.
Tenho um familiar que escreve com muita regularidade para revistas científicas da sua especialidade. Uma particularidade, essas revistas são sempre estrangeiras. Sempre que tentou publicar em revistas nacionais os pares que fazem a revisão científica bloquearam sempre.
.
Quero com isto dizer que é provável que determinadas ideias sejam bloqueadas e não cheguem a ver a luz do dia simplesmente porque não convém ao establishment.
.
Mas onde é que descobri esse tal paradoxo de Kaldor?
.
Neste artigo "Do some countries in the Eurozone need an internal devaluation? A reassessment of what unit labour costs really mean" de Jesus Felipe e Utsav Kumar", um artigo com várias mensagens familiares para quem lê este blogue:
.
"The problem with Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain is that they are uncompetitive and need to internally devalue – or so the argument goes. This column challenges this conclusion by pointing out that the measure used to back it up – unit labour costs – is flawed and misguided. Europe’s periphery lack of competitiveness is related to the types of products they export and not to the fact that their labour is expensive." (Moi ici: Esta conclusão que sublinhei é tão clara para mim... por que é que mais gente ainda não a descobriu? Por que é que os so-called partidos de esquerda não a defendem? Não a propagam? Não a divulgam?)
...
"Europe’s peripheral countries are in trouble but the problem and solutions are unrelated to their aggregate unit labour costs."
...
"looking at competitiveness from the point of view of unit labour costs puts the burden of adjustment on workers. However, we could equally argue that a country’s presumed loss of competitiveness is due to the fact that “machines are expensive given their productivity”."
...
"It indicates that the purported “loss of competitiveness” by the peripheral countries of the Eurozone is not just a question of nominal wages increasing faster than labour productivity. In all countries, nominal profit rates decreased at a slower pace than capital productivity (Marquetii 2003 documented that, over the long run, capital productivity displays a declining trend. And Glyn 1997 showed that profit rates also display a declining long-term trend)." (Moi ici: Não esquecer estes gráficos, as suas implicações no passado e como a mudança obriga a pensar num futuro diferente)
.
(Moi ici: A cena que se segue é um argumento que também já foi aqui defendido no blogue, os produtos portugueses não competem com os produtos alemães ponto! Isto é tão simples, tão básico, tão fácil de ver... como é que a academia não percebe isto? ... ou não quer perceber... basta ver esta foto e comparar:
.
"the comparison of the unit labour costs of the peripheral countries with those of Germany is misplaced. Using disaggregated data (for over 5,000 products exported) we show that the “complexity” of Germany’s export basket is significantly higher than that of the southern European countries and Ireland’s. Table 2 shows that Germany exports a significant share, over 12%, of total world exports of the top 10 most complex products; and over 30% of the top one-third most complex products (those in groups 1 and 2). It is clear that Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and Greece hardly compete directly with Germany in many of the products that they export, and hence comparing their unit labour costs is probably misleading.
German exports are concentrated in the most-complex products of the complexity scale and the least-complex export group represents only 3.4% of Germany’s exports (Table 3). In the case of Greece and Portugal this group represents 33.1% and 21.7%, respectively, as in China."
.
"This analysis leads to the conclusion that if the underlying problem of Europe’s periphery were lack of competitiveness, it should relate to the types of products they export (vis-à-vis Germany) and not to the fact that their labour is expensive (their wage rates are substantially lower), or that labour productivity has not increased (it has significantly). (Moi ici: A mensagem nº 1 ou nº 2 deste blogue. Um das razões porque existe este blogue!!! Esta gente "Sector do calçado vai ter aumento salarial" exporta 95% do que produz a um preço médio de 22€ contra um preço médio dos chineses de 3€. Por que exportam coisas e serviços diferentes!!!!)
.
.
(Moi ici: Ganhem fôlego para o que aí vem a seguir... 1, 2, 3)
.
The problem is that they are stuck in the manufacturing goods also produced by many other countries, especially the low-wage countries. Reducing wages would not solve the problem. (Moi ici: Ponto importante, isto não tem nada a ver com a redução dos salários dos funcionários públicos e das pensões, isso vai ter de acontecer, não por causa deste tema da competitividade, mas por que é um peso muito pesado sobre a economia... o cuco) What would an across-the-board reduction in nominal wages of 20%–30% achieve? The most obvious effect would be a very significant compression of demand. But would this measure restore competitiveness? We argue that it would not allow many firms to compete with German firms, which export a different basket, and in all likelihood it will not be enough to be able to compete with China’s wages.
A consequence of this analysis is that Europe’s peripheral countries should make significant efforts to upgrade their export baskets. Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain should look upward and try to move in the direction of Germany, and not in that of China. Certainly this is not easy and it is only a long-term solution, more so because in a recession firms are unlikely to be willing to enter new products, but it is the way to move forward.
Fourth, it is important to remember that aggregate unit labour costs are not expected to lead to output growth. In the literature, this is referred to as Kaldor’s paradox (Kaldor 1978). Using data for the postwar period, Kaldor found that those countries that had experienced the greatest decline in their price competitiveness (i.e., highest increase in unit labour costs) also had the greatest increase in their market share. Fagerberg (1996) revisited this enduring puzzle by analysing the period 1978–1994 and concluded that the paradox also continues holding for this period."
.
Um artigo fantástico... maked my day!!! Na linha do "pisar formigas num piquenique"
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário