THE POTATO MARKETING SYSTEM AND ITS CHANGES IN BANGLADESH: FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A VILLAGE STUDY IN COMILLA DISTRICT

This paper analyzes the marketing system of potato in Bangladesh, especially the economic relations among farmers, traders, and cold storage owners and elucidates the structural changes in the rural economy through a village study. Investment in the potato market is capital‐intensive and risky, and is often considered to be vertically linked. The present study shows that farmers and cold storage owners do not invest in trading because of lack of time and “skill” to deal with urban traders. Besides, farmers face capital constraints and the amount of potatoes produced is too small to meet the demand of urban areas. Cold storage owners are confronted with increasing competition, which forces them to attempt to reach the storage capacity. Traders invest in the risky potato‐storage business. The return from it is declining but still high due to the “cheap” credit supply from the cold storage owners. There is no tied relation among the market agents any more.     

Does polycentric spatial structure narrow the urban-rural income gap? – Evidence from six urban clusters in China

As urbanization and economic development continue to accelerate, social equity issues are becoming increasingly prominent and the urban–rural income gap is an important manifestation of this. This study uses the data of urban clusters from 2010 to 2019 and focuses on the relationship between the polycentric spatial structure of urban clusters and the urban–rural income gap. The findings show that the development of urban cluster polycentricity can reduce the urban–rural income gap, and the higher the degree of polycentricity in morphology, the smaller the gap. However, the relationship between polycentric spatial structure and the urban–rural income gap is “U” shaped, indicating the need for rational planning of urban polycentric development patterns rather than simple expansion. In addition, the polycentric spatial structure of urban clusters can reduce regional disparities by promoting factor mobility and industrial structure optimization. However, this depends on the level of industrial development and infrastructure. This study highlights the importance of a balanced approach to urban development that takes into account regional disparities and issues of social equity.     

Zambia at 50: The persisting challenges of economic structural transformation

This article examines the structural transformation trajectory in Zambia since independence. Drawing from sectoral analysis of the structure of output and the composition of labour over the last five decades, the article illustrates that although there have been shifts in the composition of output and labour in the economy, especially since 2000, these shifts have not contributed to positive structural transformation. Instead the economy has been experiencing widening productivity gaps between sectors, signalling perverse economic structural transformation. Although there have been some slight improvements in the overall productivity since 2000, productivity in the agriculture and informal sectors, where almost 85% of the labour works, has remained stagnantly low. This is compounded by the economy experiencing a net movement of labour from high to low-productivity employment, mainly the informal urban sector.     

THE EMERGENCE OF INSTITUTIONALISED SOCIAL DIALOGUE IN SOUTH AFRICA

This paper looks at the conceptual framework of social dialogue, investment in social capital and some international definitions of social dialogue as background to developments in this sphere in South Africa. Social dialogue is viewed as a mechanism for problem‐solving and reducing transaction costs. The paper considers the ramifications of the 1979 Wiehahn Report on labour relations, as well as the nature of social dialogue in the apartheid era and its workplace origins. Institutionally, the stepping stones to the emergence of the NEF and Nedlac are discussed, together with some of the issues involved in, and formal outcomes of, Nedlac over the past eleven years in public policy choices. It closes with an evaluation of institutionalised social dialogue in South Africa and its future. “With the transition to non‐racial democracy in 1994, it became the task of an ANC‐led government to attempt to resolve the economic contradictions that apartheid had created. To achieve this requires massive economic and social changes, great programmes of investment and structural change. It is necessary to create the vital human capital needed at every level, from rudimentary literacy to the highest ranks of science and technology; to overcome enormous deficiencies in all forms of social infrastructure, including housing, schools, health, and transport; to return land to the black population and restore ravaged rural areas; to expand black ownership of mining, industry, commerce, and finance; and to diminish enormous inequalities in income and wealth. The new regime has made a promising start, but South Africa's past will exert a powerful influence on its present and future for a long time to come, and these huge tasks will not be swiftly or easily accomplished.” Charles Feinstein (2005 )     

中国社会保障支出与城乡居民收入差距关系的实证分析

文章首先分析了中国城乡收入差距现状,之后选取了城乡人均物质资本差距、城乡人力资本差距、城乡劳动力市场一体化程度和城乡社会保障差距四个影响城乡居民收入差距的影响因素进行实证分析。结果表明,城乡人均物质资本差距和城乡劳动力市场一体化程度对城乡居民收入差距有正向影响,城乡人力资本差距和城乡社会保障差距对城乡居民收入差距有负向影响。     

FDI的流入必然会扩大城乡收入差距吗?

本文在理论分析FDI如何影响城乡收入差距基础上,基于1992～2007年间省级面板数据的估计结果显示:FDI的流入能够抑制城乡收入差距的扩大趋势,此外FDI还是缩小城乡收入差距的内生性变量。在控制变量中,政府财政支出是扩大城乡收入差距的重要因素,而经济增长和物质资本积累却能够显著地缩小城乡收入差距,人力资本积累和对外开放程度对城乡收入差距的影响却不显著。     

人口老龄化对城乡收入不平等的影响效应研究——基于中国二元经济结构演变的视角

理论分析表明,二元经济结构下人口老龄化能够通过要素禀赋结构调整和社会福利改善对城乡居民收入产生不同的收入效应和替代效应,进而影响城乡收入不平等。利用中国2000-2014年省际面板数据进行实证检验发现：中国人口老龄化显著的扩大了城乡收入不平等,但要素禀赋结构和社会福利水平对老龄化条件下的城乡收入不平等影响效应不同;随着对老年人口供养负担的加重,社会福利支出对老龄化条件下的城乡收入不平等主要表现为替代效应,城市偏向的社会福利支出使得农村因照料老人引起的劳动力供给减少扩大了城乡收入不平等;而要素禀赋结构的转变则使得老龄化主要表现为收入效应,劳动力相对资本的稀缺性导致转移劳动力工资上涨,从而缩小了城乡收入不平等;随着老龄化深化,通过社会福利改善和要素禀赋结构调整能够有效抵消老龄化对城乡收入不平等的负面影响;研究也证实了二元经济结构的优化和农业规模化经营对城乡收入不平等的缩小作用,而失业率上升和城乡投资差距却会加剧城乡收入不平等。     

论基于人力资本溢出视角下的城乡收入差距问题

改革开放以来，伴随着国民经济的快速发展，城乡收入差距日益拉大。这个问题已经影响到国民经济的健康发展与社会的和谐稳定。通过对城乡收入差距的影响因素分析可以发现：人力资本溢出因素对城乡收入差距拉大有显著影响。为此，政府需要加大对农村的人力资本投资，形成城乡之间人力资本的合理流动，促进经济的健康发展，从而有效缩小城乡之间的收入差距。     

Peasant labour for urban industry: Temporary contract labour,urban-rural balance and class relations in a Chinese county

Urban-rural relations in China have a dual character: while a higher level of urban-rural economic balance than most other countries has been achieved, a sharp structural cleavage between workers and peasants has been maintained, based mainly on strict household registrations. Peasants are prevented from migrating to towns and gaining employment there, except under specially approved contracts arranged to resolve local shortages of industrial labour. Contract labour has complex and important effects on rural and urban industrial development. It also embodies the duality of urban-rural relations in China: at the same time as it redistributes wage funds from urban to rural areas, it reinforces the class cleavage between workers and peasants (including contract workers). It also opens up a complex web of inequalities and cleavages among those peasants with contract work and those without. Contract workers have been placed in a contradictory class position which has been a flashpoint of political conflict. The relationships of contract labour to urban industrial and rural development, urbanization, urban-rural balance and structural cleavage, class structure and political conflict are examined through a study of Shulu County, an ordinary rural area with agrowing industrial centre in which over half of the industrial labour force is comprised of peasant contract workers.     

外资准入如何影响中国相邻城市间生产率差距？

区域发展不平衡不充分是我国当前面临的社会主要矛盾之一，同时坚持"制度型开放"有助于增强地区间产业关联，带动欠发达地区相关产业发展，进而促进地区间的平衡发展。文章将"开放"和"协调"议题结合，以中国2002年《外商投资产业指导目录》的重新修订作为案例，研究外资准入政策对相邻城市间管制放松行业生产率差距的影响和作用机制。文章结论表明，外资准入政策显著减小了管制放松行业在相邻城市间的生产率差距。异质性检验发现，在中部和西部地区以及较低创新水平、盈利水平和外资进入程度行业的样本组，外资准入政策可以更显著地减小相邻城市间管制放松行业的生产率差距。作用机制检验发现，外资准入政策显著降低了相邻城市间管制放松行业的创新水平差距和盈利水平差距，上述变化是促使减小生产率差距的重要影响渠道。拓展性分析发现，贸易自由化加强了外资准入政策减小相邻城市间管制放松行业生产率差距的积极作用。地区之间的市场分割程度越高，外资准入政策减小管制放松行业生产率差距的作用反而越强。     

China's Surplus Agricultural Labour Force: It's Size,Transfer, Prospects for Absorption and Effects of the Double-Track Economic System*

The commune economy had two basic characteristics: one was its three-grade pyramid-type structure of organisation which integrated government administration and economic management; and the other was its “self-sufficient” and “closed-door” character. Under this system farmers had no free choice about their occupation and place of residence. With the collapse of the commune system, institutional reorganisation of China's rural economy occurred. Farmers had more choice now about their production, their occupation and place of residence based on the development of a modern commodity and market economy. In this process of institutional reorganisation, transfer of surplus agricultural labour is a key factor. The concept of the agricultural labour surplus is discussed and discussions in English of this concept and associated theory and policy are reviewed. With reform of rural economy and improvement of agricultural labour productivity, the quantity of surplus labour in rural China has increased. Greater labour absorption is required in both agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, but particularly in non-agricultural sectors. In China, several impediments to transfer of surplus agricultural labour still exist. The transfer of surplus agricultural labour in contemporary China occurs in the context of a nationwide “double-track” economic system (a market-oriented economic system harnessed to a centrally planned and controlled economic system) and a “dual economy” in which modern industries exist alongside a traditional indigenous agricultural economy. Income gains provide the main motivation for farmers to transfer to non-agricultural activities. It is the income difference between farming and non-farming activity, not whether the marginal labour productivity in farming is zero that is important. By building and developing free or open markets one provides a suitable climate for labour transfer and migration. In the absence of free or open markets, farmers have little free choice. The continuing system of household registration is a serious institutional barrier to transfer or migration by farmers. Furthermore, the system of equal farmland contracts also hinders the process of transfer or migration. This might be overcome by allowing the transfer of rights to use farmland and facilitating “part-time” transfer of agricultural labour. Withdrawal of “surplus labour” from farming can cause grain output to drop. This can occur because if “better” farmers leave agriculture, the quality of farm labourers as a whole declines and because of a rigid price system which discriminates against agricultural products. While current transfers of surplus agricultural labour in China may well have increased income inequality between rural residents and between regions, if there had been greater freedom of migration this might have resulted in less income inequality. To the extent that market reform in China has resulted in greater freedom of economic choice, it appears to have increased the level of production obtained from China's limited resources. This is not to say that the market system will result in a perfect solution even though the economic results can be expected to be much superior to the commune system adopted in the past by China.     

农村劳动力迁移为什么没有缩小城乡收入差距——以广东为例

广东经济发展过程中出现农村劳动力迁移量和城乡收入差距同时扩大的现象,本文从农村迁移劳动力在城市劳动力市场上的就业分布和农村劳动力迁移对城乡人力资本差距的影响两方面对此与传统经济学理论相悖的现象进行了分析.本文认为农村劳动力迁移没有缩小城乡收入差距一方面因为农村劳动力在城市劳动力市场受到歧视,一般在城市次要劳动力市场就业;另一方面因为农村劳动力迁移扩大了城乡人力资本差距,从而扩大了城乡收入差距.     

Labor laws and regulations in China

We discuss how economic reform has highlighted labor-market imbalances and disequilibria both within and between the rural and urban sectors. We show that these disequilibria can be resolved only through massive reorganization of legal restrictions on population movement and revisions of wage, welfare, and social insurance, which have been only partially accomplished and in some cases hardly begun. Dealing with these major remaining legislative and regulatory gaps is a major challenge the ingenuity and, more so, to the will of the Chinese government at the national, provincial, and local levels. Neglect of these reforms will damage China's prospects for continued economic growth and political stability.     

“三维”视角下的城乡公共服务互动机制分析

构建城乡公共服务的一体化机制,是促进城乡公共资源均衡配置的核心要素。它以政府、居民和企业作为其中的参与主体,各以不同的方式形成相应的"三维"机制。文章运用博弈论方法进行了分析:政府监督审计机制,提高审计水平和法制意识,并加大处罚力度;城乡居民参与机制,通过调节分配实现福利最大化;社会企业投资机制,引导其投资公共服务并适当补贴。最后提出了提升"三维"互动机制的政策建议。     

How to Model a Child in School? A Dynamic Macrosimulation Study for Tanzania

Universal primary education is regarded as one of the key pillars of sustainable development. The positive influence of education on growth is supported by many empirical studies. However, the effects of education on labour supply, poverty reduction and welfare as well as subsistence agriculture are hardly traceable in an econometric set‐up, given the complex interactions and the long‐term nature of education. An economy‐wide dynamic simulation model provides a well‐suited toolkit to analyse the effects of increased school provision in these aspects and provides insights into the intertemporal aspects of the schooling decision of children. We develop a macroeconomic model that explicitly includes education and human capital allocation, and takes into account that the possibility of child labour increases the opportunity costs of human capital formation. In an application for Tanzania, we find that a large‐scale investment programme in education might have a negative effect on both gross domestic product (GDP) growth and high‐skilled labour supply in the short term but leads to higher GDP and welfare as well as significantly reduced child labour supply in the medium to long term.     

教育公共投入与收入差距的波及效应

在对城乡教育公共投入差异的分析基础上,运用卢卡斯的新经济增长理论框架,采用面板数据常用的固定效应模型估计人力资本及其外溢效应对城乡收入差异的影响。实证研究发现,人力资本对城乡收入增长均有较强的促进作用,且农村人力资本的产出弹性明显高于城市。但与城市相比,农村人力资本的外溢效应偏低,这在一定程度上拉大了业已存在的城乡差距。     

居民家庭代际收入的影响因素分析及差异性分析——基于代际传递视角

基于中国家庭追踪调查（CFPS）数据,使用Shapely方法探究人力资本、社会资本、财富资本及自然禀赋各因素对居民收入差距的影响程度,在此基础上将样本按照城乡及地区类别进行分组,探讨城乡及地区视角下的各因素对居民收入传递的差异性表现。结果显示,农村居民的社会资本解释程度要大于其对城镇居民样本的解释程度,城镇居民样本自然禀赋的解释程度高于农村居民样本。     

贵州省城乡收入差距与人力资本投资差距的因果效应分析

近几年,贵州省城乡收入差距逐渐拉大。与此同时,城乡人力资本投资的差距也逐渐拉大。传统理论认为二者之间可相互影响。贵州省的情况是否符合传统理论的规律值得研究。利用定性与定量分析相结合的方法,研究发现贵州省城乡人力资本投资差距对收入差距并没有产生多大的影响,但是城乡收入差距却直接影响着人力资本投资差距。最后提出缩小二者差距的几点建议。     

外资、产业集聚与失业:新经济地理观

本文整合Harris-Todaro(1970)的城市失业现象与Krugman(1991)的新经济地理理论,建立新经济地理失业模型,探讨外资对于就业、城市失业量(率)与产业结构的影响;焦点置于要素替代差异、Todaro矛盾以及引进外资国家的福利分析。在两国架构中,当引进外资时,若要素替代弹性较低,资本引进国随着制造业扩张,其劳动雇佣量固然上升,但城市失业量亦随之上扬,出现Todaro矛盾现象。反之,在高要素替代情况下,引进外资的国家可能出现制造业就业和城市失业量同时下降的现象。     

EMPLOYMENT,CAPITAL, AND PRODUCTIVITY DYNAMICS: EVIDENCE FROM THE MANUFACTURING SECTOR IN URUGUAY

Using a sample of Uruguayan manufacturing establishments we analyze employment, capital, and productivity dynamics over a period of currency appreciation; changes in trade policy; and changes in the institutional setting of wage negotiations. As the relative capital–labor price ratio fell, capital intensity increased. At the same time, there was an increase in labor and total factor productivity. Creation and destruction rates were relatively high and pervasive over time, sectors, establishment size, and establishment age, with exits explaining a sizeable part of destruction rates. Most of the excess reallocation was due to movements “within” rather than “between” sectors. Thus, high reallocation rates were linked to establishment‐level heterogeneity rather than aggregate shocks.