Distributional assumptions and a test of the dual labor market hypothesis

Recent application of the switching regression model to allocate workers into the primary and secondary labor markets is considered to be the best solution to the classification problem of the empirical testing of the dual labor market theory. In such models, normality of the error terms is assumed. This paper adopts the switching regression model to test the dual labor market theory by assuming different distributions of the error terms. The test results strongly support the dual labor market theory regardless of the assumption one makes about the error terms. However, the results indicate that different distribution can lead to different percentage distributions of workers in the two segments. In particular, the normal distribution generates more workers in the primary segment than the non-normal distributions. Therefore, care must be taken not to generalize the type of industries or occupations that fall under the primary and secondary segments. First version received: October 2000/Final version received: March 2002 RID="*" ID="*"  I would like to thank Kevin Lang, Robert Marshall, and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments. I am grateful for comments received from the session participants of the Western Economic Association International Conference, San Francisco, CA, June 28–July 2, 1996, and the Midwest Economic Association Conference, Kansas City, 1997. I thank George Bonney, the Chief Statistician of Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia for his comments. Any remaining errors are my responsibility. I gratefully acknowledge financial support from Penn State Research and Development Grant, 1995.     

Noncognitive skills in economics: Models,measurement, and empirical evidence

There is an increasing economic literature considering personality traits as a source of individual differences in labor market productivity and other outcomes. This paper provides an overview on the role of these skills with a particular focus on measurement and estimation. Based on the relevant literature from different disciplines, common psychometric measures used to assess personality are discussed and critical assumptions for their applications are highlighted. Moreover, we report and describe ideas of recent research that aims at incorporating personality traits into economic models of decision making. Based on these foundations, the main results of the empirical literature regarding noncognitive skills are summarized. Finally, we provide a brief guide to econometric analysis with consideration of common econometric pitfalls that evolve in empirical analysis of personality traits and review possible solutions.     

Bargaining frictions, labor income taxation, and economic performance

This paper is an attempt to explain differences in economic performance between a subset of OECD countries. We classify countries in terms of their degree of rigidity in the labor market, and use a matching model with labor/leisure choice, bargaining frictions, and labor income taxation to capture these rigidity differences. Added flexibility improves economic performance in different ways depending on whether income taxation is high or low. Feeding income taxation rates estimated from the countries at hand, we find that the model is able to replicate the observed rigidity levels. The model is also shown to reproduce well cross-country differences in non-employment population ratios and the share of part-time jobs. In the absence of rigidity differences, taxation shows little promise to replicate cross-country differences, as it has insufficient quantitative effects on production and productivity. However, the interaction of rigidity and income taxation is crucial in explaining the empirical patterns of the non-employment rate and of the share of part-time jobs.     

市场情绪如何影响城市房价

基于行为金融学理论建立了房地产情绪指数影响房价的模型，借鉴Baker and Wurgler（2006）提出的构建资本市场投资者情绪指数的方法，从供需两方选取合适的情绪指标；同时，运用大数据方法，选取百度指数作为情绪指标，运用主成分分析法构建了我国35个大中城市房地产市场的情绪指数，实证研究了市场情绪对房地产价格的影响。另外，还测度不同区域房地产市场情绪指数，通过实证分析横向对比东部和中西部城市市场情绪对房价的影响程度。实证结果表明，市场情绪对房地产价格有着显著的正向影响；市场情绪对房地产价格的正向影响呈现区域异质性，东部地区市场情绪对房地产价格的正向影响强于中西部地区。     

Multinational Firms, International Knowledge Flows, and Dual Labor Markets in Developing Economies

This paper seeks to explain how the expansion of multinational firms in a developing economy affects its labor market variables, such as wages in indigenous firms, the average wage level and total employment. Three potential effects: the transfer of foreign knowledge and the associated technological change, diffusion of this knowledge among indigenous firms, and the inflow of the physical capital from abroad, are examined under two possible scenarios: fixed and unlimited labor supply. The results obtained depend on the organization of the labor market in the host country, differences in capital intensity between multinational and local sectors, the amount of physical capital transferred to the host country from abroad, as well as the magnitude of knowledge spillovers stemming from multinational activity to indigenous firms. The predictions of the model are more consistent with empirical observations reported in empirical studies than those of other theoretical studies existing in the literature.     

市场分割下中国加工贸易出口主体分化问题研究

外部采购与加工贸易是近年来出现的新贸易现象,对中国来说,低廉的劳动力成本是取得加工贸易比较优势的主要原因,加工贸易发展进程中出口主体的分化是中国从城乡二元劳动力市场向城市二元劳动力市场转变的结果,要继续保持加工贸易比较优势,就应该增强劳动力市场的流动性,实现劳动力市场的统一。     

Tenure, business cycle and the wage-setting process

We analyze the interaction between job tenure and external labor market conditions in wage determination. First, we introduce a model that combines job matching with business-cycle effects. As the employment relationship progresses, the worker appropriates a portion of the value of the match-specific human capital she accumulates, gradually becoming shielded from the cyclical variations in external labor market conditions: the employment relationship is progressively “internalized”. Then, we present empirical evidence supporting this prediction: the elasticity of wages to the unemployment rate decreases with tenure. This finding is robust to different specifications that allow for job heterogeneity, and it contributes to the interpretation of recent evidence of changes in the effect of the business cycle on wages.     

Outsourcing, Foreign Ownership, and Productivity: Evidence from UK Establishment-level Data

The paper presents an empirical analysis of “outsourcing” using establishment‐level data for UK manufacturing industries. The authors analyze an establishment's decision to outsource and the subsequent effects of outsourcing on the establishment's productivity. Outsourcing is compared in domestic with foreign‐owned establishments. The empirical results suggest that high wages are positively related to outsourcing, suggesting that the cost‐saving motive is important. Foreign‐owned firms have higher levels of outsourcing than domestic establishments. In the productivity analysis, an establishment's outsourcing intensity is positively related to its labor productivity and total factor productivity growth, and this effect is more pronounced for foreign establishments.     

技术冲击和劳动供给对经济波动的影响分析--基于可分劳动RBC模型的实证检验

文章根据国内外经济波动的不同特征,构建了用于研究中国经济波动的可分劳动RBC模型,并对改革开放以来的中国经济进行了实证检验,从供给角度考察技术冲击对中国经济波动的影响,并在RBC模型框架下分析了技术进步对中国劳动市场的影响。研究发现,一是在固定劳动和可分劳动RBC模型中,技术冲击可以解释中国经济波动的主要部分;二是可分劳动RBC模型的实证结果表明,劳动供给变动对经济波动的影响较小,技术进步对改革后的产出、居民消费和就业都产生了正向冲击效应。技术进步对就业增长效应较小,致使我国的劳动需求增长率明显小于劳动供给增长率,劳动市场供需严重不平衡,这也是导致就业波动较为平缓、失业问题日趋严峻的一个重要原因。     

China's Labor Market Integration and the Effect of Economic Openness

This research theoretically and empirically studies China's labor market integration and the effect of economic openness. We introduce an open parameter to the previous theoretical framework and, based on that, we carry out an empirical study of China's labor market integration measurement from 1987 to 2006, and focus on the impact of economic openness. Research indicates that economic openness has an obvious effect on promoting China's labor market integration. The labor market integration progress differs between regions, with labor markets of coastal areas such as North China, East China and South China, which have one or two labor market centers, being better integrated than those of other interior areas.     

Wedges: Distribution,distortions, and market integration

This paper's model lets an international wedge continuously index a country's capital market integration with the rest of the world, and studies politico-economic determination of a domestic labor wedge that corrects market imperfections and/or redistributes welfare across differently wealthy voters. International integration influences the equilibrium policy, at given country-specific political and structural features, through the strength of factor price effects and through ownership of domestic and foreign capital by the country's citizens. If policy reduces market employment, then it unambiguously does so more strongly when a capital-poor country integrates more tightly with the rest of the world.     

Inequality and mobility

Acknowledging that wage inequality and intergenerational mobility are strongly interrelated, this paper presents a model in which both are jointly determined. The model enables us to study how inequality and mobility are affected by exogenous changes and what determines their correlation. A main implication of the model is that differences in the amount of public subsidies to education and educational quality produce cross-country patterns with a negative correlation between inequality and mobility. Differences in the labor market, like differences in skill-biased technology or wage compression instead produce a positive correlation. The predictions of the model are found to be consistent with various empirical observations on mobility and inequality.     

Health status and labor force participation: evidence for urban low and middle income individuals in Colombia

This paper analyzes the relationship between individual health status and labor force participation using the first wave of the Colombian Longitudinal Survey. The empirical modeling strategy accounts for the presence of potential endogeneity between these two variables. The results show that there is a positive relationship between health and labor force participation in both directions, indicating that better health is likely to lead to a higher probability of participation in the labor market, but also that individuals who participate in the labor market are more likely to report better health. Interesting differences are uncovered when comparing the results by gender and/or age groups. For instance, for younger females, health status and higher education positively affect the probability of labor participation, whereas having children under the age of 5 and being married reduce their probability of participation. Our findings also highlight the importance of public policy to guarantee good health conditions of the population which could also have a positive impact on labor productivity and consequently on long-run economic growth.     

美貌溢价:劳动力市场歧视是主因吗?—基于中国劳动力动态调查数据的实证研究

文章利用中国劳动力动态调查(CLDS)数据,分析了具有不同身高等外貌特征的劳动力的工资差异及其来源.分解结果显示,较高男性的高收入几乎全部可以用人力资本、社会交际及其他劳动能力特征差异来解释,劳动力市场歧视等不可解释部分非常小.较矮男性的低收入有60%可以用劳动能力特征差异来解释,有40%属于劳动力市场歧视等不可解释部分.身高较高(矮)的女性的高(低)收入也主要源于劳动能力特征差异;对较矮女性来说,歧视等不可解释部分具有相反的影响,即劳动力市场不但不歧视反而偏爱较矮的女性.因此,劳动力市场歧视并不是身高溢价的主要原因.然而,劳动力市场之外,在社交活动中的外貌歧视会通过增加社交网络差异而提高美貌溢价.     

中国股市长期记忆效应的实证研究

股票市场长期记忆效应问题一直是金融经济学家们倍感兴趣的一个研究热点。本文针对中国股票市场中价格指数与个股的日收益序列 ,在已有研究文献主要采用的经典R S分析方法基础上 ,引入修正R S分析与ARFIMA模型进行了实证研究。从研究结果来看 ,2 2个样本序列并不满足传统的正态分布假设 ,序列呈现出尖峰、肥尾、右偏等有偏特征以及独特的自相关与偏自相关结构 ,这些迹象预示着非线性动态系统的存在。而进一步的研究却表明 ,中国股市中代表市场总体的股价指数不存在长期记忆效应 ,而个股收益序列的分布特征存在着较大差异 ,仅少数个股存在长期记忆行为。这一结论明显地有别于以往那些由经典R S分析所得到的研究结果。     

The effects of implicit contracts on wages: Evidence from the Japanese labor market

This paper tests whether wages in Japan’s labor market are determined by current or past labor market conditions. The empirical results are consistent with a model suggesting that labor market mobility may be limited and costly in Japan for men.     

区域农地市场发育对农业商品化的影响——基于农户层次的分析

通过农户问卷调查,利用托比模型在农户层次建立了农地市场发育对农业商品化影响的计量模型,并在不同样本集上估计了农地市场发育对农业商品化影响的效应.分析表明,劳动力转移、信贷市场、资源禀赋以及土地市场发育对农业商品化都有不同程度的影响.就土地市场发育而言,从总体上来说,在农户层次上土地转入会提高农业商品化程度,而土地转出则会降低农业商品化程度,土地价格对于农业商品化则没有显著影响;至于土地市场发育对于农业商品化的影响程度在不同样本尺度上有不同的表现.最后提出完善农地市场、增加农业信贷支持的建议.     

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.     

Technology and labor regulations: theory and evidence

This paper shows that different labor market policies can lead to differences in technology across sectors in a model of labor saving technologies. Labor market regulations reduce the skill premium and as a result, if technologies are labor saving, countries with more stringent labor regulation, which bind more for low skilled workers, become less technologically advanced in their high skill sectors, but more technologically advanced in their low skill sectors. We then present data on capital-output ratios, on estimated productivity levels and on patent creation, which tend to support the predictions of our model.     

THREE SOLITUDES IN CONTRACT: LAW, DATA, AND THEORY

This note discusses and contrasts the different perspectives that the law, empirical labor economics and contract theory bring to the study of the employment relationship. Understanding the reasons for these different perspectives should give rise to a better understanding of the employment relationship and more effective labor market policy.