Importance Of Competition Research Articles

Product mix adjustments and import competition in Vietnam's manufacturing industries

AbstractIn this article, we make use of Vietnam's annual enterprise surveys to investigate the product selection and product mix responses to import competition in manufacturing firms. We estimate the effect of imports from Vietnam's free trade agreement partners on firms' product scope and sales concentration, controlling for firms and industry characteristics and the conditions in export markets. The empirical results consistently indicate that Vietnam's manufacturing firms narrow the product scope and concentrate on better selling products in response to rising import competition. Given the dominant presence of quality sorting in the manufacturing industries, our analysis suggests an aggregate quality improvement as firms reallocate sales towards high‐quality products in responses to competition.

The impact of intermediate product imports on industrial pollution emissions: Evidence from 30 industries in China.

Open and sustainable development is the theme that underpins a country's high-quality economic development. This study uses GMM regression, mediation effect test to conduct empirical tests based on the panel data of China's industrial sectors from 2003 to 2015 to analyze the internal mechanism of the impact of intermediate product imports on China's industrial pollution emissions. The results show that (1) Intermediate product imports can significantly promote the emission reduction of industrial wastes, including wastewater, waste gas and solid waste. (2) Considering the differences in the level of pollution intensity, this paper classified the sample and found the impact is heterogeneous that for the heavily, moderately, lightly polluted industries, intermediate product imports have different negative impacts on their pollution emissions. (3) Intermediate products imports reduce industrial pollution emissions through import competition effect, variety effect and technology spillover effect, and all of them play a partial mediating role.

First report of black rot disease in Eruca vesicaria subsp. sativa caused by Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris in Belgium.

Eruca vesicaria subsp. sativa (Mill.) Thell. (arugula or rocket) is a leafy vegetable originating from the Mediterranean region primarily being sold in bagged salads. From 2014 to 2017, plants (cv. Montana) exhibiting blackened leaf veins and irregular V-shaped chlorotic to necroic lesions at the leaf margins were observed in commercial greenhouses in Flanders, Belgium (Figure S1A). Symptoms started after harvest of the first cut, indicating that leaf injury favours disease development. By the last cut, infections had spread uniformly across the plots, with symptoms advanced to the point where harvesting was no longer profitable. Excised surface-sterilized necrotic leaf tissue and seeds were homogenized in phosphate buffer (PB), followed by dilution plating on Pseudomonas Agar F containing sucrose. After four days at 28°C, bright yellow round, mucoid, convex Xanthomonas-like colonies were obtained, both from leaves and seeds. For confirmation, DNA was extracted from pure cultures after which a partial fragment of gyrB was amplified and sequenced (Holtappels et al. 2022). Amplicons were trimmed to 530 nucleotides (Genbank ON815895-ON815900) according to Parkinson et al. (2007) and compared with the NCBI database. Strain GBBC 3139 shares 100% sequence identity with Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris (Xcc) type strain LMG 568 and with RKFB 1361-1364, isolated from arugula in Serbia (Prokić et al. 2022). The other isolates from Belgian rocket - GBBC 3036, 3058, 3077, 3217 and 3236 - all have a gyrB sequence 100% identical to that of Xcc strain ICMP 4013, among others. To determine the genetic relatedness to other pathogenic Xc strains, the genomes of GBBC 3077, 3217, 3236 and 3139 were sequenced using a MinION (Nanopore) and non-clonal sequences were submitted to NCBI (BioProject PRJNA967242). Genomes were compared by calculating Average Nucleotide Identity (ANI). This revealed that the Belgian strains cluster together with Xc isolates originating from Brassica crops and separate from strains identified as Xc pv. barbareae, pv. incanae and pv. raphani (Figure S2A). Their designation as pv. campestris is supported by maximum likelihood clustering of concatenated gyrB-avrBs2 sequences (EPPO, 2021; Figure S2B,C). Finally, pathogenicity was verified on five-week-old rocket 'Pronto' plants grown in a commercial potting mix by cutting the leaves along the midrib with scissors dipped into a suspension of 108 cfu/ml of each strain or PB as control (4 plants/strain). Plants were kept in closed polypropylene boxes for 48 hr to support high humidity and facilitate infection. They were then maintained at 25 ± 2 °C. Lesions like those observed on commercial plants developed on the inoculated leaves within one week (Figure S1B). Bacterial colonies reisolated from symptomatic tissue were identified based on gyrB as the strains used for inoculation, thereby fulfilling Koch's postulates. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of black rot disease in arugula caused by Xcc in Belgium. Previously, Xcc on arugula has been reported in Argentina, California and Serbia as well (Romero et al. 2008; Rosenthal et al. 2017; Prokić et al. 2022). Arugula being a minor crop in Belgium, challenged by Xcc infections and strong import competition, many growers have abandoned the sector in recent years. Therefore, this study makes a strong case for early detection of disease symptoms and timely application of relevant management strategies in vulnerable crop settings.

Leyla Gencer Şan Yarışması Üzerine Sistematik Bir Değerlendirme

Several prestigious classical music competitions are organized in the national and international fields. These competitions, organized in the field such as performance and composition, motivate many young artists and allow them to achieve significant successes. The Leyla Gencer Voice Competition is an international and worldwide-known voice competition, which is the oldest and most important competition held in Turkey in the opera genre. Leyla Gencer, known as La Diva Turca and entitled as State Artist by the Turkish Republic, is one of our world-renowned artists, and with her pioneering character of music, she has made significant contributions to the promotion of the art of opera to our country and the announcement of Turkish opera singers to the world. Leyla Gencer Voice Competition has been organized with different frequencies starting from 1995 until 2018. This competition has been also held in the years after her death and it has maintained its prestige until today. From the past to the present, numerous great performers started their careers with prestigious music competitions such as Leyla Gencer Voice Competition. They achieved important career positions with their success of the competitions and now they are worldwide known artists. In this study, information about the life of Leyla Gencer, who made great contributions to the development of Turkish Opera art, was given; and the findings of the voice contest organized in her name were tabulated and interpreted by using document analysis methodology. The findings were created by systematical analysis of the information on the official website of the Leyla Gencer Voice Competition and the one in the archive of the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts. Data regarding terms and conditions of the competition, audition processes, winners, awards, jury members for the preliminary auditions and finals, winners by country, Turkish award winners, number of awards received by Turkish award winners, distribution of award winners by voice type, distribution of award winners by gender, organizing institutions and gala concerts were evaluated and presented by classifying them according to years. As a result, the importance of the increase in prestigious competitions in our country, the increase in the motivation of young soloists, the creation of an archive of the competitions, and most importantly the establishment of a national federation of music competitions were emphasized.

Import competition and energy efficiency: Firms' responses to the WTO accession in China

This paper investigates the impact of import competition on energy efficiency among firms in China. Using a difference-in-differences approach that exploits industry- and firm-level tariff reductions following China's accession to the WTO, we examine the effects of reduced output tariffs on coal intensity, measured as coal use per output, of Chinese manufacturing firms. Our findings indicate that higher levels of import competition lead to significant reductions in coal intensity, without negatively affecting firm production levels. We also find evidence that these effects are primarily driven by multi-product firms adjusting their product mix to prioritize energy-saving options.

Tax Competition and Employment

ABSTRACT We examine how exposure to international tax competition affects domestic firms’ employment. Consistent with prior work, we find evidence that reductions in foreign tax rates affect the domestic competitive environment via increases in import competition and investment in foreign-owned subsidiaries. We posit that these changes in the domestic competitive environment can cause managers to reduce their firms’ employment levels. Consistent with our expectation, we find that relative decreases in foreign tax rates negatively affect total labor compensation at domestic firms ex ante exposed to import competition and competition from foreign-owned peers. The effect of exposure to tax competition is greater for firms more exposed to product-market competition and those that are less able to expand investment without also increasing employment levels. Taken together, our results suggest that foreign tax rate changes can affect managers’ domestic employment decisions by changing the domestic competitive environment. JEL Classifications: E24; F14; F16; H23; H35.

The impact of import competition from China on firm‐level productivity growth in the European Union*

AbstractWe re‐examined the impact of rising imports from China on intra‐firm productivity growth in the European Union during the period 2005–16. In contrast to previous studies, we found that an increasing share of Chinese imports in total imports has slowed productivity growth over the observation period. This unfolded especially after the 2008/09 financial crisis and was more pronounced for firms with lower productivity growth. On average, the net effect of China's increasing import intensity on productivity growth has been negative for firms in the European Union since 2010. At the beginning of the sample, firms growing at the median rate experienced a modest growth‐enhancing effect of 0.02 percentage points, which turned slightly negative at −0.06 percentage points in the last observation year. The effect was muted for high‐growth multinational firms, which experienced a productivity growth premium from Chinese import competition at higher growth rates. Compared with the United States, the negative impact of Chinese import competition on the performance of EU firms is visible with a time lag.

Preferential Trade Agreements and Productivity: Evidence from Peru

This paper analyzes the impact of reducing output tariffs (i.e., domestic tariffs on import of final goods) and input tariffs (i.e., domestic tariffs on imports of intermediate goods) on total factor productivity growth of Peruvian manufacturing firms. Peru’s annual survey of manufacturing data from 2003–2017 is used to explore the reduction of tariffs during three preferential trade agreements: United States, China, and the European Union. Lower output tari˙s could decrease productivity by reducing firm’s market share or could increase productivity by inducing tougher import competition, while cheaper imported inputs can raise productivity via learning, variety, and quality effects. The results show that a decrease in output tariffs decreases Peruvian firms’ productivity growth for non-exporters (i.e., domestic firms producing goods that are also imported) while increasing productivity growth for exporters (i.e., domestic firms producing export goods). In contrast, a reduction in input tariffs increases firm productivity for all firms.

Imports, supply chains and firm productivity

This paper explores how competition-induced productivity gains from imports in intermediate producing sectors transmit through the supply chain. Based on firm-level panel data from Vietnam, we show that in addition to the productivity premium associated with importing intermediate inputs, firms that use domestically-produced inputs from more import-intensive sectors also have higher productivity. We find evidence that import competition leads to product differentiation, in particular higher quality output in sectors where there is greater scope for quality variation, leading to better quality domestically-produced inputs. We also find evidence that non-importing firms that experience productivity gains due to greater import intensity in upstream sectors change their input mix and become more capital intensive. We conclude that ignoring the gains from trade through this mechanism may significantly underestimate the impact of trade on productivity.

International trade and job polarization: Evidence at the worker level

We employ employer-employee matched data from Denmark and utilize plausibly exogenous variation in the rise of import competition due to the dismantling of import quotas as China entered the World Trade Organization to show, first, that rising import competition has led to reduced employment in mid-wage occupations compensated by an increased likelihood of employment in both low-wage and high-wage occupations. Workers with higher education are more likely to move from mid- to high-wage occupations due to trade compared to moving from mid- to low-wage occupations. Employing task content information of detailed occupations, we also show that workers performing manual tasks are the ones most affected by import competition independently of the routine-task intensity of occupations. This implies that the effect of import competition is distinct from that of routine task-replacing technological change.

When Women’s Work Disappears: Marriage and Fertility Decisions in Peru

Abstract This paper studies the gendered labor market and demographic effects of trade liberalization in Peru. To identify these effects, we use variation in the exposure of local labor markets to import competition from China based on their baseline industrial composition. On average, the increase in Chinese imports during 1998–2008 led to a persistent decline in the employment share of low-educated female workers but had smaller and transitory effects on the employment of low-educated men. In contrast to the predictions of Becker’s model of household specialization, we find that the increase in import competition during this period increased the share of single low-educated people and decreased their marriage rates. There is little evidence that import competition affected fertility decisions. The results highlight the role of gains from joint consumption in marriage formation.

Decomposing the effect of trade on the gender wage gap

AbstractThis paper uses variation in exposure to increased Chinese imports in Brazil to investigate the impact of trade on gender wage inequality. First, using Brazilian census data, we find that rising imports reduced the gender wage gap in Brazilian local labour markets. Next, using Oaxaca–Blinder decompositions, we show that this reduction in the wage gap was largely explained by trade increasing the share of female workers in higher‐paying occupations. Finally, we use a matched employer–employee data set to investigate how individual workers adjust to the trade shock. Similar to the local labour market analysis, we find that male workers exposed to increased import competition saw a larger decline in both wages and cumulative earnings relative to female workers. In addition, we uncover an interesting asymmetry in that, while male workers exhibited much higher degrees of industry mobility in response to the trade shock, female workers exhibited an equal if not higher degree of occupational mobility.

Gender wage discrimination with employer prejudice and trade openness

This paper studies the effect of trade liberalisation on gender wage inequality. A simple trade model with employer taste-based discrimination and imperfect competition provides an explanation for the heterogeneous effects of international trade on the gender wage gap within sectors. While import competition reduces rents and with them the gender wage gap, the effect of exports depends on the level of concentration of a sector. On the one hand, easier access to foreign markets has a competition effect through the selection of the low-cost firms in non-concentrated sectors. On the other hand, better export opportunities with easier access to foreign markets can increase profits of domestic firms’ in concentrated sectors and thus enable discriminatory firms to maintain wage gaps. Evidence from Uruguay supports the empirical relevance of the taste-based discrimination mechanism at the sector level.

Does import quality affect Brazilian wages?

In this paper, we investigated whether import quality affects wages paid by sectors facing import competition in Brazil from 1997 to 2016. First, we estimated a fixed effects model and, then, an unconditional quantile regression. We found that the quality of imports positively impacts Brazilian wages and that import quality affects wage bands differently in Brazil. In addition, we determined that the quality of imports originated in poorer economies has a slightly greater effect on wages in respect of richer countries. We concluded that, to fight international competition, local firms might improve product quality by hiring skilled workers, who earn more, and that the raise in the wage bill varies depending on the exporter income

The role of immigrants in the United States labor market and Chinese import competition

Research has shown a limited labor mobility response to trade shocks. However, existing studies of aggregate mobility may miss important heterogeneity. This paper proposes a mechanism through which local labor markets adjust to trade shocks, namely immigrant mobility. I find a relative decline in the immigrant population in areas more exposed to import growth from China. An interquartile increase in Chinese import exposure decreases the immigrant population by 5.4% but has little effect on the native population. Additionally, immigrant mobility mitigates the effects of trade shocks on native labor outcomes. The present study shows that natives in areas with more immigrants experience smaller declines in employment relative to areas with fewer immigrants.

Evaluation of Corporate Social Responsibility and Core Competitiveness Based on GA-SVM Model

Abstract The author proposes a model evaluation based on the GA-SVM model to better understand the evaluation of the company’s relationship and core competitiveness. The system index is reduced by relative gray analysis, the support vector machine model is optimized by a genetic algorithm, and the specific algorithm steps are introduced. Select models from the top 100 enterprises in China’s construction industry in 2020 published by China Construction Industry Market, using relative gray to reduce the measure, and then use the genetic algorithm support vector machine (GA-SVM) model for the training model to achieve the evaluation of the core competencies of the target construction technique business. The experimental results show that the relative error of prediction of the GA-SVM(Genetic algorithm-support vector machine) model for the evaluation of the competitive core of the business is not more than 5, which meets the should be made of accurate predictions. Therefore, choosing the Gaussian radial basis kernel function (RBF) as the kernel function of the GA-SVM intelligent evaluation model is good. It proves that the GA-SVM model can analyze the relationship between the role and the important competition.

Exporting unemployment? Assessing the impact of German import competition on regional manufacturing employment in France

ABSTRACT This paper assesses the extent to which German import competition has contributed to the observed differential decline in manufacturing employment across French regions. The study employs an exposure research design that exploits differences in regional manufacturing specialisation across French départements combined with an instrumental variable strategy. The analysis does not establish a connection between German import competition and differential changes in regional French manufacturing employment. This result suggests that German import competition has neither driven nor halted the overall decline of French manufacturing employment. It also indicates that the sizeable and long-lasting negative regional employment effects of trade between China and developed countries do not necessarily generalise.

What Causes Privatization? Evidence from Import Competition in China

In this paper, we identify product market competition as a driver of privatization. Using product market shocks caused by trade liberalization of China, which has the world’s largest state sector, we find that subjecting state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to higher competition leads to an increase in private ownership. This response is strengthened when SOEs operate in industries with large technology or productivity gaps from those in the frontier economies or when SOEs impose large fiscal burdens on local governments. Our findings are consistent with politicians’ incentives to boost economic growth for better career development and to shed burdens when rents decrease. This paper was accepted by Tomasz Piskorski, finance. Funding: C. Lin acknowledges financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72192841]. Q. Hu acknowledges financial support from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and the Renmin University of China [Grant 21XNF002]. W. Li acknowledges financial support from the Major Project of the Ministry of Education [Grant 22JZD007] and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72132002]. L. Wei acknowledges financial support from the Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee [Grant 13501619]. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4847 .

The Downstream Impact of Upstream Tariffs: Evidence from Investment Decisions in Supply Chains

Abstract We study how U.S. manufacturing firms’ investment responds to tariff reductions in supplier industries. Our estimates, based on tariff reductions following multinational trade agreements, suggest that a hypothetical 10% reduction of all upstream tariffs would increase downstream investment by 4% to 6%. This estimate is not explained by decreasing uncertainty and stems from tariff reductions for homogeneous and low-R&D inputs, consistent with the investment response resulting from cost reductions rather than superior foreign technology embodied in imported inputs. Evidence from an instrumental variable estimation using the sudden increase in Chinese import penetration suggests that import competition also increases downstream investment.

Import penetration and workplace safety

We examine how import penetration from China affects corporate workplace safety in U.S. manufacturing firms. Using Chinese import penetration to other eight developed countries as an instrument, we find that import penetration to the U.S. worsens worker safety. We identify two underlying economic mechanisms through which import penetration impairs workplace safety—resource constraints for safety-related investments and reduced employee safety compliance due to heightened job insecurity among U.S. workers. Finally, we find that the negative effect of import competition on worker safety is attenuated in firms that experience heightened product differentiation and market concentration, stronger union bargaining power, and higher level of social capital.