índice de Herfindhal-Hirshman utilizado para casos de estructura de mercado imperfecta; y por otro lado, los índices de solvencia, liquidez, rentabilidad, para evaluar el desempeño financiero de las empresas concentradas. Además, se diseñaron cuatro modelos econométricos a los cuales se aplicaron pruebas estadísticas de idoneidad de los estimadores. Se aplicó análisis de regresión lineal simple y múltiple en varias experimentaciones a través de Mínimos cuadrados Ordinarios. De las nueve empresas del oligopolio, se identificaron cuatro empresas concentradas que controlan el 73,12% del mercado, con un margen de rentabilidad del 0,1391 promedio del oligopolio para el período de estudio 2011-2015. De los modelos econométricos desarrollados uno permitió evidenciar a través de la prueba estadística de Fisher que la concentración de mercado y los costos de producción inciden en la rentabilidad con un p-value de 0,00035, es decir, existe una relación lineal significativa de la rentabilidad del oligopolio con los costos de producción y la concentración del mercado, demostrándose así que este grupo de empresas obtienen beneficios por efecto de su capacidad para concentrar el mercado.

Many studies have documented that the sales concentration of U.S. producers has risen in recent decades. In this article, we show that this increase was accompanied by more entry and growth of foreign competitors. Using confidential census data covering the universe of all firm sales in the U.S. manufacturing sector, we find that rising import competition increased concentration among U.S. firms by reallocating sales from smaller to larger U.S. firms and by causing firm exit. However, this increase in production concentration was counteracted by the expansion of foreign firms, which reduced domestic firms’ share of the U.S. market inclusive of foreign firms’ sales. We find that once the sales of foreign exporters are taken into account, U.S. market concentration in manufacturing was stable between 1992 and 2012.

Multinational production and market concentration are closely related. The empirical evidence shows that foreign subsidiaries often operate in highly concentrated markets. For example, (1958) and (1973) found that a majority of foreign subsidiaries in the UK operated in concentrated markets. (1981) reported similar results for UK, France and West Germany. (1978) showed that the share of activity carried out abroad by US firms was positively related to concentration. Thus, the correlation between market concentration and multinational activity is fairly well established in the empirical literature.

Monetary policy, productivity, and market concentration

The study assessed the efficiency of tomato production and market concentration among farmers in Orire Local Government, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria, employing a multi-stage sampling technique, resulting in a sample size of 120 respondents. A structured questionnaire developed by the researcher was utilized as the research instrument. Analysis was conducted using descriptive statistics, budgetary techniques, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), and the Cobb-Douglas production model. Findings revealed that 76.7% of respondents were male, with an average age of 52.6 years. Additionally, 89.2% were married, and 69.2% had formal education. The average household size was 5.4, with an average farm size of 4.3 hectares. Respondents had an average of 16.4 years of experience in tomato production. The cost and return analysis indicated that tomato production is profitable in the study area, with a return on investment of N1.71, meaning every 1 naira invested yields a return of N1.71 kobo. The market concentration index was 1325, suggesting competitive market conditions. The Cobb-Douglas model identified key factors influencing production efficiency: education, household size, farm size, farming experience, credit access, seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides. The study recommends that financial institutions offer affordable credit facilities and that agricultural extension services and post-harvest practice workshops be provided to enhance farmer incomes and reduce tomato waste. Keywords: Tomato, Production, Efficiency, Price Competitiveness, Farmers,

The myth of price convergence under economic integration: A proposed explanation for the difference in food prices across European countries

It is developed a macrodynamic model in the post-keynesian tradition of political economy of the productive capital accumulation and income distribution to analyze some of the impacts of the (flow of) foreign direct investment and the (stock of) foreign productive capital on capital accumulation, economic growth and functional income distribution in a stylized economy. Alongside a usual demand effect, the impacts of such an internationalization of local capital through labor productivity and market concentration are taken into account as well.

Trades unions, market concentration and income distribution in United States manufacturing industry

Monetary Policy, Productivity, and Market Concentration

This study examines the effects of macroeconomic conditions, the business environment, and industry-level characteristics on the participation of Vietnam’s manufacturing sector in global value chains (GVCs). Using firm-level data from the Vietnam Enterprise Survey (2011-2020), combined with GVC indicators derived from the EORA MRIO database, the analysis employs a dynamic panel framework estimated through the System-GMM approach. The results confirm significant path dependence in GVC participation, with prior levels of engagement strongly influencing subsequent performance. Macroeconomic factors exhibit heterogeneous effects: inflation positively affects GVC integration, whereas Gross Domestic Products (GDP) growth shows mixed and channel-specific impacts. Institutional quality, proxied by the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI), enhances overall and backward GVC participation but reduces forward linkages. Firm-level characteristics, such as age, productivity, and market concentration, also play critical roles. FDI spillovers, particularly horizontal linkages, consistently promote deeper GVC involvement. These findings highlight the importance of stabilizing macroeconomic conditions, improving institutional quality, and strengthening FDI-domestic firm linkages to enhance Vietnam’s manufacturing integration into global production networks.

Labour productivity and market concentration: United States

The existence of different levels of bank’s performance in each Indonesian banks and the existence of banks with under level performance makes research on the factors that influence bank’s performance becomes more important to be examined. The aim of the research is to analyze the effect of size, size, Non-performing Loan (NPL), Equity to Asset Ratio (EAR), Loan to Deposit Ratio (LDR), reserve requirement (GWM), labor productivity and market concentration (which is proxied by market share of each bank) on the performance of listed conventional banks in Indonesia. The bank’s performance in this research is measured by Return on Asset (ROA).The research sample used are 25 listed conventional banks in Indonesia for the 2014-2018 period. The data selection method used in this research is purposive sampling method. The hypothesis testing of this study using multiple linear regression analysis with SPSS 26 program.The study found that size, Equity to Asset Ratio (EAR), labor productivity and market share have a significant positive effect on bank’s performance. Non-performing Loan (NPL) have a significant negative effect on bank’s performance. Loan to Deposit Ratio (LDR) and Reserve requirement (GWM) have a positive but not significant effect on bank’s performance

Vertical relationships (ownership, affiliations, joint contracting) between physicians and health systems are increasing in the US. Many proponents of vertical relationships argue that increased spending associated with consolidation is accompanied by improvements in quality of care. To assess the association of vertical relationships between primary care physicians (PCPs) and large health systems and quality of care. This stacked difference-in-differences study compared outcomes for patients whose attributed PCP entered a vertical relationship with a large system in 2015 or 2017 to patients whose PCP was either never or always in a vertical relationship with a large system from 2013 to 2017. Models account for differences between PCPs, patient characteristics, market concentration, and secular trends. Data were derived from the 2013 to 2017 Massachusetts All-Payer Claims Database. The study population included commercially insured individuals attributed to a PCP in the Massachusetts Health Quality Partners' Massachusetts Provider Database in 2013, 2015, or 2017. Analyses were conducted between January 2021 and January 2024. PCPs attributed to patients in the study entering a vertical relationship with a large health system in 2015 or 2017. Low-value care utilization, posthospitalization follow-up, utilization among patients with ambulatory care-sensitive conditions, practice site visit fragmentation, and timeliness of specialty care. The study population included 4 603 172 patient-year observations from 2013 to 2017. Among all patients in the study, 53.5% were female, 35.3% had any chronic condition, and the mean (SD) age was 38.9 (20.3) years. There was no association between vertical relationships and low-value care or ambulatory care-sensitive conditions utilization. A patient's PCP entering a vertical relationship had no association with the probability of follow-up within 90 days of cancer diagnosis with any oncologist but was associated with a 7.34-percentage point (pp) (95% CI, 2.28-12.40; P = .01) increase in the probability of follow-up with an oncologist in the health system. Vertical relationships were associated with increased posthospitalization follow-up with a physician in the health system by 7.51 pp (95% CI, 2.96-12.06: P = .001) in the 2015 subgroup. PCP-health system vertical relationships were associated with a significant decrease in fragmentation of practice site visits of -1.05 pp (95% CI, -2.05 to 0.05; P = .04). In this study, vertical relationships between PCPs and large health systems were associated with patient steering and changes in care delivery processes, but not necessarily improvements in patient outcomes.

This article investigates the phenomenon of market concentration in the European agricultural sector from 2010 to 2020 at the regional level. To this end, we exploit the spatiotemporal dynamics of the Gini concentration index for farmland and production. First, we examine the variability within and between countries to assess whether the industry has suffered from increasing concentration during the study period. The next objective is to identify the empirical relationship between the two indicators and determine whether spatial spill-overs occur in terms of market concentration across regions. Our findings confirm the fragmented picture of the European agricultural sector, which is characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity within and across countries as concerns both land concentration and production concentration. In addition, we confirm the existence of a positive association between the two concentration measures. Lastly, the remarkable spatial autocorrelation we observe supports the hypothesis that adjacent regions tend to register similar levels of concentration, generating clusters of regions with either high or low values.

Raw material criticality in the context of classical risk assessment