The Choice of Technology and Equilibrium Wage Rigidity

In this general equilibrium model, firms engage in oligopolistic competition and choose increasing returns technologies to maximize profits. Capital and labor are the two factors of production. The existence of efficiency wages leads to unemployment. The model is able to explain some interesting observations of the labor market. First, even though there is neither long-term labor contract nor costs of wage adjustment, wage rigidity is an equilibrium phenomenon: an increase in the exogenous job separation rate, the size of the population, the cost of exerting effort, and the probability that shirking is detected will not change the equilibrium wage rate. Second, the equilibrium wage rate increases with the level of capital stock. Third, a higher level of capital stock does not necessarily reduce the unemployment rate. That is, there is no monotonic relationship between capital accumulation and the unemployment rate.     

Trade,capital accumulation and structural unemployment: an empirical study of the Singapore economy

This paper studies the factors responsible for the secular decline of Singapore's unemployment rate over the period 1966-2000 in an environment of low and stable inflation rates. We introduce wage bargaining and unions into a specific-factors, two-sector economy with an export sector and a non-tradable sector to obtain an endogenous natural unemployment rate. Increases in the relative export price and capital stock in the export sector are predicted to reduce structural unemployment. These hypotheses could not be rejected based on structural estimations and co-integration regressions. Empirically, capital accumulation in the export sector explains most of the decline in Singapore's unemployment rate.     

The choice of technology in economic development

The impact of capital accumulation on job creation is an important and interesting issue in economic development. This model provides a general-equilibrium framework for studying technology choice with unemployment in a developing economy based on micro-foundations. Unemployment in the urban sector results from the existence of efficiency wages. Manufacturing firms engage in oligopolistic competition and choose technologies to maximise profits. A more advanced technology uses more capital and less labour. In the steady state, an increase in the amount of capital induces firms to choose more advanced technologies and the wage rate increases. While a higher capital stock always induces firms to choose more advanced technologies, urban unemployment rate may decrease and agricultural sector employment may increase.     

Unemployment Invariance

Abstract. This paper provides a critique of the ‘unemployment invariance hypothesis’, according to which the behavior of the labor market, by itself, ensures that the long‐run unemployment rate is independent of the size of the capital stock, productivity and the labor force. In the context of an endogenous growth model, we show that the labor market alone need not contain all the equilibrating mechanisms to ensure unemployment invariance; in particular, other markets may perform part of the equilibrating process as well. By implication, policies that raise the growth path of capital or increase the effective working‐age population may influence the long‐run unemployment rate.     

Unemployment dynamics in an OLG economy with public pensions

Pension benefits in old age establish a disincentive to save in youth, thereby yielding lower levels of capital stock and the wage rate. As a result, the trade union has an incentive to change the composition of its two targets: employment and the wage rate. This paper develops a model that includes employment effects of public pensions via capital accumulation and union wage setting. Within this framework, we consider how contribution rates to the pension system influence the level and time path of the unemployment rate. It is demonstrated that (1) a higher contribution rate results in a lower unemployment rate, and (2) the economy with a high (low) contribution rate experiences monotone convergence towards (oscillatory convergence towards or a period-2 cycle around) the steady state. The author would like to thank an anonymous referee, Kazutoshi Miyazawa, and seminar participants at Osaka University for their useful comments and suggestions, and Masako Ikefuji and Hiroaki Yamagami for their research assistance. Financial support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) through a Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) (No.17730131), the Asahi Glass Foundation, the Japan Economic Research Foundation and the 21st Century COE Program (Osaka University) is gratefully acknowledged. All remaining errors are mine.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CAPITAL STOCK, UNEMPLOYMENT AND WAGES IN NINE EMU COUNTRIES

The focus of this paper is to investigate the importance of the capital stock in the determination of wages and unemployment in a range of EMU countries and to compare the results across countries. A time‐series analysis is conducted in the case of nine euro area countries, which were selected solely on the basis of data availability and consistency: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain. The paper begins with a short review of the literature on capital stock and unemployment, before it deals with the theoretical model. This is followed by estimation and testing of the theoretical model put forward, using both time‐series and panel data. The results are supportive of the main hypothesis of the paper: capital stock is an important determinant of unemployment and wages in the countries considered for the purposes of the paper.     

How an export boom affects unemployment

Does trade affect the equilibrium rate of unemployment? To answer this question, we propose a small open economy model that incorporates realistic features of labour markets. The model predicts that a sustained improvement in the terms of trade lowers unemployment. We test this prediction for the case of Australia, an economy that is subject to large terms of trade movements. We use a novel technique to estimate the structural model based on a combination of traditional econometric procedures and the calibration of time-varying parameters. Both reduced form and the structural estimates reveal strong evidence that higher export prices, capital accumulation in tradeable goods industries and lower unemployment benefits reduce the equilibrium unemployment rate.     

Investment Crowding‐Out and Labor Market Effects of Financialization in the US

This paper studies the impact of financialization on unemployment in the United States. We estimate a dynamic multi‐equation macro labor model including labor demand, labor suppy, wage‐setting, and capital accumulation equations. Financialization appears as a key determinant of capital accumulation which, in turn, is the transmission channel toward its unemployment effects. We conduct a series of counterfactual simulations where we quantify the macroeconomic consequences of the recent swings experienced by the financialization process. We find that it has had relevant unemployment effects in all periods considered, even in those where financial payments were not the main driver of capital accumulation. We also identify a structural change in the financialization process in the early 1980s, and find that it has caused USA unemployment to systematically fluctuate around 2 percentage points above what it would otherwise have done. We call for a reappraisal of the way financial markets work, and stress the vital need of preventing financial devices that result in productive investment crowding‐out.     

The complex dynamics of financially constrained heterogeneous firms

We model production and investment behaviour of financially constrained firms in an uncertain environment with capital market imperfections. Each firm is characterized by a degree of financial fragility, inversely related to the ratio of the equity base to the capital stock, the equity ratio for short, that affects supply and capital accumulation decisions. In this framework we explore the evolution over time of the first and second moments of the distribution. For particular configurations of parameters the dynamic patterns of the average equity ratio and the variance can be irregular and asymmetric. In this setting we assess the effectiveness of two methods of controlling chaos.     

Long-run investment under uncertain demand

In the literature investigating the impact of uncertainty on short-run and long-run investment, most authors have used a log linear profit function. This functional form has been generally considered a reasonable approximation for a more general one and has the advantage of providing closed form solutions for both short-run investment rule and long-run rate of capital accumulation. In this paper, we consider the profit function for the case of a monopolistic firm facing a linear demand function with additive shocks. Under this assumption, analytical solutions, for both short-run investment rule and long-run rate of capital accumulation, are not available. We then 1) propose an analytical approximation of the short-run investment rule and 2) show how such approximation can be used in order to derive the corresponding i) steady-state distribution of the optimal stock of capital and ii) the long-run average rate of capital accumulation. Finally, we compare the long-run rates of capital accumulation calculated under both profit function specifications. We find that, within a plausible range of parameter values, the two rates are significantly different. Hence, we conclude that the choice of a log linear functional form has a non-trivial impact on the magnitude of the long run rate of capital accumulation.     

Barriers to immigration and the dynamics of emigration

In a dynamic model of emigration and return migration I examine the role of migration costs in the process of capital accumulation of the source country. Every migration attempt reduces the amount of savings available for capital accumulation. It contributes, however, to an increase in the per-capita capital stock of the source country if the migrants leave some of their capital behind or decide to return and repatriate accumulated savings. The interaction among these flows governs the evolution of the economy’s capital stock and factor rewards, which in turn affects the decisions to emigrate and return migrate. Both the quantitative and qualitative effects of host-country policies and other disturbances on the key macroeconomic variables of the source country are found to depend on the level of migration costs.     

The dynamics of capital accumulation in an overlapping generations model

This paper studies capital accumulation in a slightly altered, explicit OLG model. The fundamental difference with the standard model lies in the initial conditions. If a portion of the initial allocation of the capital stock is not assigned to retirees, the framework allowing for a genuine accumulation of capital is provided. Dynamic aspects of the resulting model are analyzed, including dynamics of the quotas of capital stock, shares of total output, partial influences of parameters, the connection between the depreciation rate and capital's contribution to production, and the relation of the latter to saddle-node bifurcations and the existence of real-valued equilibria. It is demonstrated that the model is able to describe the initial phase of accumulation.     

马克思失业理论与西方主流失业理论:当代中国失业问题的解读

当代中国日益严重的失业问题引起理论界的众说纷纭.西方主流失业理论与马克思失业理论相比,后者对解读当代中国的失业问题具有根本性、基础性的现实指导意义.根据马克思失业理论,资本积累仍是当代中国失业问题的根源.然而发展中的中国,既要发挥资本积累的优越性,又要让失业者适当分享资本积累的成果,并尽快提高其素质和能力,成为具有全球竞争力的新型劳动者,以此,才能解决当代中国的失业问题.     

Credit rationing, interest rates and capital accumulation

A simple endogenous growth model is developed to characterize credit rationing through the capital accumulation process. The model shows that credit rationing on investment loans decreases as capital accumulates and the enforcement cost decreases. We find that the evolution of the interest rate factor (lending interest rate/depositing interest rate) has a similar pattern to the credit rationing probability. However, simulations show that the evolution of the interest rate spread through the capital accumulation process depends on the degree of the enforcement cost. In the empirical part of the paper, we consider fifty-two countries, at different stages of development, over the period 1995–2005. We confirm the theoretical findings relative to the evolution of the interest rate spread and interest rate factor with capital accumulation. These results suggest that, for economies endowed with costly contract enforcement, the interest rate factor could be a better proxy of credit rationing than the interest rate spread.     

转轨时期我国行业层面资本积累的研究——资本存量和资本流量的测算

本文区分了资本财富存量估算和资本服务流量估算的差异,并使用OECD的资本测算框架估算了具有国际可比性的我国行业层面资本存量和资本流量数据。结果表明,同发达国家相比,不管是资本产出比还是资本收益率数据,都不能说明我国资本积累过度;但基础设施行业的资本积累速度明显偏快。从资本流量估算结果发现,制造业的资本生产率在提高,而第三产业特别是基础设施行业资本生产率在下降;第三产业的产出增长主要来自资本的贡献;而行业间资本再配置效应为负。     

股票市场发展对资本积累的增长效应研究——基于中国省际面板数据的实证分析

本文通过中国31个省、自治区和直辖市1993~2006年的面板数据,先后采用混合估计和固定效应方法对股市融资对资本积累的影响进行实证分析,考虑到股票市场发展初期融资规模和效率的制约会影响到股市融资对资本积累的作用程度,本文构建两类样本,分别对两类样本中的股市融资对资本积累的影响进行实证分析。结果发现,随着中国股票市场的发展,股市融资对资本积累的增长效应更加明显。这不仅证明了资本积累是股票市场发展影响经济增长的一条重要渠道,而且还为深入把握股票市场发展促进经济增长的机理、路径与效果提供了重要的理论基础。     

自然失业率的机理与实证分析——基于资本构成理论的研究

依据马克思主义的资本构成、资本积累和资本循环理论,设计模型对自然失业率直接测量,从分析可知,自然失业率取决于人均资本量、资本构成、平均工资等变量。对我国1991～2009年自然失业率的实证分析显示,我国自然失业率稳定上升。提出应通过深化经济结构调整、调节收入分配两极分化等措施降低自然失业率。     

Sector Specific Wage Rigidity and Factor Accumulation*

Economic expansion resulting from factor accumulation is introduced in the mobile capital and small open economy version of the Harris-Todaro model. Among other things, it is shown that economy expansion leads to normal effects on urban unemployment if land is introduced as a scarce input in the agricultural sector. However, capital accumulation and labour growth have indeterminate effects on the absolute level of urban unemployment.     

The NAIRU reconsidered: why labour market deregulation may raise unemployment

According to the mainstream theory of equilibrium unemployment, persistent unemployment is caused mainly by ‘excessive’ labour market regulation, whereas aggregate demand, capital accumulation and technological progress have no lasting effect on unemployment. We show that the mainstream non‐accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) model is a special case of a general model of equilibrium unemployment, in which aggregate demand, investment and endogenous technological progress do have long‐term effects. It follows that labour market deregulation does not necessarily reduce steady‐inflation unemployment. Theoretically, if the decline in real wage growth claims owing to deregulation is smaller than the ensuing decline in labour productivity growth and in the warranted real wage growth, then in that case steady‐inflation unemployment may increase. Empirical evidence for 20 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries (1984–1997) indicates that the impact of labour market deregulation on OECD unemployment is zero, and possibly negative (causing a higher rate of unemployment).