Large Industrial Sector Research Articles

The Industrial Impact of Monetary Policy Shocks: Some Stylised Facts

This paper investigates the disaggregated effects of monetary policy shocks on the output of 24 sectors of the UK economy. The paper's principal aim is to provide stylised facts about the sectoral responses to unexpected changes in monetary policy and to help assess how monetary policy developments feed through the economy. It also provides indirect evidence about the underlying nature of the transmission mechanism. The first set of results relates to the largest industrial sectors - construction, services, production industries (including utilities and manufacturing) - which sum together to form the output measure of GDP. Thereafter the paper focuses on the manufacturing sector alone. Data sources for manufacturing are richer than for other sectors of the economy, which allows a more detailed analysis of the factors that might account for the pattern of responses to monetary shocks which we observe across manufacturing. Focusing first on the main industrial sectors, the paper finds that the effects of an unanticipated monetary policy tightening seem to be unevenly distributed across sectors of the economy. As might be expected, sectors such as construction show a sizeable and rapid decline in output, whereas others, like services, show a much more muted reaction. Manufacturing as a whole also responds quite sharply to a monetary tightening, but some large industrial sectors, notably the utilities, show a subdued reaction. Turning finally to the manufacturing sector alone, the paper shows that the (2 digit SIC) sectors that comprise manufacturing also exhibit diverse responses to a monetary shock. The paper shows the pattern of manufacturing sector responses seems correlated with the size characteristics of the firms in each sector. In particular, sectors which mainly comprise small firms tend to exhibit a stronger reaction to monetary shocks than sectors that mainly comprise larger firms. This might indicate that credit market imperfections play a role in the monetary policy transmission process.

Improving the environmental performance of Scotland's hospitality sector

As society seeks to secure a more sustainable approach to development, pressure is increasingly being brought to bear on individual businesses to improve their environmental performance. This article reviews some of the existing approaches used to encourage the hospitality sector, which constitutes one of the world's largest industrial sectors, to tackle environmental aspects of their operational performance. Lessons learned from this review have been used to advise the development of an audited environmental management programme for Scotland's hotels and guest houses, the purpose of which is outlined in the concluding sections of the paper.

Restructuring Russia's industry — Taking stock of the first five years of transition

When the Soviet Union was broken up at the end of 1991, the Russian Federation inherited a large industrial sector which was, however, hardly capable of surviving under market conditions. At about the same time market oriented reforms were begun. What has been accomplished so far? What are the most important tasks that remain to be tackled?

Egypt

control the fiscal receipts of the Egyptian government in order to repay the external debt. Egypt, legally part of the Ottoman Empire, was under the influence of the British consul general, until the British declared Egypt a protectorate in 1914. Egypt was recognized as a sovereign state in 1922, but the British continued to maintain their military influence in the country until the Free Officers seized power in 1952 and established a republic. Under the late President Nasser, Egypt experienced its second surge in establishing a large industrial sector that was to be state-owned and operated (Ikram, 1980). Egypt, a socialist democratic republic, has established the People's Assembly as the legislative authority that approves the state policies, development plan, and state budget. In a multiparty system, the members of the People's Assembly are elected on a party-list basis, while the president of the republic appoints ten members to the assembly.

A framework for ecotourism

Tourism is one of the world's largest industry sectors (WTO 1991; WTTC 1993); and its environmental management issues are relatively little studied (Buckley and Pannell 1989; Butler 1991; Westcott and Molinski 1993; WTTERC 1993). Ecotourism is arguably its fastest growing subsector (Mat­thews 1993), but poorly defined. There are four main links between tourism and environment: components of the natural environment as the basis for a marketable tourism attraction or product; management of tourism operations so as to minimize or reduce their environmental impacts; economic or material contribution of tourism to conservation, either directly or indirectly; and attitude of tourists towards the environment and environmental education of clients by tourist operators. Therefore, there are environmental aspects to every major component of tourism business: products and markets, management, money, and people.

Protection, economic war and structural change: the 1930s in Ireland

If I were an Irishman, I should find much to attract me in the economic outlook of your present government towards greater self-sufficiency. (J.M. Keynes)The 1930s were years of political turmoil and economic crisis and change in Ireland. Economic activity had peaked in 1929, and the last years of the Cumann na nGaedheal government (in power since the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922) saw substantial drops in output, trade and employment. The policies pursued after Fianna Fáil’s victory in the election of February 1932 were therefore influenced both by immediate economic pressures and by the party’s ideological commitments. The highly protectionist measures associated with de Valera and Lemass — key men of the new régime — sought both to create jobs quickly and to build more gradually a large indigenous industrial sector, producing primarily for the home market.Political controversy complicated matters. De Valera was regarded as a headstrong fanatic by the British establishment. His government’s refusal to hand over to Britain the so-called ‘land annuities’ — a disputed item in the Anglo-Irish settlement of 1921 — led to an ‘economic war’, in which the British Treasury sought payment instead through penal ‘emergency’ tariffs on Irish imports. The Irish imposed their own duties, bounties and licensing restrictions in turn. The economic war hurt Irish agriculture badly; the prices of fat and store cattle dropped by almost half between 1932 and mid-1935. Farmers got some relief through export bounties and the coal-cattle pacts (quota exchanges of Irish cattle for British coal) of 1935-7, but Anglo-Irish relations were not normalised again until the finance and trade agreements of the spring of 1938, and the resolution of the annuities dispute did not mean an end to protection. The questions ‘Who won the economic war?’ and ‘What was the impact of protection on the Irish economy?’ are analytically distinct, but they are not that easy to keep apart in practice.

The Rise of the Industrial Metropolis: The Myth and the Reality

The Rise of the Industrial Metropolis: The Myth and the Reality

Midwestern Industrialization and the American Manufacturing Belt in the Nineteenth Century

The Midwest made the transition from primary to secondary activity before 1880 by developing a large diversified industrial sector to serve burgeoning midwestern demand for manufactures. Because the Midwest had industrialized, its firms were able to compete with eastern producers in multiregional and national markets after 1880, when the transportation and communication systems were fully integrated. Supporting evidence is drawn from a national set of 327 urban-industrial counties, with a focus on the Midwest.

The impact of sectoral shifts in industry on U.S. energy demands

Shifts among economic sectors within manufacturing have had significant effects on industrial energy demand since 1973. At least one-third of the reduction in U.S. energy intensity for fossil fuels can be attributed to sectoral shifts over this historical period. Shifts among economic sectors will continue to be an important source of uncertainty in forecasting industrial energy demand. Without greater consensus on the major causes of these shifts, analysts will be unable to separate how much of the past shifts can be reversed with changed energy and economic conditions and how much will remain embedded in the economic structure. Standard economic projections anticipate a continuation of the shift away from large industrial energy-using sectors, although at a slower rate. The Wharton economic projections used recently in an Energy Modeling Forum (EMF) study indicated a decline rate of about half that experienced during the 1973–1981 period. Even so, this effect alone could contribute as much as 0.5% per annum to the rate of decline in aggregate energy intensity within manufacturing.

A Note on the Use-Classification of Four Digit Industries or How to Call a Spade a Spade

Much of our understanding of structural change with industrialization is based on empirical studies that describe patterns in the relationship between consumption, intermediate and capital goods [1; 2, for instance]. Thus, classification of an industry's output, prices, imports or exports by use is of primary importance. Even if the data available describe individual products, there is some ambiguity in use classification—safety razor blades (metal products) are clearly con¬sumption goods but sewing machines (nonelectric machinery) are consumption goods if owned by housewives and capital goods if owned by tailors. Far more serious problems, however, arise when large industry sectors, like whole four digit industries, must be classified by use. If there is no basis for dividing any industry's output (or prices or imports or exports) among its alternative uses, then the entire industry must be classified as a single lump in one of the three use categories on the basis of some judgment— even if heroic—or else such aggrega¬tion by use must be abandoned. But ad hoc classifications that lump entire four-digit industries under one or another heading are not appropriate if there exists a reasonable basis for dividing each industry's output among uses. Then, instead of assigning all metal products to capital goods (as did Chenery) it is possible to assign some portion to consumption goods (representing razor blades, et al), some to intermediate goods (rivets) and some to capital goods (spades).