Gender, Time Use, and Change: The Impact of the Cut Flower Industry in Ecuador

This article uses survey data from Ecuador to examine the effectsof women's employment on the allocation of paid and unpaid laborwithin the household. I compare a region with high demand forfemale labor with a similar region in which demand for femalelabor is low. The comparison suggests that market labor opportunitiesfor women have no effect on women's total time in labor butincrease men's time in unpaid labor. The increase in men's timein unpaid work reflects women's increased bargaining power inthe home.     

Labor Earnings in One-Company Towns: Theory and Evidence from Kazakhstan

One-company towns, characterized by the presence of a largeemployer in a local labor market, are a frequent legacy of state-leddevelopment strategies. How will downsizing or closing unprofitablestate-owned enterprises affect these towns?This article developsa simple model combining monopsony power in the labor marketwith a Keynesian closure of the product market and uses it tointerpret the findings of previous studies. The article evaluatesthe impact of the company's employment level on the town's laborearnings in Kazakhstan, where one-company towns are still prevalent.The evaluation is based on data from the 1996 Living StandardsMeasurement Survey. The results show that labor earnings inthe town decrease roughly 1.5 percent when the share of itspopulation working for the company decreases 1 percent. Theresults are robust to changes in the definition of labor earningsand to the inclusion of a variety of other community characteristicsin the analysis. These results and the theoretical model arecombined to evaluate the welfare impact of company downsizingand, consequently, to derive the optimal extent of labor retrenchment.     

Organized Labor and the Political Economy of Product Market Distortions

Why are economic reforms reversed through strikes and demonstrationsin some countries, but backed by the labor movement in othercountries? Why do product and labor market distortions differso much across countries? This article addresses these questionsby means of a simple, heuristic model of the economy that replicatesin an integrated manner several independent results from therecent political economy literature. Unlike most of this literature,however, the model focuses on the role played by organized labor,rather than by rent-seeking firms and guilds. A two-stage gamebetween the government and organized labor determines the levelof product market distortions (for example, import tariffs).In the first stage, the players may undertake costly actions,such as redistributing income or striking, in order to increasetheir bargaining power. In the second stage, they negotiateover product market distortions and wages. Under very generalassumptions, several policy regimes exist: Changes in the keyparameters of the economy may trigger a switch in the strategyof trade unions from confrontation to cooperation and hencechange the policy regime. Cross-country data highlight that,in spite of its simplicity, the model reproduces some observedempirical regularities.     

Taxing Mobile Capital with Labor Market Imperfections

Taxing internationally mobile factors of production has been dismissed as an inefficient means of raising tax revenue. This paper addresses the question of whether it is efficient to tax capital at source when labor markets and the taxation of lumpsum income suffer from imperfections. Four reasons for taxing capital are identified: (i) institutional constraints rendering any taxation of profit income infeasible; (ii) market power in the demand for labor; (iii) market power in the supply of labor if it increases with the employment of capital; (iv) unemployment benefits that are not tied to net real wages. It is argued that the case for taxing capital is not particularly strong. By reinterpreting capital as energy the results are applicable to the discussion about ecological tax reforms.     

An Open Economy DSGE Model with Search-and-Matching Frictions: The Case of Hungary

This article builds and estimates a medium scale, small open economy DSGE model augmented with search-and-matching frictions in the labor market, and different wage setting behavior in new and existing jobs. The model is estimated using Hungarian data between 2001–2008. We find that: (i) the inclusion of matching frictions significantly improves the model’s empirical fit; (ii) the extent of new hires wage rigidity is quantitatively important for key macro variables; (iii) labor market shocks do not play an important role in inflation dynamics, but the structure of the labor market influences the monetary transmission mechanism.     

银行间市场理财产品快速发展的原因及对银行业的影响

在融资类银信合作理财产品监管趋严并受到限制的背景下,投资银行间市场的理财产品快速发展是2011年理财市场的一个重要特点。本文的研究表明：一是在现有经济金融环境下投资者对较高收益率资产的需求与银行之间的存款竞争等多个因素共同促进了银行间市场理财产品的快速发展;二是银行间市场理财产品的发行不会对银行在市场中的地位产生影响,总体上对银行体系的稳定影响有限;三是银行间市场理财产品的发行对银行体系流动性总体有利,但会产生时点上的不利影响,并给中小机构的流动性管理带来压力;四是银行间市场理财产品的发行是一种金融创新．有利于金融机构的长远发展。本文建议：适当提高存款基准利率水平,稳步推进利率市场化;对现有银行间市场理财产品进一步加强监测与规范;在加强监管的前提下,继续鼓励银行金融创新．     

The anticipated real interest rate,capital utilization and the cyclical pattern of real wages

This paper develops a channel through which increases in anticipated real interest rates can be ‘expansionary’ for current aggregate labor demand and current output supply. The key feature of the model is the introduction of a user cost of capital utilization which confronts the firm with the intertemporal problem of the optimal choices of capital utilization and depreciation. The resulting variation in capital utilization and capital services in response to fluctuations in the real rate of interest shifts the marginal product of labor and, thus, the demand for labor at the same time and in the same direction that Lucas-Rapping real interest rate effects operate on labor supply. The complete model places no a priori restrictions on the cyclical pattern of real wages, thus avoiding the countercyclical real wage prediction made by Keynes and various classical writers that is rejected by the data. Estimates of a labor demand schedule for the annual U.S. data reveal a significantly positive real interest rate effect.     

兼并收购可以促进劳动力结构优化升级吗？

本文使用2000-2016年我国沪深A股上市公司数据,实证研究了公司被并购对其劳动力结构的影响。研究发现,公司被并购带来公司的劳动力结构优化升级,即公司会增加非常规高技能劳动力占比和高学历劳动力占比,降低常规低技能劳动力占比。渠道检验发现,并购会通过降低企业融资约束,促进企业生产技术升级来促进企业的劳动力结构优化升级。异质性分析发现并购对劳动力结构优化升级的影响在非完全换股并购和低绩效企业中更为显著。     

Incremental Reform and Distortions in China's Product and Factor Markets

The purpose of economic reform is to reduce distortions andenhance efficiency. However, when reforms are partial and incremental,individuals and local governments are often able to capturethe rent inherent in the gradual transition process. Young (2000)warned that such rent-seeking behavior might lead to increasingmarket fragmentation. Empirical studies have shown the oppositein the product market. This article argues that as the rentfrom China's product market has been squeezed out due to deepeningreforms, rent-seeking behavior may have shifted to the capitalmarket. Further reforms are needed in the capital market tosqueeze out these rent-seeking opportunities, just as thosefrom the product and labor markets were squeezed out earlier.     

The Robustness of the Conditional CAPM with Human Capital

An empirical evaluation is provided of the robustness of theconditional capital asset pricing model (CAPM) with human capitalto explain the cross-sectional variability of security returns.This model has been evaluated in the literature using the growthrate in per capita labor income. This article looks at richermeasures of human capital returns. It develops measures thatincorporate the costs and benefits of educational investment,skill premiums, worker experience, and other relevant featuresof human capital markets. It also considers variables that helpto forecast future human capital returns. We find that someof these richer measures help improve substantially the performanceof the model.     

兼并收购可以促进劳动力结构优化升级吗？

本文使用2000-2016年我国沪深A股上市公司数据,实证研究了公司被并购对其劳动力结构的影响。研究发现,公司被并购带来公司的劳动力结构优化升级,即公司会增加非常规高技能劳动力占比和高学历劳动力占比,降低常规低技能劳动力占比。渠道检验发现,并购会通过降低企业融资约束,促进企业生产技术升级来促进企业的劳动力结构优化升级。异质性分析发现并购对劳动力结构优化升级的影响在非完全换股并购和低绩效企业中更为显著。     

The effects of wage indexation on macroeconomic fluctuations: A generalization

This paper investigates the effects of wage indexation on fluctuations in employment, output, investment and the price level within a more general framework than that used in recent literature. The generalization involves: (a) a more general labor contract which allows labor supply as well as labor demand to affect actual employment in disequilibrium, and (b) a regular IS-LM framework which includes the previously used monetarist framework as a particular case. It is found that the effects of wage indexation on fluctuations in various economic variables depend in many cases on whether demand or supply dominates the labor market in disequilibrium. The exact dependence is characterized and used to reappraise recent results and develop new results.     

Does the Type of Political Regime Matter for Trade and Labor Market Policies?

This article uses cross-country data to examine the link betweena country's type of political regime and its degree of opennessand labor market distortion. The analysis indicates that moreauthoritarian regimes are associated with higher trade protectionand greater labor market distortions. This supports the viewthat political authoritarianism may be counterproductive todevelopment in important respects.     

The Value of Crowdfunding: An Explanation Based on Demand Uncertainty and Comparison with Venture Capital

This article notes that an advantage of crowdfunding is in its ability to help start-up firms acquire more accurate market demand information regarding new products when compared with venture capital (VC). The whole market of a given product can be conceptualized as being segmented into several, small local markets. VC has a comprehensive knowledge of local markets in general but is prone to noisy aggregate demand information as a result. While crowdfunding investors have intimate knowledge regarding local demand information in their respective locales, they lack knowledge in other local markets. We show that under certain conditions, crowdfunding can provide more accurate demand information and therefore can generate better incentives to entrepreneurs while improving product quality and helping entrepreneurs make correct decisions on whether or not to launch a new product. Therefore, the wisdom of the crowd can be more valuable than the wisdom of the expert.     

Attaching Workers through In-Kind Payments: Theory and Evidence from Russia

External shocks may cause a decline in the productivity of fixedcapital in certain regions of an economy. Exogenous obstaclesto migration make it hard for workers in those regions to reallocateto more prosperous regions. In addition, firms may devise "attachment"strategies to keep workers from moving out of a local labormarket. When workers are compensated in kind, they find it difficultto raise the cash needed for migration. This endogenous obstacleto migration has not yet been considered in the literature.The article shows that the feasibility of attachment dependson the inherited structure of local labor markets: attachmentcan exist in equilibrium only if the labor market is sufficientlyconcentrated. Attachment is beneficial for both employers andemployees but hurts the unemployed and the self-employed. Ananalysis of matched household-firm data from the Russian Federationcorroborates the theory.     

Toward a Theory of the Intraurban Market for Hotel Services

The article proposes a discrete choice framework for looking at the intraurban market for hotel services. Like most real estate products, hotel services are highly differentiated. Thus, every hotel operator faces a downward-sloping demand function and, in line with microeconomic tradition is assumed to select a profit-maximizing room price. Optimal price determines quantity of services and thus also fixes the optimal occupancy. The demand for a given hotel's services is a product of the urban area's total hotel market size and the hotel's discrete-choice market-share function. Profit maximization cannot be computed in closed form; therefore, it is simulated. Simulations yield optimal room price as well as occupancy, for high-, medium-, and low-quality hotels, while keeping size constant. As expected, simulation results show that high-quality hotels are constrained by size, especially when the market is up. Those of low quality are constrained by insufficient demand, especially when the market is down.     

Sickness absence and health care in an economic federation

This paper addresses vertical fiscal externalities in a model where the state governments provide health care and the federal government provides a sickness benefit. Both levels of government tax labor income and policy decisions affect labor income as well as participation in the labor market. The results show that the vertical externality affecting the state governments’ policy decisions can be either positive or negative depending on, among other things, the wage elasticity of labor supply and the marginal product of expenditure on health care. Moreover, it is proved that the vertical fiscal externality will not vanish by assigning all powers of taxation to the states.      

Child Farm Labor: The Wealth Paradox

This article is motivated by the remarkable observation thatchildren of land-rich households are often more likely to bein work than the children of land-poor households. The vastmajority of working children in developing economies are inagricultural work, predominantly on farms operated by theirfamilies. Land is the most important store of wealth in agrariansocieties, and it is typically distributed very unequally. Thesefacts challenge the common presumption that child labor emergesfrom the poorest households. This article suggests that thisapparent paradox can be explained by failures of the marketsfor labor and land. Credit market failure will tend to weakenthe force of this paradox. These effects are modeled and estimatesobtained using survey data from rural Pakistan and Ghana. Themain result is that the wealth paradox persists for girls inboth countries, whereas for boys it disappears after conditioningon other covariates.     

Short-term pain for long-term gain: Market deregulation and monetary policy in small open economies

This paper explores the effects of labor and product market reforms in a New Keynesian, small open economy model with labor market frictions and endogenous producer entry. We show that it takes time for reforms to pay off, typically at least a couple of years. This is partly because the benefits materialize through firm entry and increased hiring, both of which are gradual processes, while any reform-driven layoffs are immediate. Some reforms – such as reductions in employment protection – increase unemployment temporarily. Implementing a broad package of labor and product market reforms minimizes transition costs. Importantly, reforms do not have noticeable deflationary effects, suggesting that the inability of monetary policy to deliver large interest rate cuts in their aftermath – either because of the zero bound on policy rates or because of the membership in a monetary union – may not be a relevant obstacle to reform. Alternative simple monetary policy rules do not have a large effect on transition costs.     

TESTING PRICE TAKING IN LOAN AND DEPOSIT MARKETS BY FINANCIAL FIRMS

This paper tests for the failure of price taking in the markets for financial and nonfinancial services. A firm that can purchase or sell an unlimited quantity at the prevailing price is a price taker. This hypothesis is tested using historical data on a sample of eighteen banks, considering financial services, demand deposits, time deposits, labor, cash, materials, and capital. The empirical results indicate little flexibility in the financial technology, whether price taking is imposed on all markets or only on the labor market.