1、 1 中文 4180 字 本科毕业论文外文翻译 外文题目 :Competitiveness in the global forest industry sector: an empirical study with special emphasis on Germany 出 处： European J Forest Res 作 者： Matthias Dieter Hermann Englert Competitiveness in the global in forest industry sector: an empirical study with special emphasis on
2、 Germany TuranSubsat ABSTRACT The objective of the presented study is to analyze the competitiveness of the German forest industry sector against the background of the international timber markets. The analysis is conducted based on global bilateral trade data in monetary terms. Timber commodities a
3、re grouped according to twelve commodity classes； each class is clearly attributed to one of the three processing levels raw wood, semi-finished and finished wood products. After an introductory description of the structure and development of the global timber market, two result-oriented competitive
4、ness indicators have been applied: the revealed comparative advantage (RCA), which indicates whether a country is specialized in a specific sectorthe RCA analysis has been conducted by means of the two consecutive indices Balassa index (BI) and Aquino index (AI)and in addition the constant market sh
5、are (CMS) analysis, which disaggregates the overall export growth of a country into four different effects: (1) the world growth effect, (2) the commodity-composition effect, (3) the market-distribution effect and (4) a residual, which usually is interpreted as the competitiveness effect. Depending
6、on the chosen indicator, results are given for 21 and 25 leading countries (RCA and CMS, respectively). The highest BI values are shown by Russia for raw wood (10.4), by Finland for semi finished wood products (11.3) and by Poland for 2 finished wood products (4.7). The AI shows that countries which
7、 are specialized in timber commodity exports mostly are significant timber importers, as well. This is an indication of their integration in an intra-industry trade. Germany only has a BI value somewhat greater than 1 for finished wood products. This can be seen as an indication of merely an average
8、 competitiveness position in global timber markets. The CMS analysis delivers two key results: most of the leading timber exporters in absolute terms show only low export growth rates and vice versa. Furthermore, a strong positive relationship can be identified between a countrys timber export growt
9、h rate and its competitiveness effect. Most of the Eastern European and many Asian and Latin American countries show this pattern, as they have high growth rates and high positive competitiveness effects. Germanys export growth can be attributed much more to the overall world growth in timber market
10、s than to its forest industry capacity. Hence, a stagnation of world growth would have crucial effects on the German forest industry sector. INTRODUCTION The world is experiencing increasing interrelations in various fields of human and environmental existence. Globalization affects the economies of
11、 most of the worlds countries, as capital is rather free flowing over the world, seeking a host country where, inter alia, the costs for the complementary factors are as low as possible. Production technology and know-how move to those countries. As a consequence, traditional trade patterns change:
12、upcoming economies gain market shares whereas former leading export countries loose their prevailing positions. The presented study is dedicated to those changes, which can be referred to as changes in competitiveness, here focused on the forest industry sector. The study is aimed at a better unders
13、tanding of the recent competitiveness situation of the global forest industry sector and therewith at providing a scientific fundament for decision makers in policy and economy. The main emphasis of the study is on the competitiveness of the German forest industry sector. A comprehensive analysis, h
14、owever, requires the consideration of global aspects. Competitiveness is a commonly used term in economic policy debates and papers. However, until now there has been no clear definition of what competitiveness is exactly and 3 of how it can be measured in quantitative terms. Strictly speaking compe
15、titiveness is not a feature of a sector or even of the overall economy of a country but only of a single enterprise. If an enterprise is able to hold ground in a market and to earn “high” real income in the long run it is competitive. Balassa (1962, p. 27) accurately speaks of the “ability to sell”
16、as a competitive feature of enterprises. Due to the lack of a prominent definition of competitiveness several indicators have been developed and presented which in combination enable the characterization of the competitive situation of a specific sector and/or country. These can be classified into t
17、wo groups (Gries and Hentschel 1994, p. 417): Result-oriented indicators: These reveal the realized competitive situation of a sector and/or country from the ex-post perspective. Typical result-oriented indicators are terms of trade, revealed comparative advantage (RCA), constant market shares, rela
18、tive unit values or the presence in high technology segments. Determinant-oriented indicators: These are based on the assumption of a correlation between the determinants and the competitive situation of a country. Forecasts of the development of the determinants allow for an ex-ante estimation of t
19、he development of the competitive situation. Typical indicators are the legal and institutional framework of a country, its infrastructure, its social security system induced cost components, its private and public expenditure for research and development or its factor endowment. For a sector specif
20、ic analysis, as is the case here, most of the result-oriented indicators are quite appropriate, whereas most of the determinant-oriented indicators are more appropriate to analyze the competitiveness of the economy as a whole rather than to analyze the situation in a specific sector. For this reason
21、 the result-oriented indicators stand in the foreground of this study. Nevertheless, the relevance of the determinant-oriented indicators for an individual sector should be kept in mind. An individual sector is of course affected by national wide changes in the legal, institutional or social framewo
22、rk, for example the development of ancillary wage costs. Data sources and definitions each sector analysis firstly requires a definition of which branches the sector is composed of and what the respective products are. In most cases these definitions are not determined by the nature of the activities or products. Wood for example is a raw material, which, besides its use for energy purposes, is processed and refined into several high-value products, in particular those for use in the building and printing industries. In the course of processing, which in highly developed
