The labor market impact of immigration in Western Germany in the 1990s

In this article we estimate the wage and employment effects of recent immigration in Western Germany. Using administrative data for the period 1987-2001 and a labor-market equilibrium model, we find that the substantial immigration of the 1990s had very little adverse effects on native wages and on their employment levels. Instead, it had a sizeable adverse employment effect on previous immigrants as well as a small adverse effect on their wages. These asymmetric results are partly driven by a higher degree of substitution between old and new immigrants in the labor market and in part by the rigidity of wages in less than flexible labor markets. In a simple counter-factual experiment we show that in a world of perfect wage flexibility and no unemployment insurance the wage-bill loss of old immigrants would be much smaller.     

Separation costs, job heterogeneity and labor market volatility in the matching model

This paper extends the standard matching model by introducing a gap in separation costs between entrant and incumbent workers. We show that when this gap is omitted from the model, these costs do not improve the labor market volatility without introducing unrealistic unemployment responses to unemployment benefits.     

中国农村住户参与转移就业的影响因素分析

根据2002年度全国农村住户抽样调查数据,当年农村劳动力转移就业比例达40%左右,转移农户占全部农村住户的比例达70%左右。农户对转移就业的参与概率随初始收入的提高而不断提高,至初始收入达到很高的水平之后开始下降;较多的土地资源不利于农户参与转移就业,但对农户参与就地转移的负面影响要小于异地转移;较多的农业固定资产不利于农户参与异地转移,而较多的非农业固定资产有利于其参与就地转移;家庭人口特征、社会资本等因素也会对农户参与转移就业产生影响。     

Nonlinearity in dynamic adjustment: Semiparametric estimation of panel labor supply

We estimate a semiparametric dynamic panel data model by the local linear kernel method and we interpret the slope of the nonparametric component function as a varying slope coefficient. Thus, the slope coefficient is a smooth, but otherwise unknown, function of some of the regressors. A Monte Carlo experiment is reported to examine the finite sample performance of the local linear estimator. We apply the estimation method to a labor supply equation for men from the triannual Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Specification tests based on the estimated labor supply elasticities, partial adjustment coefficients, and residuals demonstrate the improvements from a semiparametric partially linear model. Our empirical results point to a need by economists to revisit the issue of the speed of labor market adjustment to policy induced shifts in labor demand and to take more formal econometric account of heterogeneity in wage effects when studying the distributional consequences of tax reforms for labor supply earnings. First version received: July 2000/Final version received: January 2001     

Invariance, price indices and estimation in almost ideal demand systems

Two issues are addressed in this paper. First, we explore the issue of price index invariance in the linearized Almost Ideal demand system. We establish that the Stone index, which lacks invariance, and the recently proposed invariant Laspeyres, Paasche and Tornqvist indices all generate biased and inconsistent estimators. Monte Carlo evidence shows that invariance does not necessarily lead to better estimates of price and income elasticities insofar as the Stone and Paasche indices are unambiguously inferior to the Laspeyres and Tornqvist indices, especially if prices are not strongly positively correlated. Second, we examine the merits of the widely used conditional ML estimator of the non-linear Almost Ideal system in which a prior value is chosen for the “subsistence” parameter. We find that the bias and trace mean square error increases induced by conditional estimation are modest. The choice between the linearized and the non-linear models favors the latter although in some cases linear methods are as good as non-linear. First Version Received: January 1999 / Final Version Received: March 2000     

A fast estimation procedure for discrete choice random coefficients demand model

We document speed-up gains of graphical processing unit (GPU) computing over central processing unit (CPU) for the estimation of discrete choice random coefficient demand model. When we use a moderate-sized GPU, the computation is six to twenty times faster, where the smallest speed-up factor, six, is obtained from a comparison with the parallel computing over sixteen CPU cores.     

城镇劳动力市场雇佣关系的演化及影响因素

本文利用跨度为二十年(1988年到2007年)的微观家计数据,分析了我国城镇地区雇佣关系在经济转型时期从单一固定工向多元灵活雇佣关系转变的过程。将我国城镇地区的雇佣关系分成四种类型,探讨了雇佣关系构成从1988年到2007年的变化及其影响因素,以及各种因素的相对重要性。分析发现,从1988年开始,我国的雇佣关系构成中灵活雇佣比重开始逐步上升,到2002年,短期雇佣、无合同雇佣等灵活雇佣形式的比重达到一个较高水平,进入2007年,稳定雇佣关系的比重略有回升。扩展的Oaxaca-Blinder分解所得结果表明,从1995年到2002年,劳动力市场灵活性增强主要受到转型过程中制度变迁等不可观测因素的影响;进入2007年,稳定的雇佣关系比重略有回升,放松管制和市场深化的效应逐渐释放殆尽,特征变量对提高雇佣稳定性的作用开始显现。     

The Manipulability of Matching Rules via Segmentation

Our matching problems feature agents with endowments facing certain division rules. At any matching, the endowments of agents are reallocated between the matched pairs according to some given division rule, and this opens doors to an iterated matching problem and rematching, and to manipulation of some matching rules via segmentation. In this form of manipulation a coalition breaks off from the rest, matches within itself and rejoins the complementary coalition for a rematching at the new endowment profile. Under certain division rules this may benefit the coalition who breaks off without hurting the complementary coalition. Furthermore, both may benefit by first matching internally and then rejoining for a new match.     

Residential demand estimation for bundled fixed-line and wireless mobile broadband services

This article is the first investigation of residential Internet markets in Thailand, in particular Bangkok. Bangkok is an interesting market to study as it is Thailand’s most populous province, and supports an advanced economy. The study offers a comprehensive discussion of the process to obtain cross-price elasticity estimates when Internet services are bundled. Interestingly, the empirical results reveal positive cross-price effects, i.e. Internet alternatives are viewed as substitutes by respondents in this market. This finding is plausible as the services differ essentially in their model of delivery.     

短期与长期劳动力需求曲线关系的新分析

文章基于劳动力需求分析中的替代效应与产出效应模型,对长期和短期劳动力需求曲线之间的关系进行了研究。首先归纳了对该问题研究的现有成果并指出其存在的多个问题:或潜在假设相互矛盾,或没有严格遵循利润最大化假设,或没有从个体选择的视角看问题,或没有遵循劳动力需求曲线长短期的传统定义等。其次,通过采用比较静态分析,坚持企业追求利润最大化的假设和向右下方倾斜的市场需求曲线,分析劳动力工资变化后,企业从资本数量不变到变化的最优产量决策。最后,根据企业的产量调整过程,对替代效应和产出效应提出了一个新的解释。然而,在结论上,文章的研究却不能肯定劳动力的长期需求曲线一定会比短期需求曲线更有弹性。     

中国劳动力市场发育与就业变化

本文通过梳理关于劳动力市场发育和就业状况的统计数据,并结合微观调查数据,对城乡就业增长和结构变化进行了描述,批评了传统的关于"就业零增长"、"农村剩余劳动力一成不变"等判断。本文提供了有关劳动力市场的指标,准确地反映了伴随着经济增长和改革开放的深入,劳动力市场发育水平的提高、就业总量增长和结构多元化、以及城镇就业压力的缓解和农村剩余劳动力大幅度减少的事实。此外,本文还通过对人口转变过程的阐释,预测了劳动力市场供求的变化趋势,做出刘易斯转折点即将到来的判断,并揭示了这个转折点对中国经济持续增长提出的挑战。     

Flexible labor supply models

Discrete-choice models of labor supply have become very popular for ex ante evaluations of policy reforms as they easily account for non-convex budget sets. We test the constraints imposed in practice on these models and suggest a fully flexible model that significantly improves fit.     

包含劳动力市场条件的劳资关系模型及实证分析

本文构建了包括城市失业人口和农村剩余劳动力的全社会角度的失业率指标,以工资和劳动生产率作为劳资之间经济利益关系的考察变量,运用自回归分布滞后模型,实证分析了我国特定劳动力市.场条件下的第二产业和建筑业工资与劳动生产率之间的关系.发现工资增长促进劳动生产率提高的效应,在建筑业存在比第二产业更显著的揭示了通过提高工资改善劳资关系的经济意义.     

Asymmetric labor supply

The estimation of labor supply elasticities has been an important issue in the economic literature. Yet all works have estimated conditional mean labor supply functions only. The objective of this paper is to obtain more information on labor supply, estimating a conditional quantile labor supply function. We use a sample of prime age urban males employees in Brazil. Two stage estimators are used as the net wage and nonlabor income are found to be endogenous to the model. Contrary to previous works using conditional mean estimators, it is found that labor supply elasticities vary significantly and asymmetrically across hours of work. While the income and wage elasticities at the standard work week are zero, for those working longer hours the elasticities are negative.     

劳务派遣:劳动者就业风险及其保障机制研究

劳务派遣作为一种新型用工、就业形式,近年来在我国发展非常迅速。由于就业政策重效率轻公平,相关法律不完备,以及派遣劳动者维权能力弱,派遣劳动者面临职业发展前景不明晰、同工不同酬、社会保障权利缺失、职业技能培训机会少等就业风险。因此,为维护派遣劳动者的合法权益,必须发挥政府监管、法律规范和劳资集体谈判的共同作用,最终实现劳务派遣工作的"正规化"。     

国家控股、超额雇员与劳动力成本

与以往很多直接检验股权性质与公司绩效之关系的研究不同,本文选择1999—2002年健康运营的上市公司为样本,从公司雇员角度研究了控股股东的所有制性质对上市公司社会性负担的影响。经验证据表明,国家控股公司比非国家控股公司雇佣了更多的员工,并且国家控股公司的超额雇员主要源自上市初的历史遗留冗员;超额雇员和高工资率共同导致国家控股公司承担了比非国家控股公司更高的劳动力成本。此外,还发现在国家控股公司中,国资部门控股公司的超额雇员最多、劳动力成本最高;并且相对其他公司而言,该类公司上市后可能继续超额雇员。因此,推进上市公司产权多元化改革和避免国家直接控股,对改善公司治理具有积极意义。     

Worker heterogeneity and labor market volatility in matching models

Shimer demonstrated that aggregate productivity shocks in a standard matching model cause fluctuations in key labor market statistics—such as the job-finding rate, the vacancy/unemployment ratio, and the unemployment rate—that are too small by an order of magnitude [Shimer, R., 2005. The cyclical behavior of equilibrium unemployment and vacancies. American Economic Review 95 (1) 25–49]. This paper shows that when the standard model is extended to allow for worker heterogeneity, it exhibits considerably greater volatility. In the model, marginal workers, whose productivity only slightly exceeds the value of their alternative use of time, constitute a disproportionate share of unemployment on average, and that share rises when aggregate conditions deteriorate. These composition effects cause firms to open fewer vacancies during downturns.     

产业转移背景下区域就业变动及其影响因素的地区差异——基于1999年～2007年省级面板数据的实证分析

在产业转移与劳动力回流背景下,我国各省就业有β收敛特征。固定资产投资对中西部的就业贡献大于东部。中西部的FDI占GDP比重上升较快,对外开放度和投资环境明显改善,有效促进了就业增长。第三产业比重与就业的正相关关系仅在东部表现明显;说明东部第三产业较发达且能高效拉动就业,而中西部仍主要靠制造业扩大就业。与中西部的政府驱动特征相比,东部更加依赖私人投资拉动就业。     

论当前中国的就业结构及其调整

就业结构是反映社会经济发展水平的重要标志,它反映国民经济的总体发展水平以及社会劳动力资源投入方向的总体状况,在国民经济全局运行和就业活动中具有极为重要的意义.本文首先从就业的产业结构、城乡结构、行业结构等方面分析了当前中国就业结构的现状,发现中国就业结构变化基本上与配第一克拉克定理相符,但就业结构与产业结构的变动幅度并不是完全一致,存在显著的不均衡性.由此从经济水平、投资结构、技术水平、对外贸易等四个角度分析了中国就业结构的影响因素,结果表明产业结构失衡与城乡就业结构失衡是中国就业结构存在的两个重要问题.文章最后从产业结构调整和城乡结构调整两个方面分析了中国就业结构调整的路径.     

Long-run matching relationship in the Japanese labor market

This paper investigates the long-run relationship among new hiring, unemployment (job seekers), and unfilled vacancies in Japan, using an annual panel data on 47 prefectures for 1972-1999. We find that these three variables are I(1) processes, and are cointegrated in our panel data. Further, we estimate the panel cointegration equation derived from a Cobb-Douglas matching function by the heterogeneous fully modified OLS and heterogeneous dynamic OLS. The estimation results reveal that conventional within estimates could have non-negligible biases.First version received: November 2002/Final version received: October 2003All correspondence to Shigeki Kano. The authors are grateful to the associate editor and two anonymous referees of this journal for helpful comments. Doctor Stephen J. Turnbull (University of Tsukuba) is also acknowledged for correcting English errors in this paper. Remaining errors are due to the authors. The data set and GAUSS programming code used in this paperare available upon request.