Óscar Afonso - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Óscar Afonso

Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 2021

We devise a North-South endogenous growth model with international trade and money to study the e... more We devise a North-South endogenous growth model with international trade and money to study the effects of inflation (and monetary policy) on wage inequality, specialization, and growth. The relationship between monetary policy and wage inequality depends on the fact that skilled-production firms are less credit constrained than unskilled-production firms. Interestingly, inflation affects the structure of production by increasing the production share made by skilled-intensive firms, and decreases economic growth. Furthermore, inflation decreases the difference of wage inequality between countries; shrinking the skill premia difference. Moreover, inflation and trade have opposite effects on wage inequality and on specialization: while trade tends to decrease intra-South wage inequality, inflation tends to increase it; while trade tends to increase the number of different intermediate goods produced with unskilled technology in the South; inflation acts the other way around. Results a...

Economic Modelling, 2021

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of those who supported me along the elaborati... more I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of those who supported me along the elaboration of this dissertation. I would like to thank my dissertation supervisors, Óscar Afonso and Pedro Neves, for all the support, shared knowledge and valuable contributions, as well as the patience, motivation and commitment to this research. Finally, my husband, family and close friends, for all the support and motivation that they always gave me during my studies.

Review of World Economics, 2020

Offshoring, either as FDI or offshore outsourcing, is a phenomenon of increasing importance that ... more Offshoring, either as FDI or offshore outsourcing, is a phenomenon of increasing importance that has been widely studied in the economics literature. Studies analysing the impact of offshoring on the labour market report divergent results. In this paper we develop a meta-analysis of the empirical literature that estimates the effect of offshoring on wages. We find that, after correcting for the presence of publication bias, the average effect is not significantly different from zero in either the origin or the destination countries. We also find that the wage impact of offshoring depends on methodological characteristics of the primary studies, such as the way offshoring is measured, the nature of goods/services that are offshored, the workers’ skill level, the unit of analysis, the structure of the data, and the estimation technique.

The Quadruple Innovation Helix Nexus, 2017

Innovation is today more than the result of technological research and development, and constitut... more Innovation is today more than the result of technological research and development, and constitutes the main engine of growth in an increasing number of economies. According to the Quadruple Helix (QH) innovation theory, an innovation economy is based on four helices—Academia, Citizens, Firms and Government—and their interactions. We believe that the QH’s conceptualised relationship between these four helices and their joint impact on economic growth deserves to be conveyed and demonstrated mathematically. We develop a one-sector idea-based growth model with complementarities between intermediate goods and services, and productive public expenditure. With an idea-based growth model, we can identify innovation as the main source of economic growth. The one-sector structure is chosen so as to capture the QH concept that all economic agents are equally important in the innovation process. By assuming the existence of complementarities between intermediate goods and services, we intend to convey analytically the economic feature that we believe characterises an innovation economy, in which profit-seeking firms benefit from cooperation, collaboration and information sharing. We introduce public expenditure with the purpose of highlighting the government’s irreplaceable role in a growing innovation economy. We analyse the growth effects of an increase in productive public expenditures, which we find positive in the short, medium and long run.

Solicitação ao leitor: Transmita-nos a sua opinião sobre este trabalho. ©: É permitida a cópia de... more Solicitação ao leitor: Transmita-nos a sua opinião sobre este trabalho. ©: É permitida a cópia de partes deste documento, sem qualquer modificação, para utilização individual. A reprodução de partes do seu conteúdo é permitida exclusivamente em documentos científicos, com indicação expressa da fonte. Não é permitida qualquer utilização comercial. Não é permitida a sua disponibilização através de rede electrónica ou qualquer forma de partilha electrónica. Em caso de dúvida ou pedido de autorização, contactar directamente o OBEGEF

Technological Change, 2012

Metroeconomica, 2014

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This paper studies the effects of the diffusion of a General Purpose Technology (GPT), that sprea... more This paper studies the effects of the diffusion of a General Purpose Technology (GPT), that spreads first within the developed country of its origin (North), and then to a developing country (South). We use a general equilibrium model of growth, where each final good is produced by one of two available technologies. Each technology is characterized by a specific set of intermediate goods complemented by specific labor. The quality of intermediate goods is enhanced periodically by Schumpeterian R&D. When quality reaches a threshold level, a GPT arises in one of the technologies and spreads first to the other one, within the North. Then, it propagates to the South, following a similar sequence. Since diffusion is not even, neither intra nor inter-country, the GPT produces successive changes in the direction of technological knowledge and in inter and intra-country wage inequality.

Journal of Economic Surveys, 2013

Institutions crucial for the analysis of how agents deal with uncertainty have been gaining incre... more Institutions crucial for the analysis of how agents deal with uncertainty have been gaining increasing relevance on the economic research agenda. In this paper, we analyze the institutional literature aiming to explain why this perspective obtains better results than others in development economics. In particular, we stress the relevance of New Institutional Economics as an adequate framework for a broad understanding of development issues.

International Economics and Economic Policy, 2012

By combining economic and financial data for Portuguese manufacturing firms with data of their ex... more By combining economic and financial data for Portuguese manufacturing firms with data of their exports and imports, we uncover some aspects of the relationship between international trade engagement and firms' performance. In line with recent theoretical and empirical developments in the international trade literature: (i) we testify that Portuguese international trade is highly concentrated, especially on the import side, and both in inter-and intra-sector terms; (ii) we corroborate previous studies and theses according to which two-way traders outperform only importers, only exporters and above all domestic firms; (iii) we find that the greater the diversification of markets and goods (especially with regard to imports) the better the performance achieved by internationalized firms; (iv) we also present evidence that destination markets, for exports, and, origin markets, for imports, are also important in explaining the performance of firms.

International Economic Journal, 2007

In the standard models of North-South technological-knowledge diffusion, the larger the initial t... more In the standard models of North-South technological-knowledge diffusion, the larger the initial technological-knowledge gap between countries, the greater the Southern catching up. However, this result does not adjust well to Southern reality as a whole. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the disparity between the theoretical outcome and the empirical findings can be reduced by considering that:

Economics Letters, 2010

This paper studies a non-degenerate price distribution for the homogeneous good within a model of... more This paper studies a non-degenerate price distribution for the homogeneous good within a model of endogenous directed technical change. A probability density function is analytically derived and shown to be related to the technology and innovation parameters of the model.

Economic Modelling, 2014

In what form should the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) be treated in an endogenous growth mod... more In what form should the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) be treated in an endogenous growth model? What are the effects of introducing IPR into a North-South endogenous growth model? In this paper, we develop a general equilibrium endogenous growth model that emphasizes the IPR enforcement effects on growth, in a scenario of North-South technological knowledge diffusion. The economy consists of three sectors, and firms are engaged in step-by-step innovation. In line with the literature, we introduce an IPR parameter that makes imitation more difficult. We find that, in steady state, the increases in IPR protection result in decreases in the growth rate. This result is in line with the literature, which argues that the enforcement of IPR does not always have a positive effect on economic growth and highlights that there is much more work to be done in this field of study, given that the existing results are not consensual. To sum up, we present some suggestions for future research which can help to clarify the relationship between IPR and endogenous growth.

FEP Working Papers, 2006

Downloadable! The creation of the European Monetary Union has led to a substantial increase in th... more Downloadable! The creation of the European Monetary Union has led to a substantial increase in the discussion of the importance of fiscal discipline and adequate fiscal rules in such a monetary union. The European solution has been challenged by many authors and politicians ...