(2) Input Output Economics

The purpose of the paper is to provide a systematic insight into the state of the art in the regional (sub-national) input-output analyses. Large and growing body of scientific literature in the field is very diverse, fragmented and challenging to comprehend mostly because it is usually published as articles, not only in the field specific journals, but also sporadically in other journals. On the other hand sub-national (regional) level of the analysis is not very frequent. However, articles concerning this level are not easy to identify in a bunch of literature because the term ‘regional’ can refer to various spatial levels (country, continent, group of countries, sub-national entities). Therefore, there is a need for up-to-date and comprehensive meta-analysis of the work done so far in the area of regional (sub-national) input-output analyses. The present systematic review is based on a broad search of two databases of scientific publications: Web of Science and SCOPUS. In this research we apply a Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) approach and conduct a content-coding of selected papers.

Resumo: O objetivo do presente artigo é analisar a variação de emprego no setor primário nos anos 2000-2009 para o Brasil. Utiliza-se a metodologia de insumo-produto por meio da decomposição estrutural da variação do emprego em efeitos intensidade, tecnologia, estrutura da demanda final, volume da demanda final e efeito total. Os principais resultados mostraram que, no período de análise, houve decréscimo de 773 mil vagas para o setor primário. Conclui-se que os subsetores de agricultura, silvicultura e exploração florestal, e pecuária e pesca foram os principais responsáveis pela queda do emprego por meio do efeito de intensidade. No efeito total, conclui-se que houve aumento significativo de vagas de trabalho nos subsetores de petróleo e gás natural (170%) e minério de ferro (96%); porém, não suficiente para resultar em variação positiva no saldo total, dado que a participação destes setores é pouco expressiva no total de vagas de emprego do setor primário. Abstract: The objective of this paper is to analyze the employment variation in primary sector between the years 2000-2009 in Brazil. We used the methodology of input-output through the structural decomposition of the employment variation divided into effects of employment intensity, technology, demand structure, demand growth and total net variation. The main results showed that between the periods studied, there was a decrease of 773 thousand jobs in the sector of Agriculture and Extraction. We also find that the Agriculture, Forestry and Lumbering, and Livestock and Fishing sectors were the responsible for the employment decrease through the intensity effect. Looking at the

The purpose of this paper is to generalize the framework of activity analysis discussed in Villar (2003) and obtain similar results concerning solvability. We generalize the model due to Villar (2003), without requiring any dimensional requirements on the activity matrices and by introducing a model of activity analysis in which each activity may (or may not) have a capacity constraint i.e. a maximum level at which the activity can operate. This may be one way to accommodate meaningful non-linearities similar to that considered for input-output analysis in Sandberg (1973).
In Sandberg (1973), the input-output coefficients were assumed to be differentiable, which is very likely an approximation of the more realistic and practically applicable representation in which the input-output coefficients are piecewise constant. Minor, technical increments on the solvability result in Sandberg (1973) can be found in Chander (1983) and some references therein. Undoubtedly, piecewise constant input-output constants are more difficult to deal with mathematically than differentiable ones. Non-linearities are much easier to represent in the framework of linear activity analysis by introducing upper bounds-whenever there is a capacity constraint-for the levels at which each such activity may operate. We do this by introducing a model of activity analysis in which each activity may (or may not) have a capacity constraint. In this paper we follow the usual nomenclature of input-output analysis for “the quantity of a good supplied to the consumers outside the production (or manufacturing) sector” and refer it as “final demand”.
It seems that in this significantly more general framework we are able to obtain the desired results concerning solvability and existence of an equilibrium price vector under weaker assumptions than the corresponding requirements in Villar (2003). The property that guarantees solvability has the following (interesting?) economic interpretation: Given two price vectors p ,q a final demand vector and unit prices of operating capacity constrained activities, if the revenue from operating every unconstrained activity at unit level at price-vector p is no less than doing the same at price-vector q and if the revenue from operating a constrained activity at unit level at price-vector p is no less than doing the same at price-vector q plus the unit price of operating the activity then the value of the final demand at price vector p is no less than the value of the final demand at price vector q plus the total cost of the capacities. In the context of the constraint linear activity analysis model, we call this property “weakly proper”. We also prove a version of the Non-Substitution Theorem that establishes the existence of “efficiency price-vectors” as a joint product. However, our Non-Substitutions Theorem- in spite of the generality of our model as compared to the one due to Villar (2003)- requires that if there are capacity constraints, then there is a minimal subset of the set of capacity constrained activities that are always used up to full capacity, for the production of all producible final demand vectors. Further, these capacity constrained activities are the only ones whose capacities are binding for some producible final demand vector. Hence there is a clear dependence of the equilibrium price vector on the final demand vector (i.e. the vector of quantities supplied for non-manufacturing prices), unlike the conclusion of Sraffian economics (see the sixth paragraph at: https://www.rethinkeconomics.org/journal/sraffian-economics/), and we are able to show this without using production functions. Our framework is a generalization of the one used in Sraffian economics.

The treatment of profits in neoclassical theory has long been the object of sustained criticism from many quarters. The debate has remained for the most part theoretical. This may leave the impression that what is involved is simply a clash of incommensurable paradigms. But in fact the neoclassical notion of profits bears little relationship to the behavior of real profits in real economies, and has proven to be a poor guide to empirical research. This article will try to show this by examining industrial organization studies of monopolistic and competitive pricing. Our analysis will focus on the central debates of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s which formed the theoretical basis of the modern industrial organization paradigm.1 We will argue that despite claims to the contrary, and often unknowingly, the majority of these studies adopted a mixture of both classical and neoclassical elements.2 We will try to show that the lack of a firm theoretical grounding has led to three types of confusion in this literature. First, there is a lack of clarity concerning what measure of profitability should be equalized in competitive equilibrium. A debate has developed concerning whether the rate of profit, total profit, or the profit margin, is the appropriate variable to study. Second, the industrial organization approach to monopoly and competition has never adequately resolved over what period of time profit-rate differentials must be studied. In this regard, Yale Brozen's criticism of the short-run nature of early profit rate-market structure studies is discussed. Third, we will argue that from a classical point of view, firm studies of profitability which draw conclusions for industry phenomena have been misguided. Harold Demsetz' work on concentration and efficiency will be referred to as an illustration. We will conclude by questioning the practicability of a purely neoclassical grounding for industrial economists, since they have been impelled to abandon this approach in their investigation of reality.