ASM

Is there a conflict between economic growth and environmental sustainability? This project will assemble data that can be used to contribute to an evidence-based analysis of this question. As part of the project, Najjar has produced a data dictionary and user guide for the GHG-NPRI-ASM (Greenhouse Gas-National Pollutant Registry Inventory-Annual Survey of Manufacturing) database, which will be the basis of economic analysis that relates economic growth and the environment.

Both pollution and climate change are known to negatively impact the health and productivity of workers. Research has primarily focused on how these factors affect outcomes of developing countries and the agricultural sector. Little is known about the impact of air pollution and climate change on manufacturing plants in developed countries. In developed countries such as Canada, the agricultural sector accounts for a small share (6.6 %) of gross domestic product (GDP) relative to that of the manufacturing sector (approximately 11 %). The purpose of this research is to study how the productivity of Canadian manufacturing plants is affected by the interaction of temperature and air pollution. While both temperature and pollution individually affect manufacturing plants’ outcomes, a mix of both could amplify these affects.

Additional data set: National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI)

Despite half a century of experience with environmental regulation in Europe and North America, there is still much debate over the likely impacts of environmental regulation. For example, many believe that regulation comes at the cost of economic growth in the regulated region and these costs outweigh any potential environmental benefit. While the regulation does have costs, it is important to understand the trade-offs between these costs and environmental benefits. This research is designed to help inform policymakers and the public about the costs and benefits of climate policy, by quantifying the productivity impact of British Columbia’s carbon tax in the manufacturing sector.

   The purpose of this project is to study the development and behaviour of firms that operate in an economy that is largely based on natural resources. The current literature states commodity pricing fluctuations due to rises in the exchange rate and/or wage levels may serve to negatively impact a natural resource-based economy. This may especially be the case for manufacturing firms that export. Due to data limitations, research in this area is limited in both the international and Canadian context. The main question this paper seeks to answer is: how are Canadian firms’ sales, levels of employment, wage costs, and export sales affected by a natural resource windfall. Such information is relevant for policy makers as it will provide insight on how to support exporting firms that are negatively affected by the volatility of natural resources.

This project consists of three projects:

Project 1 - Complementarity of Performance Pay and Task Allocation

Bryan Hong, Lorenz Keung and Mu-Jeung Yang

Complementary management practices are those that are interdependent and together reinforce one another to improve overall firm performance. Research has suggested that such complementarity between different management practices is one underlying cause of differences in performance outcomes among firms. The purpose of this study is to examine the complementarity between two specific management practices: pay-for-performance and decentralization, the dispersion of decision making from a central authority to subgroups of the firm. While these practices have been empirically investigated individually, little is known about how the interaction between decentralization and pay-for-performance may affect firm performance.

Project 2 - Barbarians at the Gate: How foreign competition affects intra-organizational conflict

Bryan Hong and Romel Mostafa

 Cyert and March (1963) describe the firm as the combination of interdependent groups, which often have competing interests. It is no surprise that such competing interests can lead to conflict within firms, also referred to as intra-organizational conflict. The effects of intra-organizational conflict are well studied. Research has indicated that the time managers spend managing conflicts is substantial, suggesting the cost of conflicts within the firm are significant. Little is known about how forces outside of the firm affect the likelihood and prevalence of conflict within a firm. The purpose of this study is to estimate how one specific external force, foreign competition, affects the occurrence and frequency of intra-organizational conflict in the Canadian context. This study uses data from the Workplace and Employee (WES) survey conducted by Statistics Canada.

Project 3: Incentives as a Moderator of Conflict During Organizational Change

Bryan Hong

When a firm experiences an organizational change or restructuring, it is likely conflicts that disrupt the firm will occur. This study focuses on how organizational changes affect the prevalence of conflicts and employee grievances filed within the firm.  As a measure for organizational changes, this study employs changes in organizational structure (ex. centralization, decentralization, outsourcing) from the WES survey. This study also investigates how the presence of group level pay-for-performance incentives (ex. profit sharing plans) affect the frequency of firm conflicts.

Additional datasets: Labour Force Survey (LFS) & General Index of Financial Information (GIFI)

Does the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) reduce resource misallocation in Canada? The implementation of CUSFTA can be viewed as a natural experiment which makes it ideal for estimating the causal effect of trade policy on the misallocation of resources. To do this, I use both static and dynamic panel models with data from the Annual Surveys of Manufactures (ASM) for the period 1980 to 1996. I use tariff rates from Trefler (2004) and measure resource misallocation using the dispersion in revenue total factor productivity (TFPR). This study sheds light on how reversion back to CUSFTA following a collapse of NAFTA might impact productivity in Canada due to changes in resource misallocation.

This study investigates the impact of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on price dispersion in Canada. The impact of trade reforms on producer price dispersion is not straightforward: while increased competition would be expected to alleviate price differences by favoring the most productive firms, access to new markets alongside product differentiation may allow producers to charge more disperse prices.

This project studies the impact of environmental regulation on the manufacturing sector. It examines how firms' strategic responses affect economic outcomes, which in turn affect the cost of regulation and the ability to achieve policy goals. First, this project quantifies some of these effects by estimating the impact of Canadian air quality regulation on plant level outcomes including: productivity, output, input use, emissions, likelihood-of-exit, investment, and capital stock. Second, this project studies the link between regulation induced shifts in firms' production/investment location choices, and productivity. These location choices can increase the cost of regulation by affecting productivity via changes in agglomeration economies, which suggests that changes to the regulation could be more efficient at reducing pollution.

This project aims at evaluating the efficiency of Canadian energy conservation program also called CIPEC program. CIPEC program is a voluntary program which consist at encouraging firms to manage their energy use more efficiently. Through CIPEC reports, it has been highlighted that many firms have been able to reduce their energy waste through the change of attitude or by upgrading machines that are more energy efficient. CIPEC program offers a setting where members share successful experience between them in order to be more energy efficient. To date, there is no a proper evaluation of this program since its launch in 1975. We aim to fill this gap by investigating the direct and indirect effect of this program on its members.