Plant Turnover Research Articles

Entry and Exit in International Markets: Evidence from Chilean Data

Several studies examine the patterns and determinants of entry and exit in manufacturing industries. Not much work exists on entry and exit in international markets. This paper uses Chilean data to analyze the determinants of entry and exit in and out of export markets. We find that entry and exit rates differ across industries; vary over time; and are positively correlated. The econometric analysis shows that within-industry heterogeneity, measured by differences in productivity or other firm characteristics, has a significant effect on plant turnover in international markets. Our findings reveal that trade costs, factor intensities, and fluctuations in the real exchange rate play a minor role explaining entry and exit. This last result is consistent with hysteresis in international markets.

Trade Reforms in a Global Competition Model: The Case of Chile

We use a global competition model of international trade with heterogeneous firms to evaluate the impact of trade reforms that occurred in Chile at the end of the 70s. We compare the predictions of the calibrated model in terms of productivity, plant turnover, job and trade flows with what occurred in reality using a comprehensive plant-level panel dataset for the manufacturing sector. The model explains several effects of liberalization reforms on industry performance. In contrast to the previous studies we use a general equilibrium approach that allows fully quantifying and identifying the trade liberalization effects on the tradeable and nontradeable sectors. We proceed by performing a counterfactual experiment aimed at exploring the impact of preferential trade agreements negotiated by Chile in recent years with the EU and NAFTA.

Who Dies in Developing Countries?: International Trade and Plant Heterogeneity

Several studies have found that plant turnover contributes to productivity growth. This evidence is consistent with the idea that, by reducing the protection granted to inefficient firms, trade liberalization generates the productivity gains associated with resource reallocation from less productive to more productive firms. However, little empirical work has been done that directly links trade variables with plant turnover. This paper uses Chilean trade reforms to shed light on the effects of tariff changes on plant exit. Our econometric analysis shows that larger and more productive plants are less likely to exit. After controlling for these characteristics, we find that exit is more likely in tradable industries, and even larger in import-competing industries. Moreover, we find a differential impact of tariff changes. Reductions in trade protection increase more greatly the exit probability for plants in import-competing industries. All of our findings are consistent with resource reallocation occurring within and across industries.

Distribution of aquatic vascular plants in lowland rivers: separating the effects of local environmental conditions, longitudinal connectivity and river basin isolation

Summary1. Changes in species distributions along rivers have rarely been observed independently of changes in environmental conditions and meaningful comparison between different catchments is made difficult by the limited geographical distribution of species. This study presents a new approach to quantify the effect of the spatial structure of lowland river networks on aquatic plant distribution and to explore the potential underlying processes using species life‐history characteristics.2. Twenty‐five species of aquatic vascular plants recorded in 62 sites across five calcareous river basins were used to investigate (i) the temporal turnover of plant species, (ii) the habitat utilisation of species, (iii) the trade‐offs between different plant life‐history characteristics and (iv) the relationship between species life‐history characteristics and habitat utilisation.3. The annual plant turnover within a 3‐year period was, although significant, extremely low. It suggests that results from spatial surveys conducted over 3 years should not be undermined by temporal changes.4. Spatial connectivity along and between rivers was more important than in‐channel physical characteristics in shaping species assemblages. Neither chemical factors (ammonium, phosphate) nor extrinsic biotic competitors (filamentous green algae) significantly influenced plant distribution.5. The most common combinations of life‐history characteristics were neither related to environmental conditions nor to spatial isolation. Instead, they could reflect natural selection processes associated with larger scales than those considered in this study.6. Plant distribution was most strongly related to the dispersal and regeneration abilities of the plants, supporting the hypotheses relating to longitudinal connectivity. The hypothesis that different growth forms would be associated with different in‐channel physical features was not verified. As expected, there were no substantial differences in plant life‐history characteristics between river basins.

Productivity Dynamics with Technology Choice: An Application to Automobile Assembly

During the 1980’s, all Japanese automobile producers opened assembly plants in North America. Industry analysts and previous research claim that these transplants are more productive than incumbent plants and that they produce with a substantially different production process. I compare the production processes by estimating a model that allows for heterogeneity in technology and productivity, both of which are intrinsically unobservable. The model is estimated on a panel of assembly plants, controlling for capacity utilization and price effects. The results indicate that the more recent technology uses capital more intensively and it has a higher elasticity of substitution between labour and capital. Hicks-neutral productivity growth is estimated to be lower, while capital-biased (labour-saving) productivity growth is higher for the new technology. Using the estimation results, I decompose industry-wide productivity growth and find plant-level changes in lean plants to be the most important contributor. Plant-level productivity growth is further decomposed to reveal the importance of capital-biased productivity growth, increases in the capital‐labour ratio, and returns to scale. Measuring technological change, which is defined as the shift of a production function over time, becomes harder if plants can choose which production technology to adopt. In the automobile assembly industry there is evidence that plants choose to operate with mass or lean technology. I estimate technical change for the industry using a rich plant-level data set for the U.S. Firms choose which technology to employ, but their choice is not observable to me. The shape of both technologies and the rate and factor-bias of their shift over time is estimated jointly with the technology decision. I use the model to decompose aggregate productivity growth and find that firm-level change in lean production plants is the most important contributor to aggregate productivity growth for the industry, but it only appears after controlling for the technology choice. In contrast with previous results in the literature, relocation of resources between plants is only the second most important effect. Labour productivity growth at lean plants is driven by increased capital use and capital-biased technical change. In mass production plants, on the other hand, almost all labour productivity advance is the result of Hicks-neutral technological growth. Traditional productivity measures suggest that the automobile industry enjoyed a considerable productivity improvement since the 1980’s, the period when the first Japanese producers entered the industry in the U.S. The number of vehicles produced per worker, an often quoted statistic, is on average higher in Japanese transplants than in plants owned by American producers. Researchers have concluded that entry of more productive plants caused industrywide productivity to increase. Compositional changes at the intensive margin—relocation of shares between active plants—and the extensive margin—plant turnover—are thought to be the principal sources of aggregate productivity change. 167

Impact of Paleocene/Eocene Greenhouse Warming on North American Paratropical Forests

Abstract The Paleocene/Eocene boundary (c. 55.2 ma) represents transient greenhouse warming of <220 ky duration that had a critical impact upon North American mammals but an apparently limited impact upon subtropical plants. The effect of enhanced warming on biomes already tolerant of paratropical/tropical climate conditions is essentially unknown at the Paleocene/Eocene boundary because most research has centered on high latitude changes in plant turnover. Fossil pollen and spores from the US Gulf Coast allow an assessment of the impact that Paleocene/Eocene climate events had on a Paleo—paratropical/tropical vegetation type. Pollen data from two marginal marine sections either side of the boundary in Alabama, USA, demonstrate secular but subdued changes in composition that are manifest primarily as a restructuring of the vegetation type. Taxa found in the Paleocene remain dominant in the early Eocene (≥89% of taxonomic groups), and both extinction and immigration rates are moderate. Immigrants probably ...

Energy saving and pollution control for short rotary furnace in secondary lead smelters

This work discusses a method to suppress the fugitive emissions of total solid particles (TSP) and save energy for industrial lead smelters. Pilot scale experiments simulating the industrial short rotary furnace (SRF) in lead smelters were studied. An energy study was manifested on a typical lead smelter. Factors affecting the objectives of this work have been investigated. The results obtained revealed that the rate of fuel consumption of heavy fuel (mazout) is highest in the early period of smelting. The flue gases in the existing small lead smelters are heavily loaded, with TSP outweighing the constrains given by law 4/94. About 60% of the energy input in the SRF escapes to the environment causing pollution hazards of TSP and spreading out excessive heat. Applying clean technology including pelletization of battery paste saved about 35% and 12.5% of heat and total energy consumption, whereas fugitive TSP decreases by about 67%. A theoretical model explaining the lead recovery process is given. It is based on heat and mass transfer and the thermodynamic properties of the species and reactions involved. Prediction of the findings of this model has been experimentally verified with a marginal accuracy of 4%. On an economic basis, nearly 14% of the plant turnover is saved annually.

Technology Locks, Creative Destruction, and Nonconvergence in Productivity Levels

Plant-level data from U.S. textile industries indicate (1) significant cross-sectional dispersion in plant-level productivity within narrowly defined industries, (2) that highly productive plants grow faster and are less likely to exit, (3) dispersion in productivity is larger in industries with more rapid productivity growth, (4) older plants are bigger, and (5) plant births and closures are common to all four-digit textile industries. This paper presents an extended vintage model to explain these facts. The model assumes that a plant incurs a fixed cost of adopting the current best practice and convex costs of adjusting its capital stock. The model provides alternative explanations for the phenomena of investment spikes and S-shaped diffusion. Finally, the model interprets the fact that entry and exit are positively correlated across industries as evidence that variation in plant turnover across industries is driven by variation in technology rather than variation in demand growth.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: L6, O3, O4.

Spatial and temporal distribution of metals in soils in warsaw, poland

Concentrations of surface soil Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Pb and Zn were measured along parallel transects within Warsaw in 1996. Data were compared with that from a 1976 sampling, and soil metals were fractionated by sequential extraction for distribution of reactive species. Many soils in the city center and in industrial districts contain Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Pb, and Zn in concentrations well above background levels, indicating significant anthropogenic inputs. Levels have mostly increased for soil Cr, Cu, and Pb compared to the 1976 sampling. Lead contamination has extended to the city outskirts and well beyond the city limits. Soil Pb has declined in some areas of the city, which may be a result of leaching of the combined soluble, exchangeable, and organic forms, which total 25% of soil Pb. Manganese and Zn values have remained relatively constant since 1976. Plant turnover and leaching may be balancing atmospheric inputs. Large proportions of Cd exist in the exchangeable form, and substantial soil Pb occurs as carbonate-bound, plus other potentially bioavailable soil fractions. For Cd, Cr, Cu, and Zn the predominant form is the residual metal, which may become an eventual concern, as changing conditions (e.g. long-term soil acidification) may mobilize this fraction. These data, plus the hazards of Cd, Cr and Pb to human health and the biosphere, suggests that more frequent examination of their levels in soil is necessary to determine potential hazards to residents living near contaminated areas. Results are consistent with findings of earlier studies that metals from anthropogenic sources are relatively mobile in soil.

The Dynamics of Industrial Competition: A North American Perspective

1. Introduction 2. Firm turnover: Greenfield entry and closedown exit 3. Entry: exit and the merger process 4. The rise and fall of incumbent 5. Patterns of large and small-firm mobility 6. Plant turnover in Canada and the United States 7. Measures of market structure and the intensity of competition 8. The relationship between mobility and concentration 9. Turnover and productivity growth 10. Merger success 11. Turnover in domestic and foreign enterprises 12. Industry efficiency and firm turnover 13. Firm turnover and profitability 14. Modeling entry 15. Conclusion Appendix A. Measuring firm turnover - methodology Appendix B. Definition of concentration and mobility measures Notes References Author index Subject index.

Job Creation, Job Destruction and Plant Turnover in Norvegian Manufacturing

We examine the magnitude and patterns of job creation and job destruction among Norwegian manufacturing plants. We find that 8.4 percent of the manufacturing jobs are eliminated annually, while new jobs constitute 7.1 percent of manufacturing employment in an average year. Even in a serious recession year, a considerable number of new jobs are created. About two thirds of the job reallocation take place within disaggregated industries. We show that entry and exit of plants are substantially more important for job reallocation in the long run than in the year-to-year changes. Small plants and small firms are net creators of jobs in the period we consider when manufacturing employment was declining. Our results provide support to selection models a la Jovanovic (1982), while vintage-capital models seem to be largely irrelevant as models of plant heterogeneity.

Productivity Growth, Plant Turnover and Restructuring in the Canadian Manufacturing Sector

Firm turnover occurs as firms gain and lose market share as part of the competitive struggle. The reallocation of market share from one group to another is associated with productivity gain as the less productive lose share and the more productive gain market share. This paper examines the extent to which productivity has been enhanced by firm turnover over the last twenty years. It focuses on the extent to which this process changed during the 1980s and thereby contributed to the slowdown in productivity growth that was experienced by the manufacturing sector.

Industrial Efficiency in Six Nations.

Part 1 Introduction and summary: efficiency in national manufacturing sectors technical efficiency in Japanese industries, Akio Torii technical efficiency in Korea, Seong Min Yoo technical efficiency in UK manufacturing industry, David G. Mayes and Alison Green technical efficiency in Australia - phase 1, Chris M. Harris determinants of technical efficiency in Australia, Richard E. Caves industrial efficiency and plant turnover in the Canadian manufacturing sector, John Baldwin. Part 2 Extensions in time and space: technical efficiency over time in Korea, 1978-88 - exploratory analysis, Seon Min Yoo the intraindustry dispersion of plant productivity in the British manufacturing sector, 1963-79, Sheryl D. Bailey dual structure and differences of efficiency between Japanese large and small enterprises, Akio Torii technical efficiency in Japanese and US manufacturing industries, Akio Torii and Richard E. Caves productivity growth and technical efficiency in OECD industrial activities, Fabienne Fecher and Sergio Perelman.

The Dependence of Herbivory on Growth Rate in Natural Plant Communities

1. The hypothesis that herbivory pressure (defined as the per cent of the photosynthetic tissue biomass and production consumed daily by herbivores) increases with increasing plant growth rate was tested. The basis for the test was a compilation of 56 published reports on biomass, production and herbivory, from a wide range of aquatic and terrestrial plant communities. 2. Herbivory was independent of ecosystem primary production and the fraction of plant production and biomass daily consumed by herbivores increased as the 0.6 and 1.6 power of plant turnover rate, respectively. 3. These results suggest that the tendency of fast-growing plants to support lower biomass of photosynthetic tissues than slow-growing ones can be accounted for by the tendency of herbivore control of plant biomass and production to increase with increasing plant growth rate

Entry-exit, learning, and productivity change Evidence from Chile

Do competitive pressures really force inefficient producers to shut down? Do entrants typically increase or worsen industry-wide efficiency? Is there evidence of systematic learning processes, and if yes, do these processes differ across plant cohorts? How do plant turnover effects combine to shape rates of overall industrial productivity growth? This paper applies the recent econometric techniques to address these largely unexplored questions. The analysis is based on the Chilean plant-level panel data covering eight post-reform adjustment years. Plant-specific time-variant technical efficiency indices are constructed for surviving, exiting, and entering plant cohorts, respectively. These are then used to compare productivity growth rates across plant-cohorts, and to examine the net effect of plant turnover and learning patterns on manufacturing-wide productivity growth.

Industrial Efficiency in Six Nations.

Part 1 Introduction and summary: efficiency in national manufacturing sectors technical efficiency in Japanese industries, Akio Torii technical efficiency in Korea, Seong Min Yoo technical efficiency in UK manufacturing industry, David G. Mayes and Alison Green technical efficiency in Australia - phase 1, Chris M. Harris determinants of technical efficiency in Australia, Richard E. Caves industrial efficiency and plant turnover in the Canadian manufacturing sector, John Baldwin. Part 2 Extensions in time and space: technical efficiency over time in Korea, 1978-88 - exploratory analysis, Seon Min Yoo the intraindustry dispersion of plant productivity in the British manufacturing sector, 1963-79, Sheryl D. Bailey "dual structure" and differences of efficiency between Japanese large and small enterprises, Akio Torii technical efficiency in Japanese and US manufacturing industries, Akio Torii and Richard E. Caves productivity growth and technical efficiency in OECD industrial activities, Fabienne Fecher and Sergio Perelman.

Plant Turnover and Gross Employment Flows in the U.S. Manufacturing Sector

This article quantifies the role of plant construction, expansion, contraction, and closing in generating net and gross changes in U.S. manufacturing employment over the 1963-82 period. A new longitudinal data set, constructed from the plant-level observations collected in the last five Census of Manufactures, is utilized. The reallocation of employment opportunities across and within sectoral, regional, and cohort boundaries is measured. Over 70% of the turnover in employment opportunities occurs across plants within the same two-digit industry and geographic region. Systematic differences in the employment fluctuations of plants of different ages are also found.

Life on a Fast Pad: Waterlily Leaf Beetle Impact on Water Lilies

Larval and adult waterlily leaf beetles, Pyrrhalta (Galerucella) nymphaeae (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), feed on the upper leaf surface of water lilies, Nuphar luteum (Nymphaeaceae), which grow along parts of the Ogeechee River. The purpose of this study was to estimate secondary production of the beetle and its impact on leaf and nutrient dynamics. We studied the population densities and instar distributions of P. nymphaeae by sampling leaves from the river and a nearby pond site. We examined characteristics of larval growth by isolating water lily leaves and infesting them with egg masses of the beetle. A survey of the river margins was used to estimate densities of water lily leaves, and turnover of leaves was examined by marking newly leaves. Larval growth was rapid (hatching to pupation in 9d); the growth rate (mean with 95% CI) calculated from field studies was 0.5415 ± 0.0278 mg°mg—1d°—1 (ash—free dry mass [AFDM] per unit larval ashfree dry biomass per day). There were continuous overlapping cohorts from late spring through mid—autumn. Mean larval standing stock ash—free dry biomass per unit Nuphar leaf surface area (LSA) was 283.6 mg/m2. Larval production (AFDM per unit LSA) over the study period was estimated to be 27.14 g°m—2°yr—1. Annual adult (egg) production was &lt;0.20% larval production. The annual larval production/biomass ratio was 195. These production values were for very specific habitats that represented only °140 m2 within a 2.3—km stretch of river. Therefore, Pyrrhalta production (AFDM per unit river surface area) was only 47 mg°m—2°yr—1. The standing crop ash—free dry biomass per unit LSA of Nuphar leaves was 26.0 g/m2. Pyrrhalta grazing removes only the upper 25% of the leaf; thus, only 6.7 g/m2 is available to the beetles, as calculated from standing crop biomass of the host plant. However, larval production alone, without adjustment for egestion, respiration, or adult feeding, surpassed Nuphar standing crop biomass availability. This indicates that a rapid turnover of macrophyte biomass is necessary to support the observed levels of beetle production. Nuphar leaves lasted only 17 d at the Pyrrhalta—infested river site, compared to &gt; 6 wk at a nearby floodplain pond site where Pyrrhalta were absent. Based on estimates of Pyrrhalta food consumption and Nuphar leaf longevity, the life cycle of the beetle is closely linked to the availability of individual leaves. Nuphar has a very high nutrient content (4% N, 0.5% P, and 1.85 K on a dry mass basis). Thus, by increasing plant turnover rates, Pyrrhalta feeding potentially increases the cycling of nutrients from sediments to the overlying water column. Beetle grazing also exposes the interior of Nuphar leaves to microbial attack. These results indicate that under certain conditions: (1) aquatic macrophytes may be very heavily grazed; (2) macrophyte production may enter the detrital food chain throughout the growing season rather than only after autumn senescence; and (3) heavy grazing by animals may result in very large underestimates of net primary productivity of macrophytes when the estimates are based on maximum standing crop biomass.