中国出口产品的国际分工地位研究——基于产品内分工的视角

在同一产品内部,出口产品价格高的国家处于国际分工高端;反之,处于低端。基于此,本文从中国出口产品价格与世界价格比较的角度,分析了中国国际分工地位。结论认为:中国出口产品绝大多数处于低端位置;随着产品技术含量增加,中国分工地位逐渐恶化;加入WTO促进出口增加的同时降低了中国分工地位,中国出口存在一定程度的"悲惨增长";相对于中国经济发展水平而言,中国国际分工地位偏低,两者不匹配。     

产品内国际分工对收入分配的影响研究

产品内国际分工的发展对参与分工各国的收入分配产生了重要的影响,文章利用中国省级面板数据研究产品内国际分工时我国收入分配的影响.从全国层面角度的分析显示,产品内国际分工显著导致收入分配恶化,在针对中国不同地区的实证研究表明,东中西部地区在参与产品内国际分工的过程中,产品内国际分工对于收入分配的影响方向一致,但是呈现东中西逐渐减弱的态势.在此基础上,验证了产品内国际分工对于收入分配的影响呈现倒“U”曲线特征,实证结果表明当前中国的产品内国际分工的收入分配效应处于倒“U”曲线的上升阶段.     

垂直专业化的贸易利益分配机制研究

垂直专业化是当代经济全球化在国际分工领域的一个显著特点。本文通过研究四种不同市场结构下中间产品价格的决定,对垂直专业化贸易利益分配机制进行了探讨。并在明确我国分工地位的基础上,就如何提高垂直专业化水平和获取更高利益分配提出了相关的政策建议。     

When More Poor Means Less Poverty: On Income Inequality and Purchasing Power

We show theoretically that the poor can benefit from price changes induced by higher income inequality. As the number of poor increases, the market for products aimed toward the poor grows, and such products become more profitable. As a result, there are circumstances where an increase in income inequality associates with higher purchasing power of the poor. Using cross‐country data on the price of one kilogram of rice and the price of a Big Mac hamburger, we confirm a negative association between income inequality and the price of inferior goods, robust to the inclusion of a large set of control variables. Results are also robust to a first difference specification and to a two‐stage instrumental variables approach. Examining economic well‐being, it is thus important to analyze not only the incomes of households, but also the prices of the products and services that they buy.     

中美贸易失衡的三元边际——基于广度、价格与数量的分解

本文探讨了中美贸易失衡的结构特点。本文首先创建了贸易失衡的三元分解框架,将贸易失衡分解为广度、价格与数量失衡;利用1992～2008年中美HS92版本六分位贸易数据分析了中美贸易失衡的三元边际。结论发现:中国对美国数量顺差,广度与价格却是逆差;这一结论对于不同技术和行业均成立。这说明中美分工格局中,美国占据高端,中国占据低端;美国出口少量、高价、多种类商品,中国出口大量、低价、少种类商品,这是中美贸易失衡的结构特点。这一结构特点反映了中美双方发展水平的差异,短期内很难改变。     

An economic assessment of the value of cattle to the rural communities in the former Venda region

This article assesses the economic value of livestock to rural communities in quantitative terms. A quantitative valuation of livestock is assessed in terms of milk production, manure use, draught power and offtake/sales criteria. The study is based on a cross-sectional survey of 125 small-scale cattle farmers interviewed in the Venda region of the Limpopo Province of South Africa. The results of the study estimated the average total value of an adult cow to be R1 152. This value should be viewed as an opportunity cost of the cattle. A quantitative valuation of livestock is important in indicating the degree of impact of cattle mortalities on the livelihood of rural households. In addition, it offers important guidelines for farmers' compensation by the government, should a disaster occur.     

On the Puzzling Cycle in the Biological Standard of Living: The Case of Antebellum Georgia

We investigate the physical stature of Georgia convicts, both white and black, born in the first half of the 19th century. We confirm the existence of theantebellum puzzle,the decline in biological well-being at a time of general economic prosperity, for the first time in a civilian Southern population. We argue that the decline in heights was caused by such economic factors as an increase in inequality, a shift to cotton production, and a rise in the relative price of nutrients, which induced households to substitute carbohydrates for animal proteins. However, slaves fared better, and the birth cohorts of the 1840s were almost as tall as their white counterparts.     

Patterns and Sources of Changing Wage Inequality in Chile and Costa Rica During Structural Adjustment

During their respective periods of structural adjustment, inequality increased more rapidly in Chile than in Costa Rica. Using a new technique which measures the effects of changes in the quantities and prices of individual dimension of human capital on overall wage inequality, we identify changes in wage premiums associated with more education as an important cause of the different inequality outcomes. We present evidence that the different education price effects were due to different rates of growth in the demand for more-educated workers. Furthermore, inequality increased in Chile despite a large equalizing education quantity effect.     

A Tale of Two Armies: Comparative Growth in the Mirror of the First World War

Soldiers born during the late nineteenth century were taller in Australia than in Canada. A widening of the gap for those born in the 1890s supports the more optimistic interpretation of Australia's 1890s depression and is consistent with the ‘hazardous growth’ hypothesis of an inverse relationship between economic change and public health. The rural–urban stature gradient was steeper in Australia although Canada had greater stature inequality in all other dimensions. Native-born soldiers were taller than the British-born in both countries. We see no evidence of selective migration effects that would imply feedback from stature to growth.     

Long‐term trends in economic inequality: lessons from colonial Botswana, 1921–74

This article contributes to the growing literature on colonial legacies influencing long‐term development. It focuses on Botswana, a case where the post‐independence diamond‐led economy has been considered an economic success story, despite its high levels of inequality. Here it is argued that this pathway of rapid resource‐driven growth combined with increasing socio‐economic inequality had already started during the time of the colonial cattle economy, and that this older case is equally relevant for understanding long‐term growth‐inequality trends in Botswana and other natural‐resource‐dependent economies. Six social tables, covering the period 1921 to 1974, are constructed using colonial archives, government statistics, and anthropological records. Based on the social tables, income inequality is estimated in the colonial and early post‐independence eras, capturing both the formal and informal sectors of the economy. The article demonstrates how the creation of a cattle export sector in the 1930s brought new opportunities to access export incomes, and how this led to a polarization in cattle holdings and increasing income inequalities. Further, with the expansion of colonial administration, government wages forged ahead, increasing income inequality and causing a growing income divide between public and private formal employment.     

Residual wage inequality in urban China, 1995–2007

We use three waves of urban household survey from 1995 to 2007 to investigate the trends of residual inequality and its determinants. First, we find that the enlargement in both the overall and residual inequality was larger at the upper half of the wage distributions between 2002 and 2007. Between 1995 and 2002, however, it is the lower half that experienced larger increase in inequality. Second, by using two complementary semi-parametric methods, we find that composition effect is negligible. Instead, the change in skill prices plays a dominant role in the rise of residual inequality. Finally, by constructing a panel data at the city level, we find that ownership restructuring is an important factor that has caused the skill price to rise, especially in the earlier period. Another finding is that China's export share of GDP has a positive effect on the enlargement of residual wage inequality, especially in the period from 2002 to 2007.     

China's growing but slowing inequality of household wealth, 2013–2018: A challenge to ‘common prosperity’?

By examining the period 2013–2018, this paper follows up a previous one which analysed the increase in the inequality of China's wealth per capita over the period 2002–2013. It finds that the Gini coefficient, having risen rapidly over the earlier period, continued to grow but did so more slowly in the later period, at the national level and in both urban and rural China. Counterfactual analysis identifies the lower rate of house price inflation as an important reason for the slowdown. Policies and policy options are examined, both directly on wealth inequality and indirectly through control of house price inflation. Nevertheless, the rising inequality of wealth per capita among households does indeed pose a challenge to the achievement of ‘common prosperity’ in China. It deserves more policy attention.     

A regional perspective on inequality and growth in Portugal using panel cointegration analysis

This paper examines the relationship between inequality and economic growth for thirty Portuguese NUTS3 regions within a multivariate panel framework over the period 1995–2007, using panel cointegration techniques to test for the existence of a relationship between inequality and real GDP per capita. The results point to the existence of a relationship between the variables, where the effect of inequality, measured as the Gini index of the earnings distribution, on per capita output is negative. This negative influence seems to be determined by the behaviour of the bottom of the earnings distribution, most likely by dampening investment in human capital, with the results pointing to the coexistence of a positive impact of inequality at the top of the distribution, supporting the incentives argument for the inequality-growth nexus. Additionally, the results confirm the predicted positive relationship between human capital and output, lending support to both the exogenous and endogenous growth models predictions on the importance of human capital for production both as an input in the production of final goods and in the production of technology. Another interesting result concerns structural funds: we found a negative relation of this variable with regional output. We believe that EU structural funds were a source of Dutch disease for Portugal, which resulted mainly in a lack of external competitiveness of the Portuguese economy due to the excessive specialization in non-tradable goods made possible by the European funds.     

Macroprudential policy and household wealth inequality: Evidence from China

The influence of LTV ceiling on household wealth inequality is not constant. This paper finds that when the return on housing investment is higher than the return on liquid assets, the LTV ceiling generally has a negative impact on household wealth inequality; otherwise, it is more likely to be positive. Increasing the LTV ceiling can significantly alleviate household wealth inequality in China. Housing price and the number of houses purchased are important channels, and the house purchase preference (savings rate and house purchase intention) plays a key role in regulating wealth distribution through the LTV ceiling.     

Tracking wage inequality trends with prices and different trade models: evidence from Mexico

Mexican wage inequality rose following Mexico’s accession to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization in 1986. Since the mid-1990s, however, wage inequality has been falling. Since most trade models suggest that output prices can affect factor prices, this paper explores the relationship between output prices and wage inequality. A Salter–Swan trade model with firm heterogeneity driven by variations in the relative price of tradable relative to non-tradable goods can explain the decline in wage inequality. The paper compares this model’s predictions with Mexican inequality statistics using data on output prices, census data, and quarterly household survey data. In spite of the model’s simplicity, the model’s predictions match Mexican variables reasonably well during the years when wage inequality fell.     

Heights and human welfare: Recent developments and new directions

Since 1995 approximately 325 publications on stature have appeared in the social sciences, which is more than a four-fold increase in the rate of production relative to the period 1977-1994. The expansion occurred in several areas, but especially within economics, indicating that heights are now widely accepted as useful measure of human welfare. Much of this new work extends beyond the traditional bailiwick of anthropometric history, including biological welfare during economic and political crises; anthropometric determinants of wages; the welfare of women relative to men in the contemporary world; the fetal origins hypothesis; and inequality in the developing world. The approach has also expanded within economic history to consider the consequences of empire for colonials; the health of populations lacking traditional measures of social performance; the consequences of smallpox; and very long-term trends in health. Much has also been learned about socioeconomic aspects of inequality, the welfare implications of industrialization, and socioeconomic determinants of stature. The last is a work in progress and one may doubt whether sufficient longitudinal evidence will become available for a complete understanding of the variety and strength of pathways that affect human physical growth.     

Farming systems research and extension (FSR/E) approach to livestock development in parts of sub‐Saharan Africa

Applying the FSR/E approach to livestock production in Africa, this article deals with the objectives of livestock owners, diagnosis of constraints and possible solutions to livestock production problems. The objective set of farmers derives from the fact that cattle are wealth, as defined by neoclassical economic theory. Cattle provide financial security and are consumed indirectly (milk, lobola, draught) and directly (slaughter or sale). The primary technical impediment to livestock production is poor nutrition, deriving from a heavy stocking rate on unmanaged natural grazing. Secondary constraints are poor breeding practices and poor internal parasite control. Institutional interventions are required to improve the nutritional status of the herd. Other interventions should be aimed at increasing product output, decreasing external interference and increasing community control of the process.     

垂直专业化、贸易增长和收入分配不平等

文章从国际垂直分工引起贸易增长的视角研究中国收入分配不平等问题。文章认为,垂直专业化使得贸易扩张和收入在不同部门之间的分配产生差异,最后导致收入不平等的扩大。     

MEASURING INEQUALITY TRENDS IN COLONIAL AUSTRALIA USING FACTOR–PRICE RATIOS: THE IMPORTANCE OF BOUNDARIES

Previous research on nineteenth century globalisation argues that during the second half of that century wage–rental ratios in labour scarce, land-abundant new world economies decreased. This suggests inequality rose in the new world. Australia has been cited as a conspicuous example of this trend. The paper re-examines this argument using disaggregated land and wage data for four Australian colonies. We reveal large regional differences in both factor–price levels and trends – something that has been overlooked when discussing Australian colonial inequality and we suggest that regional disparities in other nineteenth century economies are also likely to be important.