International capital and nontraded goods in the long run

The present paper develops the comparative static properties of a small open economy which produces both traded goods and nontraded goods, and is a price taker in the international market for productive capital. Assumptions of full employment, competitive markets, and international mobility of productive cap ital input capture a long run horizon. Comparative static results associated with the wage, labor, and the price of the nontraded good are independent of factor intensity, factor substitution, and demand for the nontraded good. A tax on the traded good and a capital subsidy together raise national income and the real wage.     

Stolper–Samuelson Time Series: Long‐Term US Wage Adjustment

Factor prices adjust to product prices in the Stolper–Samuelson theorem of the factor proportions model. The present paper estimates adjustment in the average US wage to changes in prices of manufactures and services with yearly data from 1949 to 2006. Difference equation analysis is based directly on the comparative static factor proportions model. Factors of production are fixed capital assets and the labor force. Results have implications for theory and policy.     

外包与要素价格:从特定要素模型角度的分析

本文通过建立两种商品多种投入要素的特定要素小国模型来分析外包对要素价格的影响。如果将土地和熟练劳动视为特定要素,本文发现通过生产率效应和要素供给效应的传导机制,外包有利于特定要素所有者,不利于非熟练劳动,扩大了熟练劳动与非熟练劳动的相对工资,该结论与外包中间品的要素密集度、均衡状态时是否为完全专业化外包和资本的国际流动无关。即使非熟练劳动通过培训可以向熟练劳动升级,但并不一定会缓和本国的相对工资差距。     

THE MORISHIMA ELASTICITY OF SUBSTITUTION FOR THE VARIABLE PROFIT FUNCTION AND THE DEMAND FOR IMPORTS IN THE UNITED STATES*

In this article, I derive expressions for the Morishima elasticities of substitution (MES) for the variable profit function and estimate these elasticities to shed some light on the substitutability between imports, capital services, and labor services. The results reveal that capital services and imports are Morishima substitutes, irrespective of whether the price of capital services or imports changes, and imports and labor services are also Morishima substitutes, irrespective of whether the price of imports or the wage rate changes. Thus, an increase in the price of U.S. imports (through tariffs or duties) will result in substitution (in the Morishima sense) into labor and capital services.     

Monopoly,intermediate goods and the pure theory of international trade

Conclusion In a model with two traded good sectors between which intersectoral flows of intermediate goods are allowed and with a monopolized non-traded good sector, the wage rate in terms of two traded goods increases and the rental of capital in terms of two traded goods decreases when the price of relatively more labor intensive traded good sector increases, though nothing definite can be said about the direction of change in the wage rate and rental in terms of the non-traded good. When prices of traded goods are kept constant and labor and/or capital increase(s), output of the non-traded good sector increases provided that the non-traded good is not inferior, having income elasticity of demand less than unity. The factor intensity condition for the traded goods is in general not sufficient for the validity of the Rybczynski theorem to hold with respect to net outputs of the traded goods. We have derived sufficient conditions for the magnification effect to be observed with respect to net outputs of the traded good sectors. Specifically, we have shown that the factor intensity condition (23) is sufficient for the magnification effect to prevail when only labor increases.     

Factor‐biased public infrastructure and wage inequality

This paper analyzes how factor‐biased public infrastructure affects the skilled–unskilled wage inequality. In the basic model with a full employment economy, we find that when the weighted dependence of skilled labor and capital in the urban skilled sector on public infrastructure is large enough relatively to that of unskilled labor and capital in the urban unskilled sector, the wage inequality will be expanded. We also discuss labor‐biased and capital‐biased public infrastructure in our framework, and find that the relative dependences of relevant labor or capital on public infrastructure are important determinants of wage inequality. In the extended models, we analyze separately the issue of wage inequality in the economy with unemployment and the totally open capital market, and find the results of the basic model almost still hold.     

Wage indexation,migration, and unemployment

This article sets up a two-goods model with wage indexation and migrants. A dual labor market is introduced where the domestic workers receive an indexed wage while migrants receive a market-determined wage. The traded sector may be assumed to be unionized while the non-traded goods sector is non-unionized giving rise to flexible wages. This provides an example of segmentation and wage indexation. The wage indexation creates unemployment in the traded sector and the segmentation allows this unemployment to persist. The main results obtained are: sector-specific migration of labor may raise domestic welfare, while with capital accumulation such migration necessarily raises the relative price of the non-traded goods, leading to structural adjustment.     

Joint outputs and real wage rates

The magnification effect in standard international trade theory asserts that if the relative price of the labor-intensive commodity increases, the real wage will also increase, as will the wage/rental ratio. This result depends upon the assumption that both activities are nonjoint—each combining labor and capital to produce a single output, so that if activities are joint instead, the results are in jeopardy. It is shown that if the difference between the share of commodity one produced in the first activity and in the second activity exceeds the difference between the labor distributive shares in the first activity and the second, an increase in commodity 1's relative price raises the wage/rental ratio. The real wage unambiguously rises in this case if and only if the ratio of the commodity output shares in the two activities exceeds the ratio of labor shares.     

能源价格波动对企业风险传导机理

遵循投入-产出的思路,从资本、劳动、能源三个要素的变动及其相互替代关系入手,从微观经济学的角度,分析当能源价格发生变化时劳动力要素和资本要素的变化以及对最终产出的影响。通过实证分析得出:实际工资水平的下降可以抵消能源成本上升给企业产出带来的不利影响,且资本投入越早,能源价格波动对企业的影响越大。     

Economic Growth and Wage Stagnation in Peru: 1998–2012

From 1998 to 2012, the Peruvian economy exhibited rapid growth. Moreover, the composition of the labor force improved in terms of education and experience, two variables that are typically associated to higher human capital. The average worker in 2012 had a higher level of education and was one and a half years older than in 1998, reflecting the impact of the demographic transition. However, the average real wage was roughly constant. We show that a decline in the wage premium for education, and to a minor extent for experience, is responsible for the lack of growth in the average real wage. Had these two premia remained constant throughout the period of analysis, average labor earnings would have increased by about 2.6% per year, of which 0.7 percentage points are accounted for by the changes in the composition of the labor force in terms of age and education. We explore the role of the relative supply of workers with different levels of human capital as an explanation for the decline in the wage premium for education. Finally, we analyze the implications of these findings for some macroeconomic variables, as earnings and wage inequality, the labor share and total factor productivity.     

国有企业对资本和劳动价格扭曲的非对称影响

要素市场化的滞后是我国改革进程中的一个突出问题,要素价格的负向扭曲则是其重要表现.文章从国有企业的视角研究了要素价格扭曲的原因.一方面,金融抑制和所有制歧视使得国有企业以低于市场利率的价格获得了大量资本,加剧了资本价格的负向扭曲;另一方面,由于国有企业提供的社会保障、收入调节功能以及工会的作用会导致国有企业的劳动力价格高于非国有企业,反而有可能改善劳动力价格的负向扭曲.本文测算了171个三位数行业的资本价格扭曲和劳动力价格扭曲指数,通过实证研究发现,国有企业比重越高的行业资本价格扭曲越严重,但是劳动力价格扭曲越小.本研究具有重要的政策含义:虽然国有企业在提高劳动者收入上的作用值得肯定,但降低竞争性行业的国有企业比重、加快金融市场化改革、促进劳动力自由流动、减少政府对国有企业的补贴和保护,将有利于促进资源优化配置,提高社会的总福利水平.     

Minimum Wages and Firm Productivity: Evidence from Vietnamese Manufacturing Firms

ABSTRACT

This paper empirically examines the minimum-wage impact on firm productivity. Using a detailed Vietnamese firm-level dataset from 2010 through 2015, the regression results suggest that firms raise their labor productivity, total factor productivity, capital intensity and revenue in response to increased minimum wage standards. Firms that pay their workers below the minimum wage react more positively in raising their labor productivity than high-wage firms. Minimum wages has had a more pronounced impact on firms’ labor productivity, total factor productivity and capital intensity since the uniform wage rate was introduced for both domestic private and foreign-invested enterprises in 2012.     

Unemployment,Wage Inequality and International Factor Movement in the Presence of Agricultural Dualism

This paper investigates how the international factor movements affect the unemployment and skilled–unskilled wage inequality with the existence of a modern agricultural sector. Our research has the new feature that we not only consider that the rural labor migrates to the urban sector but also to the modern agricultural sector. The main conclusions are that the unskilled labor outflow certainly decreases the wage inequality and unemployment rate and the influences that skilled labor movement and capital inflow have on wage inequality and unemployment rate are dependent on the factor intensity between the urban and modern agricultural sectors.     

Working capital requirement and the unemployment volatility puzzle

Shimer (2005) argues that a search and matching model of the labor market in which wage is determined by Nash bargaining cannot generate the observed volatility in unemployment and vacancy in response to reasonable labor productivity shocks. This paper examines how incorporating monopolistically competitive firms with a working capital requirement (in which firms borrow funds to pay their wage bills) improves the ability of the search models to match the empirical fluctuations in unemployment and vacancy without resorting to an alternative wage setting mechanism. The monetary authority follows an interest rate rule in the model. A positive labor productivity shock lowers the real marginal cost of production and lowers inflation. In response to the fall in price level, the monetary authority reduces the nominal interest rate. A lower interest rate reduces the cost of financing and partially offsets the increase in labor cost from a higher productivity. A reduced labor cost implies the firms retain a greater portion of the gain from a productivity shock, which gives them a greater incentive to create vacancies. Simulations show that a working capital requirement does indeed improve the ability of the search models to generate fluctuations in key labor market variables to better match the U.S. data.     

Tariffs,quotas, and voluntary export restraints with endogenous labor supply

This paper develops a two-good, small-country, general equilibrium trade model with endogenous labor supply and wage taxes, and where trade is restricted by a tariff, or an import quota, or VERs. Within this framework we derive (i) the employment and welfare effects of the three types of trade restrictions, (ii) the price effect of an import quota and VERs, and (iii) the shadow price of foreign exchange under each type of trade restriction. The present results are compared to those where (i) factor supplies are fixed, and (ii) perfect international capital mobility exists.     

To integrate with a high- or low-wage country: That is the question

This paper considers the question of whether a country with the intermediate capital–labor ratio is better off forming a free trade area with the higher or lower wage country. Typical analyses of gains from trade ignore the effects of free trade on factor prices. When Europe forms a free trade area with a high-wage economy, the equalized wage rises and rent declines, while the price of the importable declines. Workers unambiguously benefit, but integration has an ambiguous effect on capitalists. However, consumers as a whole benefit from the integration and workers can more than offset the losses of the capitalists. On the other hand, Europe's integration with a low-wage economy raises rent but lowers the wage and the price of the labor-intensive good. Accordingly, capitalists unambiguously benefit, but integration has an ambiguous effect on workers. Again, welfare of all consumers rises and the capitalists can more than offset the losses of workers.     

我国职工工资增长因素的实证分析——基于七省市PDM模型

针对近年来“经济高增长但工资低增长”的问题,即劳动要素分配份额不断下降的问题,本文基于2004年至2010年中国统计年鉴关于职工平均工资指数、地区生产总值指数、消费者物价指数、劳动力就业指数以及人力资本投资指数的时间序列以及横截面数据的收集整理,建立计量经济面板数据模型(PDM),提出了一套考察我国职工工资增长的影响因素及其大小的评价方法.并根据模型分析结果,提出了在确保一定经济增长速度的条件下应因地制宜地积极推进收入倍增计划、完善工资保障和补贴制度、建立健全工资谈判机制、加大人力资本投入、协调收入增长与经济增长关系等五项政策建议.     

Institutional quality and skilled–unskilled wage inequality

This paper establishes two-sector general equilibrium models in the presence of unproductive activities to investigate how an improvement of the institutional quality influences the skilled–unskilled wage inequality. We find that an improvement of the institutional quality will affect the interest rate, and then the interest rate combining with the capital intensity will generate an impact on the skilled–unskilled wage inequality. Specifically, both the interest rate and comparisons of the capital–labor relative distributive shares between two sectors play an important role in determining the skilled–unskilled wage gap in an economy featured with unproductive activities. The above results are robust even when we extend the basic theoretical model in several different ways.     

Alternative theories of wage dispersion

We analyze labor market models where the law of one price fails—i.e., models with equilibrium wage dispersion. We begin considering ex ante heterogeneous workers, but highlight a problem with this approach: If search is costly the market shuts down. We then assume homogeneous workers but ex post heterogeneous matches. This model is robust to search costs, and delivers equilibrium wage dispersion. However, we prove that the law of two prices holds: Equilibrium implies at most two wages. We explore other models, including one combining ex ante and ex post heterogeneity which is robust and delivers more realistic wage dispersion.     

Can International Factor Mobility Reduce Wage Inequality in a Dual Economy?*

This paper analyzes the consequences of international factor movements on the skilled–unskilled wage inequality in a dual‐economy set‐up that includes unemployment and three intersectorally mobile factors of production—unskilled labor, skilled labor, and capital. Thus far, theoretical literature on this subject has adopted the full‐employment framework and hence ignored the problem of unemployment. The analysis in this paper reveals that the results crucially depend on the difference in the intersectoral factor intensities between skilled labor and capital. In particular, it demonstrates the existence of a possibility of deterioration in wage inequality following foreign unskilled‐labor inflow.