عنوان

Microfoundations of industrial competitiveness in a small developing economy :

Number

TLets697104

Title Proper

Microfoundations of industrial competitiveness in a small developing economy :

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Al-Homsi, Jamal Hasan

Title Proper by Another Author

the case of Jordan's manufacturing industries

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

University of Leicester

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2002

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Thesis (Ph.D.)

Text preceding or following the note

2002

Text of Note

The primary objective of the thesis is to contribute towards the understanding of certain empirical and conceptual issues underlying the global competitiveness of the Jordanian manufacturing industries (JMIs). It aims also to function as an input in informing debate over the future direction of Jordanian industrial competitiveness policy. Having explored the theoretical aspects of industrial competitiveness, the thesis presents a survey on the measurement and interpretation of industrial performance. It then presents three substantive empirical chapters on the microfoundations of competitiveness in JMIs. The empirical part of the thesis uses a unique, large microdata set, extracted from the 1994 Industrial Census. Each substantive chapter adopts a distinct research design. The first uses an inter-industry design (following Caves and Barton, 1990) to explore technical efficiency (TE). The second utilises an inter-firm design to investigate scale efficiency, another potentially significant cost driver in JMIs. Finally the third substantive chapter offers a case study on the Jordanian pharmaceutical industry (JPI), examining high-technology as a benefit deriver. Some of the more important empirical findings may be summarised briefly: (i) producer concentration (unadjusted for foreign trade) is found negatively related to TE in a linear and robust link; (ii) the pro-competition effect of imports on TE appears to be insignificant; (iii) increasing returns to scale exists in 44 out of 51 JMIs, and significantly so in 29 industries; (iv) firm size is positively and robustly associated with firm-level export intensity; (v) no systematic pattern between firm size and unit labour costs has been detected; (vi) despite superior average performance in terms of exports, profitability and wage competitiveness, JPI can be considered as a vulnerable industry in face of the current technological and marketing challenges. The thesis then draws out some of the implications of these findings for the formulation of competition, industrial and technology policies in Jordan.

Al-Homsi, Jamal Hasan

University of Leicester

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y