Insider Bargaining Power, Starting Wages and Involuntary Unemployment

Recent studies of wage bargaining and unemployment have emphasized the distinction between insiders and outsiders, and that unions act in the interest of insiders. Yet it is typically assumed that insiders and recently hired outsiders are paid the same wage. We consider a model where the starting wage may differ from the insider wage, but incentive constraints associated with turnover affect the form of the contract. We examine under what conditions the starting wage is linked to the insider wage so that increased bargaining power of insiders raises the starting wage and reduces the hiring of outsiders.
JEL classification : J 23; J 31; J 33     

Youth Wages, Risk, and Tertiary Finance Arrangements*

Human capital earnings functions typically explain a small fraction of the total variation in earnings. The considerable uncertainty associated with expected future earnings streams enhances the desirability of a loans scheme for higher education possessing income contingent characteristics on the repayment side. The Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) possesses this feature The profitability of higher education even after taking account of the HECS suggests there is scope for higher student contributions. Other possible modifications to the HECS include higher repayment rates, a change to the tax base, and a minimum repayment amount     

发展企业年金的必要性-基于基本养老保险与补充养老保险关系的视角

从我国基本养老保险、补充养老保险(即指企业年金)相互关系的角度出发,借鉴国外养老保险体系和职业年金制度成熟国家的经验,结合我国目前养老保险的实际发展情况和人口老龄化的快速发展趋势,以及养老保险制度缺陷所造成的历史遗留问题,分析了我国发展补充养老保险,即发展企业年金制度的必要性。     

中国城市劳动力市场的一体化进程

本文从区域劳动经济学的视角分析城市间劳动力市场的发育和融合。我们介绍了分析区域劳动力市场的理论框架与国际经验，并利用住户调查数据发现，1988-1995年间，随着工资和教育回报率的上升，它们在城市间的差异有所扩大；虽然区域间的工资收敛并不显著，但受教育程度较低的工人工资收敛速度快于受教育程度高的技术型工人。针对这些实证结论，我们提出了促进区域劳动力市场统一的配套改革措施，以及建立全国性的以身份证为核心的大学生就业市场的建议。     

Wages and profits

Wages and profits must be regarded as simultaneously determined—profits must not be regarded as a residual. In the short period both are determined by current demand, profits fluctuating much more strongly than wages. More important is the long-period factor, which depends upon capital-labor substitution elasticity.     

正确应对信息化的挑战

对中国来说，实现信息化，或者说向信息社会过渡，是一件很难做、但又必须做的大事。其中有许多问题需要社会各界的协同努力才能够获得解决。鉴于有些问题还没有引起各方面的足够注意，这里提出来供大家讨论。 信息化可能带来较之工业化更为严重的挑战 未来学家托夫勒把人类社会的发展过程划分成三个阶段(“三波”或“三次浪潮”)，其中第一个阶段是以农业经济为基础的农业社会，第二个阶段是以工业经济为基础的工业社会，第三个阶段用现在的话来说，则是以知识经济为基础的信息社会。近代中国一直处在从农业社会到工业社会过渡，即工业化的过程之中。就工业社会所需要的经济制度结构而言，中国经过20多年的改革努力总算是入门了，但市场制度的建立还远远没有完成，在有些重要方面甚至还处于“过大关”的过程之中。然而就在这样的条件下，信息化的问题又摆到了我们的面前。信息化意味着更大跨度的社会变迁。中国能不能成功地应对这一挑战现在还很难说。……     

Efficiency Wages and Taxes

Various taxes influence wage and employment outcomes in efficiency wage models. These findings are extended by incorporating more comprehensive tax functions and additional tax parameters. Moreover, the importance of different effort functions is evaluated. It is shown that higher marginal tax rates, holding the level of taxes constant, reduce wages and increase employment. Higher levels of taxes on income, labour costs and value-added tend to raise unemployment.     

Financial Markets and Wages

We study a labour market equilibrium model in which firms sign optimal long-term contracts with workers. Firms that are financially constrained offer an increasing wage profile: they pay lower wages today in exchange for higher future wages once they become unconstrained. Because constrained firms grow faster, the model predicts a positive correlation between the growth of wages and the growth of the firm. Under some conditions, the model also generates a positive relation between firm size and wages. Using matched employer–employee data from Finland and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth for the U.S., we show that the key dynamic properties of the model are supported by the data.     

Efficiency Wages and X-Inefficiencies

Within most organizations, agents may spend time on a variety of tasks — productive and redistributive. In this paper, I derive an optimal multi-task incentive scheme under the assumption that agents have limited liability. The wage level is shown to increase with an agent's discretion and the organization's profits. With multiple agents, it is generally not optimal for the principal to fully eliminate distributional conflict within the organization. The resulting influence costs constitute a measure of X-inefficiency. The analysis illuminates the relationship between competition and influence costs, emphasizing the role of the organization's production technology.     

Wages, Experience and Seniority

In this paper we study the sources of wage growth. We identify the contribution to such growth of general, sector specific and firm specific human capital. Our results are interpretable within the context of a model where the returns to human capital may be heterogeneous and where firms may offer different combinations of entry level wages and firm specific human capital development. We allow for the possibility that wages are match specific and that workers move jobs as a result of identifying a better match. To estimate the average returns to experience, sector tenure and firm specific tenure within this context, we develop an identification strategy which relies on the use of firm closures. Our data source is a new and unique administrative data-set for Germany that includes complete work histories as well as individual characteristics. We find positive returns to experience and firm tenure for skilled workers. The returns to experience for unskilled workers are small and insignificant after 2 years of experience. Their returns to sector tenure are also zero. However, their returns to firm tenure are substantial.     

Preferential Trading and Real Wages

Following the Stolper–Samuelson type of logic, the general impression is that freeing up trade, whether preferentially as in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or on a nondiscriminatory basis as in the Uruguay Round, must lower real wages in one set of countries and raise them in the other set of countries. An increase in the real wage in all countries as a result of freeing up of trade either relies on gains via an improvement in the terms of trade or requires special assumptions such as increasing returns, complete specialization or asymmetries in production technology. This paper shows that even within a standard three-country, three-good, small-union model, preferential trade liberalization can lead to increased real wages in both partner countries without necessarily relying on terms-of-trade improvements, increasing returns, complete specialization, or asymmetries in production technology.     

Taxes,Strikes and Wages

A union and a firm bargain about wage increases. The firm possesses private information about its revenues. A two-period screening model is used to derive equilibrium wage demands by the union and to calculate measures of strike activity. Changes in wage demands and dispute probabilities due to alterations in various taxes are analysed. A more progressive income tax, a lower level of income taxes and higher payroll taxes reduce wages and strike activity. Hence, tax policy can be used not only to affect wages and employment, but lso to influence strike incidence.     

Wages in a growing Russia

The robust Russian economic recovery after the 1998 financial crisis raised the economic standing of the population, especially for lowly paid workers, most of whom are women. In this paper I use the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey from 1996 through 2002 to ask whether this helped to reduce the gender wage gap. I first focus on those whose wages are paid in full. Next, I ask about the gender composition of wage arrears as the overall extent of wage arrears dropped from 60 to 20 per cent after the 1998 crisis. I show that a temporary widening of the overall gender wage gap in 2000 is due to low‐wage women becoming more likely to receive their wages in full than low‐wage men. Except for this effect, the male–female pay difference in Russia exhibits a stable pattern.     

我国银行业如何应对外资银行的进入

本文采用Claessens 、Demirguc-Kunt和Huizinga(2001)计量模型,选取我国具有代表性的15 家银行1997-2004年的面板数据, 利用以往研究未曾采用的固定效应的变系数估计方法,就外资银行进入对我国银行业的影响进行了实证分析.结果表明,外资银行的进入对我国银行业的影响已初步显现,并且具有不一致的特点.外资银行的进入正逐步推动着我国银行业整体结构由寡头垄断转变为垄断竞争,"鲶鱼效应"开始发挥作用.文章最后相应给出了我国应对外资银行进入的对策建议.     

二因素工资论

劳动力价值由劳动力生产成本和劳动力价值增值两部分组成;劳动力的使用价值是单位时间内单位劳动力所创造出的价值量。劳动力价值对工资的要求更直接地表现为劳动力生产成本对工资的要求;工资不仅应反映劳动力价值的要求,还应反映劳动力使用价值的要求,应是劳动力价值和使用价值的综合反映。     

试论通过推广融资租赁应对经济危机的可行性

随着国际金融危机的扩散和蔓延,我国经济受到巨大冲击。宏观调控基调亦为此做出调整,于2008年10月将保持经济稳定增长放在了首要位置。在这样的背景下,对各种经济及金融工具在应对经济危机时所具有的作用进行探讨,具有重要的理论意义和现实意义。文章在有关经济理论的基础上,对运用融资租赁机制应对金融危机的可行性进行了分析。