Master-Arbeit Univ. St. Gallen, 2007.

The study examines to what extent weak labor unions and an abundance of labor have a negative effect on less developed countries terms of trade, as hypothesized by Hans Singer (1950) and Rául Prebisch (1950). Using a sample from panel data for 74 less developed countries during the period 1980 – 2010 in OLS-regressions with fixed effects, I find some evidence that weak labor unions and abundance of labor is negatively correlated with the terms of trade, which could be interpreted in favor of the Prebisch-Singer hypothesis. The marginal effect of an abundance of labor also appears to have less negative impact on the terms of trade as labor unions grow stronger.

Tidigare forskning har visat på att länder vars export till stor del utgörs av råvaror riskerar att ha en lägre ekonomisk utveckling. Detta på grund av ett ofördelaktigt prisförhållande där priset stiger snabbare för tillverkade varor än vad det gör för råvaror. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka om det finns något samband mellan råvaruexport och ekonomisk utveckling. Därför genomförs att antal regressionsanalyser i paneldata som inkluderar exportdata från 45 länder, med stor geografisk och ekonomisk spridning, under tidsperioden 2001–2020 för att se hur korrelationen ser ut mellan andelen av exporten som utgörs av råvaror och variabler som anses representera ekonomisk utveckling, det vill säga BNP- och löneökning. Resultatet påvisar ett tydligt samband mellan råvaruexport och BNP-tillväxt, som blir ännu starkare när en regression genomförs med laggade variabler, vilket skulle kunna peka mot en kausalitet. Analysen visar dock att det inte verkar finnas något samband mellan råvaruexport och löneökning. / Earlier studies have shown that countries whose export is highly dependent on primary goods tend to show slower economic development. That is because of disadvantageous terms of trade where prices are rising faster for manufactured goods than primary goods. The purpose of this paper is therefore to examine if there is a relationship between primary export and economic development. Therefore, a number of regressions are performed with panel data that include export data from 45 countries, with a large geographic and economic distribution, during the time period 2001–2020 to see what the correlation looks like between the share of exports that is made up by primary goods and variables that represent economic development, namely GDP growth and wage increase. The result demonstrates a clear correlation between primary exports and GDP growth, which become even clearer when a regression is performed with lagged variables, which could indicate causality. However, the analysis does not seem to show a correlation between primary exports and wage increases.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:48:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gerson Alves de Freitas Jr.pdf: 815407 bytes, checksum: 56e12a88b678dd692f6fae8381118ad9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-10-01 / The aim of this work is to revisit the debate surrounding the role of natural resources in economic development. This is an exploratory essay, which examines theses and stylized facts on the topic especially those that establish a negative relationship between natural resource endowment and economic growth in light of structural changes in the global economy and the rise in international primary product prices in the last decade. Its first conclusion is that there isn t any conclusive literary evidence of the so-called "resource curse," although some of the assumptions associated with it, such as the existence of a secular trend of decline in terms of the primary goods trade, have been proven true in the past century although, perhaps, not in the 21st century so far. The technical and economic characteristics of the current globalization process suggest, on the other hand, an increasing trend of dynamic natural resource markets, which may represent a window of opportunity for commodity-rich economies / O objetivo desse trabalho é revisitar o debate sobre o papel dos recursos naturais no desenvolvimento econômico. Trata-se de uma pesquisa exploratória, de caráter ensaístico, que analisa teses e fatos estilizados sobre o tema sobretudo aqueles que estabelecem uma relação negativa entre a dotação de recursos naturais e o crescimento econômico à luz das mudanças estruturais na economia mundial e à alta nos preços internacionais dos produtos primários na última década. Sua primeira conclusão é que não há, na literatura, trabalhos capazes de atestar de maneira conclusiva a maldição dos recursos naturais , embora alguns dos pressupostos a ela associados, tal como a existência de uma tendência secular de queda nos termos de troca dos produtos primários, tenham se mostrado verdadeiras no século passado ainda que não o sejam nesse curto começo do século 21. As características técnicas e econômicas do atual processo de globalização sugerem, pelo contrário, uma tendência crescente de dinamização dos mercados de recursos naturais, o que pode representar uma janela de oportunidades para economias ricas em produtos primários

Despite the voluminous literature on North-South macroeconomic interactions and the key role of terms of trade variations in growth transmission from one region to another, a significant research gap persists for two reasons. First, there has been very little empirical work on testing of the relationships between growth patterns and terms of trade movements. Second, the empirical studies dedicated to testing the Prebisch-Singer Thesis (PST) focused on testing the long-run tendency for the terms of trade of primary commodities to deteriorate and neglected the joint nature of the predictions arising out of a complete formulation of PST. This dissertation seeks to properly specify the PST, provide a generalization of it to the case of imbalanced trade, and extend it to a three-region framework through a structuralist North-South model. Multiple paths of growth divergence/convergence and terms of trade deterioration/improvement emerge depending on the structural changes influencing the income-elasticity differentials. I carry out two sets of empirical analyses. First, I use aggregate data on North-South terms of trade indices to test the presence and significance of a downward trend. Second, I use panel data analysis and rolling regressions to show the evolution of income-elasticity differentials. The results suggest that the growth rates of developing countries during the 1980s declined in both absolute and relative terms partly as a result of the downward trend in terms of trade and partly as a result of income elasticity differentials reflecting the productive and technological asymmetries between the developed and developing economies. However, these structural asymmetries have not remained constant: the results show that they changed both over time and over cross-sections of different groups of countries. In general the countries that diversified towards manufactured exports had better chances of eliminating the elasticity differentials, and thus attaining relatively higher rates of growth. The cross-country study is complemented by a comparative case study of Turkey and Malaysia. The results show that industrial and trade policies, if carefully designed and effectively implemented, can counter potential costs of external market dynamics while taking advantage of the opportunities for advancing dynamic comparative advantages.

In this thesis, the terms of trade changes in Turkey since 1970 are analyzed. In the 1970s, Turkey faced strong terms of trade declines mainly due to two oil price shocks. Rapid diversification of Turkish exports into manufactures was instrumental in avoiding further declines in its terms of trade in the 1980s. However, the slow pace of the diversification into more skill- and technology-intensive manufactures in Turkey combined with the fallacy of composition problem in low-tech, labourintensive manufactures may pose a real danger to the prices of its exports. To the extent that in the long-term, the changes in terms of trade of a country are determined by the level of technology embodied in its exports, the concentration of Turkish exports in low-tech, labour-intensive manufactures may highlight the need for upgrading exports and establishing backward- and forward-linkages between industries to escape from the trap of terms of trade deterioration in the long-term.

This thesis seeks to verify the concept of so-called resource curse at the beginning of the new millennium. The theoretical part defines the symptoms of the alleged curse, curse transmission channels and criticism of the concept. Compared to other studies dealing with the theme of the resource curse this work is not focused on just one transmission channel. The practical part verifies several hypotheses established by comparing research papers on impacts of natural resources. The validity of the Prebisch-Singer hypothesis, Dutch disease symptoms and a negative impact on political institutions (inclination toward authoritarianism, high level of corruption, high government spending, low efficiency of economic and political decision-making and low investment in education) is verified. For the analysis have been selected two African countries (Nigeria and Botswana) and two advanced countries (Canada and Norway). The last part of this thesis provides policy implications. The results confirm the Prebisch-Singer hypothesis for selected commodities in the long term and some of the symptoms of Dutch disease at the beginning of the new millennium. Hypotheses regarding the impact on the political institutions have not been confirmed, since the results varied across the countries. The high vulnerability of the countries to movements in commodity prices was found.

Cette thèse analyse les enjeux du développement économique liés aux dynamiques des cours des matières premières en général et ceux du coton en particulier. Traditionnellement, les travaux s’inscrivant dans une optique de long terme questionnent la pertinence des spécialisations primaires des PMA. À moyen terme l’intérêt porte davantage sur l’instabilité dont les conséquences sont d’autant plus importantes que la dépendance des pays à l’exportation de tels produits est forte. Les enjeux s’articulent alors autour des modalités de régulation des marchés, du choix d'outils (publics ou marchands) pour la gestion des incertitudes, le tout dépendant de l’appréhension de l’instabilité comme un phénomène endogène ou exogène. Dans un contexte nouveau marqué par l’affirmation d’oligopoles de firmes, la segmentation du processus productif mondial, et la financiarisation des marchés de matières premières, nous proposons un cadre analytique permettant d’aborder différemment ces problématiques. Nos travaux montrent d’abord comment les approches du type chaînes globales de valeur peuvent être mobilisées pour mieux orienter les stratégies commerciales / industrielles des PMA. S’appuyant sur la notion de rationalité limitée dans le cadre de modèles de comportements hétérogènes, ils prouvent ensuite l’existence d’une forte composante endogène dans l’instabilité et par là même, l'inefficacité des seuls outils marchands. Au final, pour les pays africains producteurs de coton, il apparait qu’il reste possible de mettre ce produit au service d’une stratégie globale de développement. Cela passe par le recours à des mécanismes hybrides de gestion de l’instabilité, combiné au renforcement des dynamiques de coopération transfrontalières en vue d’une structuration de chaînes régionales de valeur. / This thesis analyzes the economic development issues related to the medium and long-term dynamics of commodities prices in general and cotton prices in particular. Studies on the long-term perspective traditionally question the relevance of primary specializations of LDCs. In the medium term, the interest is relates to price instability for which the consequences are all the more important as countries’ dependency on the exports of such products becomes stronger. The stakes then revolve around market regulation modalities, and the choice of risk management tools (e.g. public or private interventions). These depend on the apprehension of price fluctuations as a phenomenon arising from endogenous or exogenous market factors. In a new economical context influenced by the growing importance of oligopolistic firms, a segmentation of the productive process and the financialization of commodity markets, we address differently these issues through a new analytical framework. The proposed analysis first shows how approaches such as the ones related to global value chains are more adapted to tackle industrial/commercial policies in commodity dependent LDCs. Second, in a context of heterogeneous behavioral models, we rely on the concept of bounded rationality to show the presence of a strong endogenous component in instability. Thus, it proves the inefficiency of private interventions to counter instability. Considering these findings in the case of African cotton producers, we conclude that it remains possible to incorporate the commodity in a global development strategy. But this involves the use of hybrid-type mechanisms (public-private) for managing uncertainty, combined with a reinforcement of cross-border cooperation dynamics in order to structure regional value chains.