Manufacturing Labor Research Articles

Globalization and the Labor Share in the United States

This paper examines to what extent globalization has contributed to the decline in the labor share of US national income. It argues that globalization can influence the national labor share (NLS), even though its impacts first occur to the tradable sector. It then empirically estimates the effect of globalization on the labor share in the manufacturing sector, and uses the resulting estimates to infer the effect of globalization on the NLS. Our estimations indicate that not all globalization indicators are negative on the labor share. However, between 1999 and 2009, the included indicators of globalization cut the manufacturing labor share by about 3–6 percentage points, directly contributing to about 20–36 percent of the decline in the NLS in that period. Moreover, that tally is very likely to underestimate the total effect of globalization on the US labor share because the paper’s estimates do not capture the indirect effect of globalization on the labor share of the non-tradable sector.

ICT 자본 투입이 노동 및 에너지 수요에 미치는 영향: 한국, 미국, 영국의 제조업 및 전기·가스·수도사업의 생산구조 비교

본 논문은 한국, 미국, 영국의 제조업 및 전기 가스 수도사업에서 ICT 확산이 노동 및 에너지 수요에 어떠한 영향을 미치는지 연구하였다. 제조업에 대해서는 ICT 자본, 비ICT 자본, 노동, 전기, 연료, 재료를 생산요소로 가정하고, 전기 가스 수도사업에 대해서는 ICT 자본, 비 ICT 자본, 노동, 에너지 재료를 생산요소로 가정하여 요소 간 대체관계를 분석하였다. 모리시마 대체탄력성 추정결과 및 요소의 상대적 가격변화를 고려할 때, 3개 국가의 제조업 및 전기 가스 수도사업에서 ICT 자본은 노동을 대체하여 노동 수요를 감소시키는 것으로 나타났다. ICT 자본에 비해 전기 및 연료의 가격증가율이 높은 미국과 영국의 제조업에서 ICT 자본은 전기 및 연료를 대체하여 에너지 수요를 감소시키는 것으로 나타났다. 한국의 제조업에서 ICT 자본과 전기 및 연료가 대체관계에 있으나, 요소의 상대적 가격변화를 고려하면 ICT 자본이 에너지 수요 감소에 기여했다고 보기 어렵다. 3개 국가의 전기 가스 수도사업에서 ICT 자본은 에너지 재료를 거의 탄력적으로 대체하여 에너지 재료 수요를 감소시키는 것으로 분석되었다. We investigate the effect of ICT capital on the demands for labor and energy in manufacturing and electricity gas water industries of Korea, US, and UK. Assuming ICT capital, non-ICT capital, labor, electricity, fuel, and material as input factors for manufacturing and ICT capital, non-ICT capital, labor and energy material as input factors for electricity gas water industry, we estimate the Morishima elasticities of substitution. Considering the relative price changes of input factors, ICT capital has substituted labor in manufacturing and electricity water gas industries of the three countries. ICT capital has substituted both electricity and fuel in US and UK manufacturing. Although ICT capital has substituted electricity and fuel each other in Korean manufacturing, ICT capital is unlikely to decrease the demands for electricity and fuel when considering their relative price changes. ICT capital has substituted energy material in electricity gas water industries of the three countries.

El experimento penitenciario salvadoreño, 1900-1944

En este artículo interesa estudiar el proyecto penitenciario salvadoreño de las primeras cuatro décadas del siglo XX; describe su creación e intereses iniciales y se establece también una comparación del estado de las penitenciarías y otros establecimientos carcelarios. No obstante, el artículo se centra en las técnicas de reeducación de los individuos privados de libertad en las penitenciarías; es decir, en los programas de trabajo y retribución económica de la mano de obra, en la manufactura y distribución de la producción de los reos. Además, ¿se aplicó este régimen laboral a toda la población penitenciaria? ¿Cómo se desarrolló el mismo al cabo de unas décadas? ¿Cómo influyeron los programas represivos del delito durante el martinato en el estado de las penitenciarías? Este trabajo intenta reflexionar sobre las instituciones penitenciarias, su evolución, su funcionalidad y proyecto rehabilitador de la delincuencia.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5377/rpsp.v3i1.1335

Bringing Commodity Chain Analysis Back to Its World-Systems Roots: Rediscovering Women’s Work and Households

Globally between 1980 and 2000, women's economic activity rate expanded, narrowing the gender gap in labor force participation. Thus, females now account for one-third or more of the "officially-counted" personnel of export industries (UNICEF 2007), and export agriculture is now feminized (Deere 2005). Today women account for one-third of the manufacturing labor force in developing countries, and females hold more than one-half of the industrial jobs in Asia (Barrientos, Kabeer and Hossain 2004). In much of the global South, females account for a majority of the waged labor force in export agriculture, and they are more heavily concentrated than men in service jobs that provision the supply chains of global production. As a reflection of fewer opportunities for males, women are now less likely to withdraw from the labor force during their childbearing years. In addition, females account for a majority of the income earners in the informal sectors of a majority of global South countries, generate a significant proportion of global commodities through subcontracted work they complete in their households, and provide most of the unpaid family labor needed to support household-based farms and businesses that are dominated by males (United Nations 2003).

A Model Curriculum for Undergraduate Program in IT SSME

The service sector is the uppermost growth segment of the developed economies, and becoming more knowledge intensive as automation and outsourcing reduce demand for labor in agriculture and manufacturing. The reliance of this sector on information technology (IT) deserves revision of IT curricula. As the field of computing continues to grow and diversify, and new computing-related disciplines emerge, existing curriculum programs must be updated regularly and new computing disciplines will be drafted to prepare students with the knowledge and skill sets applicable to current and projected future service sector. Service Science, Management, and Engineering (SSME) is a new market-relevant multidisciplinary academic program designed in response to the service sector's growing dominance. The main aims of this paper are firstly, to identify and develop the body of knowledge areas and skills needed by IT professionals. Secondly, to develop SSME undergraduate curriculum and courses that embody the topics in the SSME body of knowledge. The study was based on surveying and analyzing the current and projected future demand for IT Professionals with enhanced IT SSME skills. With the support of IBM, Jordan University of Science and Technology will begin offering an undergraduate program in SSME in fall 2013.

Currency Crises and the Labour Share

This paper analyses the impact of currency crises on the labour share and identifies two main types of channel: within‐ and across‐sector effects. First crises erode the bargaining power of workers so that within sectors, crises lower the labour share. Nevertheless, structural changes occurring during currency crises may change the aggregate level of the labour share if sectors differ in their capital intensities. We perform estimations on manufacturing sectoral panel data for 20 countries. We conclude that currency crises lower the aggregate manufacturing labour share by around 2 percentage points, and that this decline reflects mostly changes within manufacturing subsectors.

Influences of US real GDP growth and labour productivity on manufacturing real wages

This paper re-examines the dynamic casual nexus among real manufacturing wage rate, labour productivity and real GDP growth. Data from 1987 Q1 through 2011 Q2 are utilised by implementing the fairly standard cointegration methodology in a trivariate setting. All three variables are non-stationary depicting I (1) behaviour. There are evidences of at least one cointegrating relationship among the variables, based on both ltrace and lmax tests. The estimates of vector error-correction models show the weakest long-term causal flow from labour productivity and real GDP growth to real wage rate in the US manufacturing sector. Such causal flow is the strongest from manufacturing real wage rate and labour productivity to US real GDP growth. The influence of manufacturing real wage and real GDP growth on labour productivity falls in between. In all cases of vector error-correction models, there are evidences of short-run net positive interactive feedback effects in varying degrees.

The Effect on Rural Communities of the Shrinking Role of Farmers as a Source of Low-Wage Manufacturing Labor(PAPERS READ AT THE AUTUMN CONFERENCE SYMPOSIUM, 2012 On the End of Rapid Economic Growth:Manufacturing, Domestic Demand, and Regional Societies)

The Effect on Rural Communities of the Shrinking Role of Farmers as a Source of Low-Wage Manufacturing Labor(PAPERS READ AT THE AUTUMN CONFERENCE SYMPOSIUM, 2012 On the End of Rapid Economic Growth:Manufacturing, Domestic Demand, and Regional Societies)

Algorithm of Calculating the Annual Economic Effect from Implementing Different Types of Innovation in a Business Organization

The goal of this article is the development of a commonly acceptable algorithm of calculating the economic effect from introducing innovations in a business organization. The article uses the method of absolute economic efficiency. It results in a number of suggested formulas for calculating the annual economic effect obtained by a reduction of manufacturing costs, increases in sales, savings of labour, material and financial resources both in manufacturing and non-manufacturing business areas, utilization of production waste as well as a reduction of manufacturing defects.

Chicago in the age of capital: class, politics, and democracy during the Civil War and Reconstruction

In this sweeping interpretive history of mid-nineteenth-century Chicago, historians John B. Jentz and Richard Schneirov boldly trace the evolution of a modern social order. Combining a mastery of historical and political detail with a sophisticated theoretical frame, Jentz and Schneirov examine the dramatic capitalist transition in Chicago during the critical decades from the 1850s through the 1870s, a period that saw the rise of a permanent wage worker class and the formation of an industrial upper class. Jentz and Schneirov demonstrate how a new political economy, based on wage labor and capital accumulation in manufacturing, superseded an older mercantile economy that relied on speculative trading and artisan production. The city's leading business interests were unable to stabilize their new system without the participation of the new working class, a German and Irish ethnic mix that included radical ideas transplanted from Europe. Jentz and Schneirov examine how debates over slave labor were transformed into debates over free labor as the city's wage-earning working class developed a distinctive culture and politics. The new social movements that arose in this era--labor, socialism, urban populism, businessmen's municipal reform, Protestant revivalism, and women's activism--constituted the substance of a new post-bellum democratic politics that took shape in the 1860s and '70s. When the Depression of 1873 brought increased crime and financial panic, Chicago's new upper class developed municipal reform in an attempt to reassert its leadership. Setting local detail against a national canvas of partisan ideology and the seismic structural shifts of Reconstruction, Chicago in the Age of Capital vividly depicts the upheavals integral to building capitalism.

The Creative Self on Sale: Work Experiences of Store Artists

Making art stands for ideals such as, freedom, creativity, self-expression, and emancipation. While it is often portrayed as fun, pleasure or a vocation, it is hardly ever described as labour (Abrams, 1953). Yet in today’s aesthetic economy, the conception of artistic work is blurring (Bohme, 2003; Entwistle, 2002). The promise of non-alienated and free work (Marx, 1975) does not hold. Instead, a new form of labour, artistic labour, is emerging. To illustrate this point, we draw on qualitative data from ongoing research at a North American supermarket chain. We show how the making of store art turns out to be a production job: routine artwork that is instrumentalized, commoditized, and economized. In neo-liberal capitalism, so-called creative and artistic work involves many elements of traditional manufacturing labour. We discuss the similarities between artistic labour and aesthetic labour and argue that the benefit of employing artists is not only to have store art that improves sales and consumption. I...

Impact of globalization on productivity of u.s. Manufacturing labor 1988-2003

This paper explores the impact of globalization on some determinants of per worker labor productivity in U.S. manufacturing industries. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and trade liberalization are examined as two main drivers of globalization in this study. The estimation result suggests that globalization has negatively impacted per worker productivity across small, medium, and high skill workers in U.S. manufacturing industries.

Using least squares support vector machines for the airframe structures manufacturing cost estimation

Accurate cost estimation plays a significant role in industrial product development and production. This research applied least squares support vector machines (LS-SVM) method solving the problem of estimating the manufacturing cost for airframe structural projects. This research evaluated the estimation performance using back-propagation neural networks and statistical regression analysis. In case studies, this research considered structural weight and manufacturing complexity as the main factors in determining the manufacturing labor hour. The test results verified that the LS-SVM model can provide accurate estimation performance and outperform other methods. This research provides a feasible solution for airframe manufacture industry.

Process costing of the microchip

The CMOS microchip is the workhorse of the semiconductor industry. The manufacturing model was formed with practical processing times, number of machines, steps of manufacturing process, labour cost and time required, construction costs, land costs, etc. as input parameters. This cost model attempts to analyse costs and calculate the cost per chip. Different sections of costs have been individually analysed in turn to reflect their impact on the finished product. A simulation model has been run to reflect an actual semiconductor manufacturing scenario. Simulation model is also used to estimate labour time and cost required for the process. The cost was calculated based on yield, number of chips/wafer and total expenditure by the fabrication unit. A simulation model was created in Arena 6.0 professional version, which allows the user to make changes to the model to reflect the changes in the fabrication unit.

Power Transformer No-Load Loss Prediction with FEM Modeling and Building Factor Optimization

Estimation of power transformer no-load loss is a critical issue in the design of distribution transformers. Any deviation in estimation of the core losses during the design stage can lead to a financial penalty for the transformer manufacturer. In this paper an effective and novel method is proposed to determine all components of the iron core losses applying a combination of the empirical and numerical techniques. In this method at the first stage all computable components of the core losses are calculated, using Finite Element Method (FEM) modeling and analysis of the transformer iron core. This method takes into account magnetic sheets anisotropy, joint losses and stacking holes. Next, a Quadratic Programming (QP) optimization technique is employed to estimate the incomputable components of the core losses. This method provides a chance for improvement of the core loss estimation over the time when more measured data become available. The optimization process handles the singular deviations caused by different manufacturing machineries and labor during the transformer manufacturing and overhaul process. Therefore, application of this method enables different companies to obtain different results for the same designs and materials employed, using their historical data. Effectiveness of this method is verified by inspection of 54 full size distribution transformer measurement data.

The Role of Migrant Labour in China's Labour Policy

Migrant workers have become a major component of China's labour force in the manufacturing sector, and therefore an important force in the country's economic modernization. Yet, for a long time, migrant workers were perceived as peasants by the Chinese authorities, and were excluded from the scope of the state's labour policy. In the new century, the government has begun to consider them as an important part of the manufacturing labour force, and attempt to protect their rights through adjustments in its labour policy. However, in many aspects, migrant workers are still considered “pseudo labourers”. This article attempts to examine the issue of migrant workers within the framework of the state's labour policy. The socio-economic problems associated with migrant workers will not be resolved until they are treated as a proper part of the labour force, and granted the same legal and policy protection as urban workers.

Reassessing Human Geography in the Wake of China's Rise

A prominent human geographer, introducing a series of papers in a Eurasian Geography and Economics mini-symposium devoted to China's emergence, surveys the myriad global impacts of that country's rapid recent rise. The topics covered include the economic (i.e., rapid growth in the size of China's economy, preeminence as an exporter of manufactured goods, and role as a major natural resource consumer, overseas investor, and purchaser of U.S. debt obligations), the geopolitical (increasing involvement in international organizations, rising assertiveness in defense of territorial claims), and the environmental (e.g., carbon footprint, accelerated urbanization, dam building), as well as the implications of China's rise for the study of geography and development. He argues that assessment of the consequences of the country's emergence should not be based on simple extrapolation of present trends, but must take into account a number of looming questions relating to the competitiveness of China's manufacturing labor force (vis-à-vis other developing countries), capacity to innovate (as well as imitate), and transformative societal impacts of modernization and development.

WAR AND PESTILENCE AS LABOR MARKET SHOCKS: U.S. MANUFACTURING WAGE GROWTH 1914–1919

This paper explores the effect of mortalities from the 1918 influenza pandemic and World War I on wage growth in the manufacturing sector of U.S. states and cities from 1914–1919. The hypothesis is that both events decreased manufacturing labor supply, thereby initially increasing the marginal product of labor and wages. The results reveal that states and cities having had greater influenza mortalities experienced higher wage growth—roughly 2–3 percentage points for a 10% change in per capita mortalities. World War I combat mortalities also had a positive, but smaller, effect on wage growth. (JEL N62, N32, N92, I12)

Foreign Sourcing of Intermediate Inputs: Impacts on Unskilled Labor in US Manufacturing Industries

A popular view maintains that unskilled workers have suffered from an increase in foreign sourcing of production activities by US manufacturing firms. While not a refutation, researchers have been keen to identify technology investment as playing a pivotal role in the deterioration of labor market outcomes for unskilled labor. Yet existing evidence is ambiguous concerning the wage/employment impacts of the US manufacturing sector's increased reliance on imported intermediates. Indeed, the few existing studies use earlier data that generally ignore the more recent upswing in the “offshoring” phenomenon. The present research utilizes data for six-digit (NAICS) manufacturing industries from 1997 to 2002. Cost-share equations generate a regression model to explain variations in the employment and wage-bill shares of skilled vs unskilled workers within these industries. Our findings imply that foreign sourcing of intermediates may be as important as technology spending in the skill upgrading of the manufacturing labor force.

Technical innovations at the service of cheaper labor in pre‐industrial Europe. The Enlightened agenda to transform the gender division of labor in silk manufacturing

In 1749, Jacques de Vaucanson patented his or tour pour tirer la soie or spindle for silk reeling. Vaucanson's mechanized spindle soon was adopted by most silk producer regions in Europe, at a time when silk was a main luxury commodity in Western trade and manufacturing production. In this article I analyze the introduction of this innovation in Spain in the second half of the eighteenth century. I describe how the Enlightened reformist government promoted its adoption, the main advantage in relation to former spindles being that it could be handled by women, given that less physical effort was needed. Although supported by decades of political and financial support, the diffusion of the Vaucanson spindle was limited. Nevertheless, this case is interesting because it fitted perfectly with a central aspect of the labor agenda of Enlightened reformists: to increase women's labor force participation in order to reduce productive costs and make industry more competitive; and to permit men's labor to be ‘reallocated’ to agriculture, public works and the army. Technological innovation is thus analyzed as part of the economic and social agenda of the period.