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This chapter does three things. First, it estimates regional gross domestic product (GDP) for three different geographical levels in Switzerland (97 micro regions, 16 labor market basins, and 3 large regions). Second, it analyzes the evolution of regional inequality relying on a heuristic model inspired by Williamson (1965), which features an initial growth impulse in one or several core regions and subsequent diffusion. Third, it uses index number theory to decompose regional inequality into three different effects: sectoral structure, productivity, and comparative advantage.

The results can be summarized as follows: As a consequence of the existence of multiple core regions, Swiss regional inequality has been comparatively low at higher geographical levels. Spatial diffusion of economic growth occurred across different parts of the country and within different labor market regions. This resulted in a bell-shaped evolution of regional inequality at the micro regional level and convergence at higher geographical levels. In early and in late stages of the development process, productivity differentials were the main drivers of inequality, whereas economic structure was determinant between 1888 and 1941. The poorest regions suffered from comparative disadvantage, that is, they were specialized in the vary sector (agriculture), where their relative productivity was comparatively lowest.

The purpose of this study is to examine real exchange rate misalignment and economic growth in Malaysia.

The result of the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach and the generalized forecast error variance decomposition.

The result of the ARDL approach shows an increase in the real interest rate differential, productivity differential, the real oil price or reserve differential will lead to an appreciation of the real exchange rate in the long run. The result of the generalized forecast error variance decomposition shows that the real interest rate differential, productivity differential, the real oil price, and reserve differential are generally important to the real exchange rate determination. Moreover, the result of the ARDL approach shows that an increase in real exchange rate misalignment will lead to a decrease in economic growth. More specifically, devaluation will promote economic growth and appreciation will hurt economic growth. Exchange rate can be a policy variable to influence economic growth. Real exchange rate misalignment should be avoided to enable the allocation of resources in the economy according to fundamentals.

A managed floating exchange rate regime could be a choice of exchange rate regime in other developing countries to achieve rapid economic growth.

Personnel costs comprise the largest clinical laboratory expense. Yet standards to judge the productivity of personnel have not been established. A survey of the authors’ own personnel was conducted to derive productivity standards in the Clinical Hematology Laboratory at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Technologists were asked how many white blood cell differentials they could perform in an eight‐hour shift. Differential productivity was tracked before and after the survey. Of the respondents, 100 per cent failed to meet their own expectations of productivity. Nine technologists were tracked both before and after the survey was mailed and manifested a significant increase in productivity. These results suggest that technologists are objective in their assessment of their own productivity, that their opinions might be a resource for establishing productivity standards within the laboratory, and that such surveys may serve as motivational tools to augment productivity.

The primary purpose of this study is to examine whether the classification of industries into the tradable and nontradable matters for the Balassa–Samuelson (BS) effect.

The study uses annual data for 38 countries from 1995 to 2014. To examine whether the classification of industries matter, the study proceeds with two approaches, that is, “traditional” and “benchmark”.

First, by applying panel cointegration tests of Pedroni and Westerlund, the results validate the BS hypothesis. However, the coefficients of long-run elasticities show appreciation of real exchange rate (RER) due to increase in productivity in the case of “traditional approach”, whereas depreciation of RER in the case of “benchmark approach”. Second, by applying the Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel Granger causality test, the results reveal the bi-directional causality among RER and productivity for both the approaches. Further, to provide more insights, the study employs a fixed-effects panel threshold model. The results indicate that increase in productivity leads to both appreciation and depreciation of RER depending on threshold regimes.

The study ascertains that the evidence of BS effect depends on the choice of approach considered. However, irrespective of the classification, there exists a BS effect beyond a threshold.

Although the BS effect is well established in the literature; there is no study examining the importance of classification of industries at a disaggregated level. Furthermore, there is no consideration of threshold effects.

The purpose of the paper was to establish the implications of globalisation for labour markets when efficiency wages create endogenous wage rigidity and to re‐examine the credibility of the arguments that call for deregulation, more wage flexibility and less social protection in this context.

The role of efficiency wages is reviewed in the traditional international economics theory, new economic geography and the neo‐Schumpeterian perspective towards international competitiveness.

First, taking into account endogenous sources of wage rigidity has different implications for employment, inequality, regional growth convergence and the role of the welfare state in the context of international competitiveness, from those derived when assuming them away or taking them as imposed by labour market institutions. Second, policies that would substantially reduce social security or lead to cost‐cuts may have an adverse effect on effort and thus on productivity.

To the author's knowledge, this paper is the only review in the literature that concentrates on efficiency wages applied in international trade.

Over recent decades both Europe and the United States have experienced an increase in the share of service-related jobs in total employment. Although narrowing in all European countries, a significant gap in the share of service jobs relative to the United States still persists. The aim of the chapter is to identify the main drivers of the service sector employment share in the EU-15 as well as its gap relative to the United States. The analysis is carried out for the aggregate service sector, 4 sub-sectors and 12 service sector branches over the period 1970–2003. We find some evidence to support the hypothesis that a number of labour market regulations – such as union density and the degree of centralisation of wage bargaining – together with the mismatch between workers' skills and job vacancies, have affected Europe's ability to adjust efficiently to the reallocation of labour from manufacturing into services. Furthermore, we find significant heterogeneity in the relative weight of the various determinants of the employment share across sub-sectors and branches.

Talent compression is the labor market phenomenon where the average productivity differential between participants declines and has been used to explain the overall increase in competition within some professional sports markets. A finding that competitiveness is uniquely driven by talent compression is consistent with Rottenberg (1956), who argued that resource distribution is independent of factors that are invariant to labor productivity.

Rather than incorporate MLB team roster turnover as many of the past studies have done, we prefer to measure of all-star turnover in membership. Problematically, movement from an MLB team to an MLB team is limited by rule, finances and the fact that there are very few teams competing for player services. In contrast, All-Star membership is typically costlessly chosen by many millions of fans, league players and managers. In this way, All-Star voting should be invariant to many of the factors that affect movement from an MLB team to an MLB team.

In the end, we find that a close association between all-star turnover rates and the makeup of MLB’s labor pool.

The paper offers a new measure of player mobility.

Efficiency has not been the most familiar concept in the vocabulary of the personal social services in recent years. Some of the more obvious reasons for this having been the post‐Seebohm emphasis on expansion; the lack of clarity about service outputs and objectives; and the relative failure of the economics profession, with only a few exceptions, to concern itself with developments in this area in contrast with, say, the National Health Service. However, now that the post‐oil crisis economic recession has reduced prospects for growth in the personal and other social and public services almost to zero, in the short to medium term, the efficient use of resources assumes greater importance. This is in complete contrast to recent experience when, during the years of rapid expansion, efficiency was, inevitably, a poor second to the objective of maximising inputs. That is not to suggest that resources were deliberately wasted, but the development of new services in a growing number of areas, often on an ad hoc basis, meant that some inefficiency was unavoidable. Now the economic climate has changed and it is vital that the recession is used as a period of consolidation. Existing practices need to be rigorously examined in the search for more cost‐effective methods of achieving objectives. If this can be done at all successfully it will provide managers in the social services with much greater flexibility to meet the increasing pressures of future demands and conflicting priorities, and might even prevent that blunt instrument, the pro rata cut, being over employed. Of course, even the most efficient authority may not be able to avoid some cuts in service provision, but these will be most easily kept to a minimum by identifying areas where genuine savings can be made.

The purpose of the paper is to examine the impact of exchange rate misalignment on economic growth in India using annual data from 1980 to 2014.

First, misalignment is measured, which is defined as the deviations of the actual real exchange rate (RER) from its equilibrium level. The equilibrium real exchange rate (ERER) is estimated using the auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) model by considering key macroeconomic fundamentals of the determinants of RER. Zivot and Andrews’ unit root with structural break is used to test the stationarity property of data. The impact of exchange rate misalignment on economic growth has been examined using ARDL and variance decomposition techniques.

Our results find an overvaluation of the exchange rate till 2000, and thereafter, an undervaluation of the exchange rate prevails in India. Further, the result indicates that an increase in exchange rate misalignment leads to a decrease in economic growth and vice versa. Moreover, a positive misalignment (overvaluation) hurts the economic growth and a negative misalignment (undervaluation) promotes the economic growth.

From the policy perspective, the results highlight that India needs to maintain an appropriate exchange rate which can reduce the RER misalignment. It is better for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s intervention to smoothen the fluctuations of the exchange rate to avoid the inefficiency in the allocation of resources. However, to minimize the RER misalignment, the intervention should be conducted only in the short run.

The study contributes to the existing literature by estimating the exchange rate misalignment for India and its impact on economic growth.