城乡收入差距对城镇失业的影响及对策分析

当前我国城乡收入差距日益扩大引发了庞大的乡-城人口流动,在一定程度上加剧了城镇的高失业状况.正确认识这种状况,需要运用适当的理论,予以科学的分析.利用托达罗模型对此现象进行了理论分析,并利用格兰杰因果关系检验方法对城乡收入差距加剧我国城镇失业问题进行了实证检验,最后提出了短期内利用新农村建设缓解我国城镇失业压力的政策措施及建议.     

Regional Unemployment in Transitional China: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis

The purpose of this paper is to explain the pattern of regional unemployment in transitional China. A model is developed to explore how urban unemployment in the provinces is influenced by peasants' wages, formal sector wages, and the size of the formal sector. Evidence from panel data suggests that a significant indicator of high unemployment rates is greater Urban–Rural Income Inequality within the province. The hypothesis is that the urban–rural income gap produces migration, and more rural migrants substitute for urban workers, causing further urban unemployment.Since the economic reforms began in 1978, the non-state owned enterprises have been carrying an increasing weight in the economy, and they have contributed significantly to the rapid economic growth of China. Empirical evidence shows that economic reforms have reduced unemployment. The provinces that are still heavily dependent on the state sector are therefore more likely to experience higher unemployment.     

DO MIGRANTS REACT TO INFRASTRUCTURE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN URBAN AND RURAL AREAS? DEVELOPMENT OF AN EXTENDED HARRIS–TODARO MODEL

Developing an extended model of the basic Harris–Todaro model of rural–urban migration, we analyze the effects of infrastructure availability together with time-tested income effects while accommodating government behavior through the provision and financing of infrastructure. Our theoretical analysis confirms that infrastructure presence can be a significant factor in making migration decisions. Comparison with the basic Harris–Todaro model also reveals that while the Todaro paradox is absent in the basic model, it can be present in the extended model.     

UNEMPLOYMENT, TRANS-BOUNDARY POLLUTION, AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY IN A DUALISTIC ECONOMY

This study is intended to examine the effects of environmental policies on employment, the use of polluting goods, and the unemployment rate under a model introducing trans-boundary pollution affecting the productivity of the other productive sectors. That model was designed by Copeland and Taylor (1999) , and transformed into a dualistic economy model constructed by Harris and Todaro (1970) . Results of our analyses show that enforcement of environmental policy through control of emissions taxes does not necessarily worsen urban unemployment. Therefore, we show that it is not usually proper to maintain that some environmental pollution cannot be avoided to establish economic development. Moreover, we analyze the effect of some environmental policies on social welfare and discuss the effectiveness of those policies.     

The migration function and the Todaro paradox

"The purpose of this paper is to present a microeconomic foundation of the migration function and to discuss the impact of an increase in the job creation rate on migration and urban unemployment. Each rural worker must estimate his expected urban income on the basis of his own expected numbers of both newly created jobs and migrants during the coming period. Workers whose expected urban income is greater than the rural one decide to migrate, while those who estimate smaller urban income stay on." The geographical focus is on developing countries.     

农村劳动力向城市迁移的影响因素分析

文中从宏观和微观两个层面对农村劳动力向城市迁移的影响因素进行了分析,在此基础上建了多元线性回归的计量模型,并利用2000年到2009年间的统计数据进行了实证分析。结果表明,务农和进城打工的收入差距、进城打工收入与城镇居民收入之间的差距和城镇失业率这三个宏观层面的因素是影响农村劳动力向城市迁移的主要因素。     

A theoretical and empirical evaluation and extension of the Todaro migration model

"This paper postulates that it is theoretically and empirically preferable to base internal labor migration on the relative difference in rural-urban real income streams and rates of unemployment, taken as separate and independent variables, rather than on the difference in the expected real income streams as postulated by the very influential and often quoted Todaro model. The paper goes on to specify several important ways of extending the resulting migration model and improving its empirical performance." The analysis is based on Italian data.     

On-the-job search equilibrium with endogenous unemployment benefits

This paper develops an on-the-job search model with wage posting where unemployment benefits are proportional to past wages. We emphasize that this contributes to increasing the reservation wages of unemployed workers and introduces a feedback effect of the distribution of wages on the distribution of unemployment benefits. We show that the model predictions are consistent with some stylized French facts and quantify the impact of inefficient rejections of low-wage offers by the unemployed. We find that, by reducing the indexing of unemployment benefits to previous earnings and increasing lump-sum transfers, it is possible to increase both employment and welfare.     

Spatial mismatch: An equilibrium analysis

The spatial mismatch hypothesis, first stated by Kain (1968) argues that job decentralization in US cities has contributed to low incomes and high unemployment rates for black Americans. Decentralization relocates job sites to white suburban communities far from the CBD, and housing segregation prevents blacks from relocating their residences near the new workplaces. The purpose of the paper is to analyze an urban equilibrium with spatial mismatch. Despite the existence of a suburban employment center, blacks in the model are forced to live in the central zone they occupied in the original monocentric city, commuting across the white residential area to access suburban jobs. This ‘mismatch’ equilibrium is contrasted with an unrestricted equilibrium where blacks are free to locate wherever they choose.     

Wage equations,wage curves and all that

This paper is concerned with the relationship between wages and unemployment. Using UK regions and individuals as the basis for our analysis, the following questions are investigated. First, is the wage equation a relationship between unemployment and wages or wage changes? Second, can we identify the relationship completely by looking at regional wages and regional unemployment or do regional wages depend on aggregate unemployment as well? Third, can we identify an upward sloping cross-section relationship between wages and unemployment corresponding to a zero migration condition? Finally, are wages influenced only by the current state of the labour market or do contracts lead to wages depending on labour market conditions in the last boom or upon entry into the job?     

Workforce location and equilibrium unemployment in a duocentric economy with matching frictions

This article examines unemployment disparities and efficiency in a duocentric city where workers are non-uniformly distributed between the two job centers. We introduce commuting costs and search-matching frictions to deal with the spatial mismatch between workers and firms. In a decentralized economy job-seekers do not internalize a composition externality they impose on all the unemployed. With symmetric job centers, a change in the distribution of the workforce can lead to asymmetric equilibrium outcomes. We calibrate the model for Los Angeles and Chicago Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Simulations suggest that changes in the workforce distribution have non-negligible effects on unemployment rates, wages, and net output, but cannot be the unique explanation of a substantial mismatch problem.     

Rural-urban migration in economic development

Abstract. This paper provides a review of the theoretical literature on rural–urban migration in contemporary LDCs. The paper begins with a brief discussion of the Lewis model before going on to discuss the Todaro and the Harris–Todaro models and the large literature which these models have spawned. The question of job search in the context of migration and the role of family members in migration decisions are considered next. The paper then takes a closer look at the Informal sector and also sets out alternative migration functions to the ones usually employed in the literature. The paper concludes with a brief note on some of the important implications arising from our study.     

An efficiency wage approach to reconciling the wage curve and the Phillips curve

This study develops an efficiency wage model that generates a wage curve at the regional level and a Phillips curve at the national level, under the assumption that workers' efficiency depends on both regional and aggregate labor market conditions. An equation relating wages to unemployment and lagged wages is derived from the profit-maximizing behavior of firms, and it is demonstrated that the coefficient on lagged wages is less than 1 with regional data but equals 1 with aggregate data. In addition, there is an equilibrium relationship between unemployment and wages at the regional level, but not at the aggregate level.     

MIGRATION THEORIES AND EVIDENCE: AN ASSESSMENT

Abstract. This paper presents a critical survey of theories of migration, their welfare and policy implications and their empirical relevance. We also develop some extensions to the theory beginning with the Harris and Todaro (HT) model. In particular, the HT model is extended to examine risk averse behaviour within families where the migration of members of families serves to diversify risk. The welfare implications of the individual migration decision and government intervention in the form of employment subsidies are examined. Recent evidence on international migration is presented. It is shown that migration does not flow automatically in response to wage differentials. Characteristics of migrants and the process of self-selection are found to be important determinants of the rate of migration.     

The dynamics of structural change: a model of economic development and urbanization

A system model is constructed for stimulating the development dynamics of a class of developing countries. The interrelations among socio-economic variables, feedback relations and the recursive relationship of intertemporal solutions are emphasized. For some plausible values of parameters and initial conditions, the model generates results generally consistent with the experience of many developing economies. Emerging from the dynamics are rapid urbanization accompanied by little industrial growth, increasingly unbalanced spatial distribution of population, ever-worsening distribution of income, unemployment and under-employment in both rural and urban areas, and other familiar features of the developing world unexplained by comparative-static equilibrium models.     

Incidence and duration of unemployment spells: Implications for the male–female wage differentials

We demonstrate in this paper that the incidence of unemployment and duration of unemployment spells affect the male–female gender wage differential. The results indicate that after controlling for sample selectivity bias in the wage equation, the incidence of unemployment and duration of unemployment spells account for about 14.2% and 39.6%, respectively, of the wage differential that exists between males and females. We observed that while the duration of unemployment accounts for a substantial portion of the wage differential in both the service (48.8%) and the manufacturing (17.0%) sectors, the impacts of the incidence of unemployment and duration of unemployment spells variables on the wage differential are rather small in the service (0.07%) and the manufacturing (1.6%) sectors. Also, high incidence of unemployments is associated with low wages for males and females in all samples. In contrast, longer durations of unemployment spells tend to increase males’ wages and decrease females’ wages in the full and service sector samples. At the macro level, the results seem to suggest that promotion of gender wage equality should be associated with policies that will minimize the female's incidence of unemployment and duration of unemployment spells.     

Endogenous job destruction and job matching in cities

We propose a spatial search-matching model where both job creation and job destruction are endogenous. Workers are ex ante identical but not ex post since their jobs can be hit by a technological shock which decreases their productivity. They reside in a city, and commuting to the job center involves both pecuniary and time costs. As a result, workers with high wages are willing to live closer to jobs to save on time commuting costs. We show that, in equilibrium, there is a one-to-one correspondence between the productivity space and the urban location space. Workers with high productivities and wages reside close to jobs, have low per distance commuting costs and pay high land rents. We also show that higher per distance commuting costs and higher unemployment benefits lead to more job destruction.     

Are shirking and leisure substitutable? An empirical test of efficiency wages based on urban economic theory

Recent theoretical work has examined the spatial distribution of unemployment using the efficiency wage model as the mechanism by which unemployment arises in the urban economy. This paper extends the standard efficiency wage model in order to allow for behavioral substitution between leisure time at home and effort at work. In equilibrium, residing at a location with a long commute affects the time available for leisure at home and therefore affects the trade off between effort at work and risk of unemployment. This model implies an empirical relationship between expected commutes and labor market outcomes, which is tested using the Public Use Microdata sample of the 2000 U.S. Decennial Census. The empirical results suggest that efficiency wages operate primarily for blue collar workers, i.e. workers who tend to be in occupations that face higher levels of supervision. For this subset of workers, longer commutes imply higher levels of unemployment and higher wages, which are both consistent with shirking and leisure being substitutable.     

On the structure of unemployment benefits in shirking models

An increase in unemployment compensation is commonly argued to raise unemployment in a shirking model of efficiency wages. This prediction is based on the assumption of a uniform benefit level. However, 32+13if differential benefits for shirkers and non-shirkers exist, higher unemployment compensation for non-shirkers will reduce unemployment. In the long-run, this effect is amplified. Therefore, not only the level of benefits influences unemployment in an efficiency wage economy but also eligibility conditions, the effectiveness with which benefits are administered and, more generally, the institutional design of the unemployment insurance system.     

Taxes on labour and unemployment in a shirking model with union bargaining

This paper studies the impact of a cut in labour taxes in a model that combines two explanations for equilibrium unemployment: employee shirking and union bargaining. It is shown that if the ratio of unemployment compensation to the net-of-tax wages is kept fixed, a tax cut leads to higher unemployment. When the unemployment benefits are fixed in real terms, the effect of a tax cut on unemployment is ambiguous. Adverse employment effects are ruled out if unions are powerless or the labour share is constant.