Relative earnings of husbands and wives in urban China

This paper studies the relative contribution of Chinese husbands and wives to the family income in the process of economic transition. We find that the role of urban husbands as the main financial supporters of their families becomes relatively more important during economic transition. We argue that this trend may have reflected the restoration of the functions of household production and labor market in the process of economic transition. This restoration allows households to allocate time, effort and human capital investment for each household member and for each household and market activity in a more efficient way.     

Gender earnings differentials in LDCs: The case of Pakistan

Atlantic Economic Journal -     

台湾家庭负债高的原因与影响

台湾家庭负债与GDP的比率居亚洲之首。家庭负债过重,影响着家庭、金融、经济等秩序,反映出台湾贫富两级分化加重。要改变家庭高负债状况,从根本上说,台湾当局必须改变严重扭曲的经济发展路线,让经济成长的成果为全民共享。     

Migrant farmworker earnings: A human capital approach

Migrant farmworkers are essential to the supply of low-cost agricultural produce. However, employment earnings of this vital labor force are approximately equal to the federal poverty income. This study examines the role of health capital investments in enhancing farmworker productivity and employment earnings. Health capital investments are found to have a larger marginal effect on earnings than other forms of human capital investments, such as education or experience.     

Male–female wage differentials in Japan

This paper empirically analyzes the gender wage gap in Japan using a new data set KHPS2004 which contains a wealth of information on the work history of individuals. KHPS2004 enables us to estimate wage functions without overstating individual’s human capital accumulation by work experience especially for females. Neuman-Oaxaca decomposition method is employed to analyze why the gender wage gap appears to exist in Japan. Main reasons as follows. First, full-time work experience and seniority which affect significantly wages is shorter for females than for males. Second, there are significant differences in evaluation of full-time experience between males and females.     

Efficiency and technology gap in China's agriculture: A regional meta-frontier analysis

This paper utilizes a unique county-level dataset to examine technical efficiency and technology gap in China's agriculture. We classify the counties into four regions with distinctive levels of economic development, and hence production technologies. A meta-frontier analysis is used. We find that although the eastern counties have the highest efficiency scores with respect to the regional frontier but the northeastern region leads in terms of agricultural production technology nationwide. Meanwhile, the mean efficiency of the northeastern counties is particularly low, suggesting technology and knowledge diffusion within region might help to improve production efficiency and thus agricultural output.     

White/ethnic minority earnings and employment differentials in Britain: evidence from the LFS

It is 20 years since Britain passed legislation to combat racialdiscrimination. Despite this, evidence presented in this papersuggests that Britain's non-white ethnic minorities still donot appear to face a level playing field in the UK labour marketand their relative position does not appear to have improvedsince the 1970s. Native ethnic minorities also appear to befaring little better than their parents. It is in gaining employmentthat the situation is particularly acute.     

海峡两岸旅游交流:进程、瓶颈与展望

海峡两岸旅游交流处于一种极度不平衡的状态。迫于民众压力和大陆方面旅游合作的诚意,两岸旅游交流正日益密切,然而台湾观光业过强的政治功能是两岸旅游交流的最大瓶颈。开放大陆民众赴台旅游,加强合作实现双赢是台湾重振观光业的最佳路径。     

Female-male earnings differentials in the founder countries of the european economic community: An econometric investigation

Summary In this study an attempt was made to find out whether the female-male earnings differentials in the six founder countries of the EEC were caused by the differences in the work characteristics of the two groups or by a systematic bias against women. In cases where discrimination against women appeared to exist an estimate was made of its degree. It was found that in all countries considered, with the exception of the Netherlands, women had lower average earnings even after standardizing for their different work characteristics. In these countries a substantial part of the female-male earnings differential could not be explained by the differences in the work characteristics of women and could be attributed to other factors, among which sexual prejudice seemed the most likely.     

闽台港口物流合作研究

在金融危机余波未消及两岸直接三通之际,从闽台两岸港口物流合作的必要性入手,分析闽台两地开展物流合作的基础,并在此基础上探讨闽台两地港口物流合作的基本思路与方案,提出相应的建议与措施。     

Decomposition of the increase in earnings inequality in urban China: A distributional approach

This study examines changes in Chinese urban income distribution from 1987 to 1996 and 1996 to 2004 using nationwide household data and investigates the causes of these changes. The Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux (2007, 2009) method based on unconditional quantile regressions is used to decompose changes in income distribution and income inequality measures, such as variance and a 10:90 ratio. The decomposition results show that wage structure effects, such as a widening gender earnings gap, increases in returns to college education, and increases in earnings differentials between industries, company ownership types, and regions, have been the major contributors to the overall increases in income inequality. It was also found that at different points on the income distribution (e.g., the lower or upper half), the contributing factors that increase income inequality are different.     

人民币清算行与人民币市场发展:基于台湾的分析

本文以台湾地区人民币市场的发展状况为基础,对海外人民币清算行的功能、特性和意义进行阐述,并分析它在推动所在地人民币市场建设、促进人民币使用方面所起到的作用,以及所在地金融市场的主客观条件限制对它的发展潜力所形成的影响。自人民币清算行在台开办业务以来,人民币业务发展势头良好,人民币资金积累迅速,然而就长期而言,台湾地区金融市场本身的不足也使得人民币业务发展的潜力存在不确定性。这种互动过程将成为人民币清算行发展的新样本,并为人民币国际化战略的实施带来新的启示。     

Technological progress and technical efficiency in Chinese industrial growth: A frontier production function approach

We estimate a frontier production function for Chinese industry for the period 1953–1985. Contrary to prior studies based on OLS estimates, we find that Chinese industry has been characterized by a rate of growth of technological progress between 1.8 and 3.6 percent per year. We also find that the capital-saving nature of technological progress has adversely affected Chinese productivity growth because of increases in the capital-labor ratio. The utilization of industrial resources has been quite suboptimal for much of the sample period, with industrial production well off the production frontier. These deviations from efficient resource use reflect well-known political and economic developments that disrupted economic activity. Finally, both technical efficiency and total factor productivity increased appreciably in the period 1978–1985, suggesting that the reforms have had some positive impact on industrial performance.     

闽台两岸产业对接研究

福建省是台商投资大陆的初始地,吸收台商投资具有区位优势、政策优势,台资已成为福建省利用境外资金的第二大来源,实际利用台资额占全国吸收台资总额的四分之一,位居全国各省区第3位。闽台两岸产业对接,关键在于把握国家支持海峡西岸经济区发展的机遇,发挥闽台合作优势,明确产业对接重点,加快先进制造业基地建设,全面提升产业整体素质和综合竞争力。     

基于引力模型的大陆居民赴台旅游实证研究

大陆居民出境旅游近年呈现出蓬勃发展之势,由于赴台旅游还处于起步阶段,在此方面的研究还较少,对其进行研究有一定的现实意义。文章在前人对引力模型的研究基础上,引入了新的变量,运用SPSS软件进行了回归分析,构建了大陆居民赴台旅游的模型。研究发现,大陆人口数量、人均GDP、出境人数、价格和距离对大陆居民赴台旅游有较大的影响。     

Worship Associations in Taiwan

We analyse why Taiwanese families during the Ch'ing Dynasty still held communal assets vested in worship associations (chi ssu kung yeh) even after the division of family assets. Our analysis shows that worship associations benefitted the living as well as the dead. Although the high cost of managing common assets meant the associations were established infrequently, they arose often in a response to clan feuds and served as martial‐style corporations for the protection of family property before the twentieth century.     

A global perspective on railway inefficiency and the rise of state ownership, 1880-1912

The rise of state ownership was one of the most significant policy changes in the railway sector in the early 20th century. This paper estimates the cost inefficiency of railway sectors across countries using stochastic frontier models and examines whether the rise of state ownership affected inefficiency. The results show that the trends in inefficiency differed substantially across countries from the 1880s to 1912. They also show that inefficiency increased with greater nationalizations and decreased with greater state railway construction. A counterfactual analysis suggests that the rise of state ownership contributed to lower inefficiency in most countries, but the effects within countries varied depended on whether state ownership increased through nationalizations or new construction.     

Farm technology and technical efficiency: Evidence from four regions in China

In this paper we fit stochastic frontier production functions to data of Chinese farms grouped into each of four regions—North, Northeast, East, and Southwest—over 1995–1999. These frontier production functions are shown to have statistically different structures, and the elasticities provide some evidence of diminished marginal products of chemical inputs in the East and capital services in the North and Southwest. Labor has a low elasticity except in the North. Standardized technical efficiency scores are estimated for the farms and are shown to have the same structure across regions and to be related to the age of the household head, land fragmentation, and the village migration ratio, controlling for year effects and village or regional fixed effects.     

Cultural industry development and multiple group participation in Taiwan

Based on the unique historical site culture assets, series of culture activities and constructions are held by Taiwan municipal government positively in recent years to raise local strength. Though the city landscape of Taiwan is far away from the traditional one, the comparison and analysis of foundation of cultural industry and the situation of cultural participation should be carried on to find out the real issues in Taiwan＇s cultural industry and cultural marketing so as to strengthen the ability of local development. This study finds out the resources of culture administration and the social participation in hope for clearing up the matters of Taiwan＇s cultural industry development, avoiding type Ⅲ errors, and giving suggestions.