Documents Journal of Industrial and Business Economics 9 results

"In order to assess the possibility for a digital manufacturing revolution to take place in the automotive sector, the article reviews the historical evolution of automotive manufacturing technologies and organisations and analyses the impact on “fourth industrial revolution” concepts on their current transformations, taking into account in particular their consequences for employment and work. It shows that previous attempts of automating final assembly have failed because human based teamwork organizations have proved more flexible and efficient in dealing with complex assembly processes. It also highlights that the two main reasons behind these attempts in the past are not present anymore: important gaps in productivity and quality between leading and lagging firms; and shortages of skilled and unskilled manpower willing to work in automotive factories. The scope for a digital manufacturing revolution taking place in the automotive sector appears therefore limited. The analysis of the impact on automotive manufacturing of the three main “fourth industrial revolution” concepts in Germany (Industrie 4.0) in the US (advanced manufacturing), and in China (Made in China 2025) supports more than it challenges this historical understanding of the future of manufacturing in the automotive sector. It dismisses the idea that a fourth industrial revolution is under way and that a radical disruptive break will take place in the coming years."

"We contribute to the assessment of the employment implications of the COVID crisis by classifying economic sectors according to the confinement decrees of three European countries (Germany, Spain and Italy). The analysis of these decrees can be used to make a first assessment of the implications of the COVID crisis on labour markets, and also to speculate on mid and long-term developments, since the most and least affected sectors are probably going to continue to operate differently until a vaccine or other long-term solution is found. Using an ad-hoc extraction of EU-LFS data, we apply this classification to the analysis of employment in Germany, Italy and Spain but also UK, Poland and Sweden, in order to cover the whole spectrum of institutional labour market settings within Europe. Our results, in line with recent literature, show that the employment impact is asymmetric within and between countries. In particular, the countries that are being hardest hit by the pandemic itself (Spain and Italy, and also the UK) are the countries more likely to suffer the worst employment implications of the confinement, because of their productive specialisation and labour market institutions. Indeed, these were also the labour markets that were more vulnerable before the crisis: characterised by high unemployment and precarious work (especially temporary contracts)."

"Despite being symmetric in its very nature, the Covid-19 shock is affecting European economies in a very asymmetric way, threatening to deepen the divide between core and peripheral countries even more. It is not Covid-19 itself, however, but the contradictions within the EU's growth model and institutional architecture that would be to blame for such an outcome. The dramatic impact of the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic and the threat that it poses to Eurozone survival seem to have forced a reluctant Germany into action: a minor step, but an important signal. This note analyses the crossroads currently facing Europe -the risk of disintegration vis-a-vis the opportunity for a ‘Hamiltonian moment'- discussing possible future scenarios in the light of past developments."

"This paper applies a recently developed ‘structural-political economy' (SPE) framework to study centrifugal and centripetal forces in two of the crises that impacted on the European integration process: the financial crisis of 2008/9 and its aftermath and the Covid-19 crisis. It emphasises that the cumulative nature of the impact of these two crises forces shifts in interest positions of important political actors (countries, sectors, social constituencies) to address issues of ‘systemic instability' which pushes innovations in the policy instruments that become available at the EU level. Bargaining processes that characterise the negotiations and outcomes of these crisis responses are complex, they reflect differences in size and urgencies to come to agreements, and they have themselves differentiating impacts on relevant political actors."

"The explosion of the pandemic has been optimistically considered as the “last straw that breaks the camel's back”. At the time of writing, after three months since its outburst, we can hardly find any sign of a “broken camel”: indeed, it could have been the opportunity to collectively question the current regime of production and appropriation, exclusion and marketization characterizing this phase of unjust “rentified capitalism”, but the route taken has largely seen a frightening combination of “business as usual” on the production side and pervasive forms of social control, limitations of individual and collective rights and the perpetuation of a false dichotomy between economic and health security. This pandemic, which under decent public health provisions might have been a controlled disease, is producing the most severe crisis after the Great Depression and has been used to implement forms of massive social control hardly conceivable in “advanced democracies”. Butterfly effects are well-known in complexity sciences. However, social scientists have still difficulties in understanding how a grain can make the sandcastle fall down. On the contrary, we are now under the actual risk of starting a “new normal” without dealing with the deep routes and origins of this crisis, with the dominant intellectual discourse pushing for maintaining and indeed reinforcing the status quo, established power and social blocks. This myopic strategy might end up in collectively disruptive socio-political transformations."

"This paper considers the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on firm strategies and, in particular, the configuration of firms' global value chains (GVCs) once the pandemic has been brought under control. The merits of alternative location strategies (international diversification vs reshoring) are compared, as are the merits of different governance arrangements (internalization vs externalization) for GVC activities. The possibility of fire-sale foreign direct investment is raised, and the wider geopolitical context is emphasized. The widespread human tragedy is noted, as is the dilemma facing national governments around the world in balancing lives and livelihoods."

"We consider how the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged European small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing sector, and draw suggests policy implications. The sudden onslaught of the pandemic has acted as an economic shock, and we consider how it is likely to affect different types of manufacturing SMEs. We distinguish between immediate effects, a result of the almost-simultaneous lockdowns across Europe and its major trading partners, and longer-term implications for both SMEs and the global value chains where they are inserted. In the shorter run, most SMEs have faced logistical challenges in addition to demand disruptions, although the severity has differed across firms and industries. We argue that in the longer-term, there will be different challenges and opportunities depending on the type of SME. Policy interventions will also need to be sensitive to the different types of SMEs, rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all approach. The policy mix will need to shift from its initial focus on the survival of European SMEs in the short term, towards a more structural and longer-term approach based on promoting their renewal and growth through innovation, internationalization and networking."

"We consider some descriptive analysis of the main short- and medium-term economic indicators in Italy in the aftermath of the Spanish Flu pandemic. We analyse them in the light of the main neoclassical macroeconomic models of pandemics. Since most of the existing economic models about the consequences of a pandemic deal the pandemic event merely as a negative labour supply shock, we observe that some predictions of the theory about the economic impact of a pandemic seem not to be confirmed in the case of the Spanish Flu in Italy. In particular, economic indicators in Italy in the upsurge of the Spanish Flu need to be explained also in light of the consequences of the First World War. We use this evidence to discuss the predictions on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. We stress the importance of putting the analysis of the economic consequences of the current pandemic into the appropriate historical context."

"The Covid-19 crisis has revamped the discussion about the redefinition of GVC. This paper contributes to the debate, analysing the productive relationships between European countries in four key manufacturing activities. In particular, the paper addresses two objectives. First, it maps the degree of productive integration in Europe, focusing on the generation of employment in the production of exported intermediate inputs and final goods. Second, it provides a preliminary assessment of the potential impact on employment that the current economic crisis will have on some manufacturing activities across Europe. The analysis is realised employing the concept of vertically integrated labour (Pasinetti 1973) which allows to account for the employment directly and indirectly involved in the production of final goods. The estimations are derived from Multi-Regional Input–Output tables to map the supply chain and to differentiate between the employment involved in the production of exported intermediate inputs and final goods. The results show that most of the employment involved in the production of final output of the activities studied in the paper is linked to international trade. Although Europe shows a high degree of productive links, there are important differences in the modality of insertion in the productive structure of European countries. Moreover, the impact on the level of employment due to the current economic crisis can be significant, affecting more than 1.3 million of people in Europe. These results are relevant to policy makers, who should consider carefully the high degree of linkages of the European economies when designing industrial policies and measure of support to the economy."