Productivity Growth and Input Demand: The Effect of Learning by Doing in a Gold Mining Firm in a Developing Economy

This paper analyzes the effect of learning by doing (LBD) on the firm’s productivity growth and its input demand decisions. The results indicate that LBD is an important determinant of the firm’s productivity growth. The contribution of LBD to the firm’s productivity growth is about 5.6%. Another observation is that LBD has a decreasing effect on the firm’s cost of production – a finding which is consistent with the results of many studies. Also, an increase in LBD measured by cumulative production increases the firm’s demand for capital, and decreases the firm’s demand for labor. Lastly, LBD has a significant effect on the firm’s elasticity of scale. A fundamental message derived from the study is the confirmation that the firms should invest in more large capital equipment, embark on new processing techniques, and create an environment that is conducive to on-the-job learning.     

Learning-by-doing or habit formation?

In a recent paper, Chang et al. [2002. Learning-by-doing as a propagation mechanism. American Economic Review 92 (5) 1498–1520] extend the standard real business cycle (RBC) model to allow for a learning-by-doing (LBD) mechanism whereby current labor supply affects future productivity. They show that this feature magnifies the propagation of shocks and improves the matching performance of the standard RBC model. In this paper, we show that the LBD model is nearly observationally equivalent to an RBC model with habit formation in labor (or, equivalently, in leisure). Under the same calibration of the parameters, the two models share the same equilibrium paths of output, consumption, and investment, but have different implications for hours worked. Using Bayesian techniques, we investigate which of the LBD and Habit models fits the US data better. Our results suggest that the Habit specification is more strongly supported by the data.     

无就业增长与非均衡劳工市场动态学

本文直接模拟了劳工市场的非均衡过程、工资动态轨迹、经济人的最优行为和适应性优化行为。劳动供给源于家庭的效用最大化 ,劳动需求源于企业的利润最大化。企业的适应性优化行为和若干制度因素构成了工资刚性的基本要素 ,劳工市场的供求力量也是影响工资变动的重要因素。根据劳动生产率的变化对工资进行适应性的调节是现实世界企业工资决策的普遍实践。工资刚性与高劳动生产率并存是造成无就业增长的真正原因     

控制权性质影响税收敏感性吗?——基于企业劳动力需求的检验

西方学者研究表明企业所得税是劳动力需求的重要影响因素,这一理论在中国是否适用?中国大部分上市公司为国有控股企业,这一特殊的制度背景是否会影响企业所得税与劳动力需求的关系?本文基于2007年企业所得税改革这一外生政策变化,在检验西方企业所得税与劳动力需求关系的理论在中国是否适用的基础上,就不同控制权的性质是否会影响企业劳动力需求的税收敏感性进行了检验。研究发现企业所得税税率降低和"就业税盾"增加提高了企业劳动力需求,但这种税率和"就业税盾"的变化对国有控股企业劳动力需求变化的影响要显著小于非国有控股企业。这表明税收是影响企业劳动力需求的重要因素,但国有控制权使得这种税收敏感性变弱。本文的研究结果不仅丰富了相关领域的国际学术文献,而且对我国就业政策的制定具有政策含义。     

R&D and Output in a Regulated Vertically Integrated Oligopoly

This paper examines input price regulation's effects on research and development (R&D) and output in a vertically integrated industry. A single integrated firm produces the crucial input and the output. The non-integrated rival does not produce the input but buys it from the integrated firm at a regulated price. Only the integrated firm engages in cost-reducing R&D. Results show that changes in input price have a negative effect on the integrated firm's output and R&D. The non-integrated firm's output response to changes in input price depends upon the slope of the demand curve. The welfare analysis examines the social desirability of such regulation.     

Factor analysis of demand growth for information technology input in Japan

The purpose of this article is to decompose demand changes for factor input and explore the factor that information technology (IT) capital stock has largely increased in Japan. The Allen partial elasticities of substitution are calculated and the variations in factor input demand are broken down into two effects—price effect and output effect, using industry-level data. From an estimation of the total cost function, the following conclusions are presented. While IT capital stock and ordinary capital stock are complementary, IT serves as a substitute for labor. The factors influencing the high growth rate in IT capital stock are the decrease in the prices of IT and ordinary capital services, and the increase in the labor price, in addition to the output effect. On the other hand, labor demand declines due to both the downward rigidity of wages and the decrease in prices of two kinds of capital services.     

技术需求与智能制造技术创新——数字经济的导向性赋能机制

智能制造技术创新是持续推动制造业高质量发展的关键动力。为探究制造业技术需求、数字经济赋能对非市场与市场导向下智能制造技术创新的作用机制，基于技术创新需求拉动理论，引入数字经济赋能构建投入-产出两阶段模型。分析发现，当政府研发补贴较高时，劳动替代需求与智能制造技术创新投入呈倒U型相关，对智能制造研发投入产生挤出效应；以效率提升为主的技术市场需求通过影响企业智能制造技术创新投入，间接推动技术创新产出。有调节的中介模型检验表明，数字经济赋能正向调节市场导向的智能制造技术创新产出，但对非市场导向的技术创新不具赋能作用。在充分利用数字经济发展优势的同时，应依托需求拉动机制开发更多需求侧政策工具，进一步激发智能制造技术创新。     

A cost-based analysis of scale economies in the French auto industry

This paper examines cost relationships in the French automobile industry using a translog cost function with domestic capital and labor and domestic and foreign intermediate goods inputs. The findings suggest scale economies at lower output levels, but diseconomies at mean and maximum output levels. Cross price elasticity estimates implied all input pairs except capital and foreign parts and labor and domestic parts are substitutes. Except for foreign components, direct price elasticity estimates were inelastic. Thus, further integration of Europe and reduction of foreign input prices may substantially increase their quantity demanded and decrease the demand for domestic labor and parts.     

产业共性技术研发政府支持合同

建立了产业共性技术研发三阶段博弈模型,基于政府视角研究了以企业研发投入最大化为目标的共性技术支持合同的最优设计问题,并分析了合同性质。研究结果表明:足够多的政府预算是共性技术研发最优合同存在的前提,企业的最优研发投入随着政府预算的增加而增加,且其增长速度比政府支持投入的增长速度更快;企业的最优研发投入与共性技术市场化预期收益、企业及政府投入对共性技术研发成功的影响系数正相关,与双方单位投入成本系数负相关。     

Efficiency Wages and the Regulated Firm

This paper develops empirical tests of "efficiency-wage" hypotheses and applies these tests to data on a regulated firm. According to efficiency-wage theory, wage levels positively affect employee performance and, moreover, cost minimization requires that employers pay a wage premium above the supply price of labor. To explore these issues, we use company-level data to estimate production and quit functions that allow for efficiency-wage effects. Our empirical results support efficiency-wage theory: payment of a wage premium reduces the firm's quit rate, raises labor productivity, and lowers operating costs. These findings call into question the regulatory practice of disallowing labor expenses when the regulated firm's wage levels exceed market averages.     

The Complete Welfare Effects of Cost Reductions in a Cournot Oligopoly

This paper provides the smallest upper bound or the critical level for a Cournot firm's market share below which its cost reduction reduces welfare. It shows that a firm's cost reduction increases social welfare with nonlinear demand and nonlinear costs if and only if its market share is above the critical level, which is equal to a weighted sum of the other firms' market shares. The paper also reports similar results for technological spill-overs within any given set of firms.     

LABOR MARKETS AND HEALTH BENEFITS: THE OFFER AND RESTRICTIONS ON IT

This study argues that a multidimensional health benefit offer (i.e., offers of medical, dental, sick leave, or vision benefits) and the hours or tenure restrictions placed on it are affected by the relative demand for workers in the local labor market. Using the Bay Area Longitudinal Surveys (BALS), a database of low-skilled jobs, we show that an excess labor demand for workers' skills increases the firm's offer of health benefits and reduces the restrictions on them, while an excess labor supply increases restrictions. These findings suggest that research assessing the correlation between wages, skills, and whether or not a firm offers health insurance might understate the plight of the low-skilled worker since health care access may also be restricted by a failure to receive an array of health benefits and by the restrictions placed on the offer. Furthermore, public policies might place the issues of uninsurance of low-wage workers within the context of a lack of marketable skills since low-skilled workers might be able to enhance their ability to secure jobs that offer an array of health benefits if they acquire skills in short supply in the local labor market. ( JEL J3)     

Expectations,substitution, and scrapping in a putty-clay model

The paper presents a framework for analyzing the effect of changing expectations about future prices on a firm's choice of technique, and on its anticipated scrapping of capital equipment. Assuming a putty-clay technology, particular attention is paid to the way in which the scrapping age depends on the degree of ex ante input substitution. Numerical illustrations — based on data for Norwegian manufacturing for the years 1964–1983, an ex ante technology represented by a Generalized Leontief cost function in materials, energy, labor, and capital, and an ARMA representation of the price expectation mechanism — are presented. The results indicate that the price changes in this period may have had a substantial impact on planned scrapping, and on the chosen production techniques.     

The relationship between the costs and prices of a multi-product monopoly: The role of price-cap regulation

This paper examines the role of price-cap regulation in influencing the relationship between the costs and prices of a multi-product monopoly. Based on a simple model of mark-up pricing, a combination of analytical and numerical analysis is used to show how cost increases among the firm's products can cause a divergence of prices from the Ramsey structure if the cost increases are non-uniform or if the demand elasticities for the products are non-uniform. However, in the absence of additional cost changes, profit-maximising prices which are subject to a price-cap constraint converge to the Ramsey structure if the previous period's quantities are used as weights in the firm's price-cap constraint. Consequently, given this formulation of the firm's price-cap constraint, only in situations of recurring cost changes are prices likely to show on-going divergence from the Ramsey structure.This paper reports on research funded by the Australian Electricity Supply Industry Research Board. I am grateful to two anonymous referees for their helpful comments on previous versions.     

Spatial and supply/demand agglomeration economies: State- and industry-linkages in the U.S. food system

Cost-impacts of spatial and industrial spillovers on economicperformance are evaluated by incorporating activity level measures for nearby states and related industries into a cost function model. We focus on localization and urbanization economies for state level food processing industries, from activity levels of similar industries in neighboring states, agricultural input suppliers, and final product demand. We find significant cost-savings from proximity to other food manufacturing centers, and areas with high purchasing power. Cost savings from locating near an agricultural area are also evident, although it seems costly to be located within a rural agricultural state, implying thin market diseconomies. Marginal production costs instead appear higher in more urban, and lower in more rural, areas. These spillover patterns also have input composition implications; materials demand responses are the most closely tracked by the agglomeration cost effects, and capital and labor impacts vary.     

Collusion and Price Rigidity

We consider an infinitely repeated Bertrand game, in which prices are publicly observed and each firm receives a privately observed, i.i.d. cost shock in each period. We focus on symmetric perfect public equilibria, wherein any "punishments" are borne equally by all firms. We identify a tradeoff that is associated with collusive pricing schemes in which the price to be charged by each firm is strictly increasing in its cost level: such "fully sorting" schemes offer efficiency benefits, as they ensure that the lowest-cost firm makes the current sale, but they also imply an informational cost (distorted pricing and/or equilibrium-path price wars), since a higher-cost firm must be deterred from mimicking a lower-cost firm by charging a lower price. A rigid-pricing scheme, where a firm's collusive price is independent of its current cost position, sacrifices efficiency benefits but also diminishes the informational cost. For a wide range of settings, the optimal symmetric collusive scheme requires (i) the absence of equilibrium-path price wars and (ii) a rigid price. If firms are sufficiently impatient, however, the rigid-pricing scheme cannot be enforced, and the collusive price of lower-cost firms may be distorted downward in order to diminish the incentive to cheat. When the model is modified to include i.i.d. public demand shocks, the downward pricing distortion that accompanies a firm's lower-cost realization may occur only when current demand is high.     

A pre-estimation sample separation method for a labor market in disepuilibrium

The paper presents a method for separating the sample on wage rate and labor input for a labor market in disequilibrium prior to the estimation stage. It is shown how the method's economic rationale stems from the existence of Keynesian unemployment, which implies a combination of real wage and labor input off the notional labor demand and supply curves. The potential usefulness of the method for generating unbiased estimates of wage elasticities of labor demand and labor supply is demonstrated on annual U.S. data.     

Endogenous, Efficient Long-Run Cyclical Unemployment, Endogenous Long-Run Growth, and Division of Labor

The paper uses a dynamic equilibrium model to explain the concurrence of economic growth and business cycles. Introducing durable goods into a model with ex-ante identical consumer–producers and economies of specialized learning-by-doing, the author shows that when job-shifting costs, economies of specialized learning-by-doing, and trading efficiency are sufficiently large, a dynamic equilibrium with business cycles and unemployment might be Pareto superior to noncyclical growth patterns. Long-run cyclical unemployment still exists when the credit market is imperfect. Extending the model into overlapping generations framework, the author shows that complete division of labor with business cycles would still occur in equilibrium.     

Carbon mitigation costs for the commercial building sector: Discrete–continuous choice analysis of multifuel energy demand

We estimate a carbon mitigation cost curve for the U.S. commercial sector based on econometric estimation of the responsiveness of fuel demand and equipment choices to energy price changes. The model econometrically estimates fuel demand conditional on fuel choice, which is characterized by a multinomial logit model. Separate estimation of end uses (e.g., heating, cooking) using the U.S. Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey allows for exceptionally detailed estimation of price responsiveness disaggregated by end use and fuel type. We then construct aggregate long-run elasticities, by fuel type, through a series of simulations; own-price elasticities range from −0.9 for district heat services to −2.9 for fuel oil. The simulations form the basis of a marginal cost curve for carbon mitigation, which suggests that a price of $20 per ton of carbon would result in an 8% reduction in commercial carbon emissions, and a price of $100 per ton would result in a 28% reduction.     

The challenge to china’s enterprises from increasing labor costs: the product quality perspective

ABSTRACT

Using China Employer–Employee Survey data, this paper investigates the possible heterogeneous results of increasing labor costs of different firms. The paper finds that, unskilled labors have a higher wage growth rate than the skilled labor. Firms with higher product quality employ more skilled labor, and thus are less affected by the increasing labor costs. On the other hand, firms with higher product quality have less elastic demand, which makes it possible for them to increase their prices without demand decreasing. The conclusions are well supported by the data. Therefore, we should treat the challenge of increasing labor cost in a new way. The real challenge of increasing labor cost is greater for low-quality firms. The empirical results suggest that some of the low-quality firms should upgrade their quality to a higher level to offset their labor cost increase.

Abbreviations: CEES: China Employer-Employee Survey LP: Labor productivity LTP: Lewis turing point TFP: Total factor productivity