马克思就业理论与西方就业理论比较研究

对中国失业的研究已是无法回避的一个问题,而寻求理论支持则是进行研究的一个重要方向。检索就业理论的资料,可以发现最有代表性的就业理论是马克思就业理论和西方就业理论。因此,对这两种就业理论加以比较,理解它们形成的不同背景和分析路径,对比它们不同的内容体系,可以发现它们其实发掘的只是失业的一个方面,遵循的是失业发生、发展的一条路径。因此,在比较中更全面地理解失业,并且可以为研究我国的失业提供某些启示。     

Does the public employment service affect search effort and outcomes?

In this paper, we examine the disincentive effects of the public employment service on the search effort of unemployed workers and on their exit rate from unemployment. For that purpose, we specify a structural search model with fixed and variable costs of search in which unemployed workers select their optimal search intensity given the exogenous arrival rate of job contacts coming from the public employment agency. Because the theoretical effect of an increase in this exogenous job contact arrival rate on the structural exit rate from unemployment is ambiguous, we estimate this model using individual unemployment duration data. Our results show that the exit rate from unemployment increases with the arrival rate of job contacts obtained by the public employment service, especially for low-educated and low-skilled workers. They also show that the search effort is more costly for low-educated women and low-skilled adult unemployed workers. This last result suggests that a public employment agency that matches searchers and employers is beneficial, in the sense that it saves searchers in terms of search costs they would otherwise bear.     

INSIDER-OUTSIDER EFFECTS IN WAGE FORMATION: AN EMPIRICAL SURVEY*

The paper provides a review of empirical work on insider-outsider and duration effects in wage formation. It presents a theoretical model to investigate the relationship between previous employment and the wage rate. The impact of unemployment and long-term unemployment is considered. Empirical results show that the effect of previous employment on the wage rate is generally insignificant. Both short-term and long-term unemployment appear to have a significant negative impact. Micro-studies reveal that both firm-specific and aggregate variables play a role in wage determination.     

高校毕业生就业风险因素分析及其防范

首先,指出高校毕业生就业过程中可能存在着失业、人身或财产损失、合法权益受损、就业歧视、实际收入低于预期等风险;接着,作者认为毕业生风险意识淡薄,市场微观主体行为失范,市场功能不完善,制度缺失、监管缺位,高等教育反市场因素的存在是造成高校毕业生就业风险的主要原因;最后,提出应通过加强就业指导、提高学生维权意识和能力,完善就业法律法规、加强政府监管力度,积极推进教育教学改革,完善市场功能,加强信用信息体系建设等方式构建全方位的就业风险防范体系。     

就业保护与劳动力市场绩效——基于跨国面板数据的实证分析

本文采用世界经济自由度指数和世界银行的世界发展指标,选取2002-2008年面板数据对就业保护的理论假说和经验分析进行了相应的验证。实证结果表明,就业保护提高了失业率,女性和青年受就业保护制度的影响程度更大;就业保护子指标对失业率的影响与理论估计一致,但显著性较低。其中,雇佣/解雇管制越低,失业率越低;法定解雇成本越高,失业率越低;服兵役时间越长,失业率越高;最低工资、集体协商、工时管制与失业率之间没有显著关系。就业保护问题的研究有助于改进我国的劳动立法,改善女性、青年的就业机会,提高就业率,发挥法律的增进市场效率的作用,为完善劳动力市场的运行机制提供理论支持。     

隐性失业影响中国就业增长与经济增长的关系吗

以有关城乡隐性失业研究为依据,计算所得1978—2009年各种情形下中国就业弹性的取值及其变动趋势较稳健地证明了中国经济增长就业带动能力弱。隐性失业仅提高某些年份的就业弹性,不能改变中国就业增长与经济增长的长期关系。就业弹性暂时提高的原因是隐性失业劳动力真正失业后以很快的速度再就业。而经济增长就业带动能力弱的根本原因是就业基数较大的农业、国有与集体单位就业吸收能力不足,以及其他经济单位就业吸收能力下降。     

Input Demand and the Short- and Long-Run Employment Thresholds: An Empirical Analysis for the German Manufacturing Sector

The concept of the 'employment threshold' plays an important role in the public discussion of unemployment. The employment threshold is defined as that growth rate of output necessary to keep employment constant despite the continuous rise in productivity. It is related to the Okun coefficient which describes the relationship between the changes in output and unemployment. Many contributions to this debate give the impression that the employment threshold is more or less a structural characteristic independent of economic variables. In this paper we derive short- and long-run employment thresholds from an input demand system and show empirically that they depend on factor prices and capital accumulation. Higher wage rates raise the employment threshold and reduce the probability that a positive output shock will increase employment.     

International fragmentation: Boon or bane for domestic employment?

In this paper, we introduce the fairness approach to efficiency wages into a standard model of international fragmentation. This gives us a theoretical framework in which wage inequality and unemployment rates are co-determined and therefore the public concern can be addressed that international fragmentation and outsourcing to low wage countries lead to domestic job-losses. We develop a novel diagrammatic tool to illustrate the main labour market effects of international fragmentation. We also explore how preferences for fair wages and the size of unemployment benefits govern the employment effects of outsourcing and critically assess the role of political intervention that aims to reduce unemployment benefits under internationally fragmented production.     

The effect of shocks to labour market flows on unemployment and participation rates

This article presents an analysis of labour market dynamics, in particular of flows in the labour market and how they interact and affect the evolution of unemployment rates and participation rates, the two main indicators of labour market performance. Our analysis has two special features. First, apart from the two labour market states – employment and unemployment – we consider a third state – out of the labour force. Second, we study net rather than gross flows, where net refers to the balance of flows between any two labour market states. Distinguishing a third state is important because the labour market flows to and from that state are quantitatively important. Focusing on net flows simplifies the complexity of interactions between the flows and allows us to perform a dynamic analysis in a structural vector-autoregression framework. We find that a shock to the net flow from unemployment to employment drives the unemployment rate and the participation rate in opposite directions while a shock to the net flow from not in the labour force to unemployment drives the rates in the same direction.     

Unemployment and deterioration of human capital

The paper deals with the deterioration of human capital during spells of unemployment. In our model the probability of leaving the unemployment pool decreases with the duration of unemployment. It can be shown that with a linear deterioration function and a simple distribution function for the reservation productivity of firms, unemployment duration is suitably described by a distribution of the Gompertz-Makeham type. In a numerical simulation it could be demonstrated that deterioration of human capital during unemployment affects the relation between vacancies and unemployment in a specific way: in the case of labour market slackness the steady-state Beveridge curve bends away markedly from the standard u-v-curve in an outward direction while in a situation of almost full employment the effects are negligible. For higher deterioration parameters the Beveridge curve may even be upward sloping in a situation of excess supply on the labour market, implying the existence of multiple equilibria. Empirical estimation of the distribution function with German labour market data 1984–1987 reveals that the multiple equilibrium case is likely to be relevant in reality.For valuable comments and suggestions I am grateful to W.Franz, A.Hamerle and an anonymous referee. Responsibility for remaining errors remains with the author.     

EMPLOYMENT PROTECTION AND THE NON‐LINEAR RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE WAGE‐PRODUCTIVITY GAP AND UNEMPLOYMENT

This paper studies the relationship between the wage‐productivity gap and the unemployment rate in OECD countries between 1985 and 2007. In particular, we investigate whether differences in the employment protection across countries affect the link between these two variables. We show that the elasticity of unemployment with respect to the wage‐productivity gap is non‐linear and that it switches from a positive to a negative value with stricter employment legislation. From a theoretical point of view, we argue that this result is related to a set of labor market reforms introduced in many OECD countries, which affected the relative strictness of institutions.     

Trade liberalization and unemployment: Theory and evidence from India

A widely held view among the public is that trade liberalization increases unemployment. Using state and industry-level unemployment and trade protection data from India, we find no evidence of any unemployment increasing effect of trade reforms. In fact, our state-level analysis reveals that urban unemployment declines with trade liberalization in states with flexible labor markets and larger employment shares in net exporter industries. Moreover, our industry-level analysis indicates that workers in industries experiencing greater reductions in trade protection were less likely to become unemployed, especially in net export industries. Our results can be explained within a theoretical framework incorporating trade and search-generated unemployment and some institutional features of the Indian economy.     

Flexibility and Growth

After two decades of theoretical discussion and application of labour policies aimed at flexibility, ever-spreading unemployment in Europe has compelled some official institutions to admit that the 'rigidity' of the labour market does not suffice to account for the different trends in employment displayed by Europe and the United States. In this paper, we focus on the role played by differentials in income growth. After briefly reviewing the explanations of European unemployment based on labour market rigidity and their respective weaknesses, we look at the relationship between growth and employment, concluding that there are grounds for maintaining that the causes of Europe's higher unemployment reside mainly in its lower rate of growth.We therefore investigate the reasons that may be responsible for a more stringent macroeconomic constraint on European growth.We conclude that if a lack of growth is at the root of European unemployment, then merely dismantling labour market institutions, and replacing them with a more flexible system of industrial relations, will not only fail to produce the expected results but may also have negative effects, in both the social and productive structure.     

经济新常态下就业困难群体失业趋势研究*

本文探讨了宏观经济运行新特征对就业困难群体失业的影响。研究发现城镇失业与平均工资显著正相关,与财政支出、一年期贷款利率和平均受教育年限显著负相关,与经济增长率和全要素生产率等无显著相关性。“4050”人员、刚毕业大学生和青年农民工是三类重点困难群体,失业趋势呈现长期失业加重、失业转就业难度增大和短期失业淤积。本文建议将“就业困难群体就业比较充分”作为就业工作的重要目标,多措并举,妥善应对新常态下的失业问题。     

Price and quantity adjustments in the Austrian labour market

Austria is among the very few countries in the European Union which have managed to maintain comparatively low unemployment rates and high employment rates. This study looks at the price and quantity adjustment mechanisms in the Austrian labour market which may have contributed to this favourable outcome. After reviewing briefly the basic theoretical reasoning an empirical investigation is began into gross flow dynamics in the labour market and the cyclical volatility of employment and unemployment in Austria. In international comparison Austrian unemployment is very stable over the business cycle. This is due mainly to the high sensitivity of the labour force on cyclical conditions and, partly, also on the relatively weak responsiveness of employment to cyclical fluctuations in output, the latter being possibly attributable to the high degree of real wage flexibility in Austria. The study proceeds to show that the long-run elasticity of wages with respect to unemployment is indeed quite high in Austria. However, evidence was also found for outsider effects in the Austrian wage setting process. Relative wage structures, on the other hand, appear to be rather rigid.     

Credit market imperfections and persistent unemployment

This paper develops the thesis that credit market frictions may be an important contributor to high unemployment in Europe. When a change in the technological regime necessitates the creation of new firms, this can happen relatively rapidly in the U.S. where credit markets function efficiently. In contrast, in Europe, job creation is constrained by credit market imperfections, so unemployment rises and remains high for an extended period. The data show that there has not been slower growth in the most credit dependent industries in Europe relative to the U.S., but the share of employment in these industries is lower than in the U.S. This suggests that although credit market imperfections are unlikely to have been the major cause of the increase in European unemployment, they may have played some role in limiting European employment growth.     

关于教育与就业关系的一个理论模型及实证检验

In this paper, we divide the process of educational development into two aspects: the change in educational structure and the expansion of educational scale. Based on this hypothesis, we analyze the relationships between each of the two aspects and employment respectively. In this paper, the factors and the transmission mechanism of the influence that education has on employment are also explained. Then, the theoretical models of the relationship between education and employment are built up. Finally, we use the empirical data collected in China to test the theoretical models and give explanations to the status quo of the unemployment structure within various educational levels. It suggests that: the development of education in China at present is beneficial to the increase in the employment rate, the increase in the proportion of the laborers with junior school education has negative effects on employment, and the development of higher education creates positive effects on the employment, but no evidence shows any significant correlation between the proportion of the laborers with senior high school education and the unemployment rate. Translated from Xin Zhengzhi Jingjixue Pinglun 新政治经济学评论 (Review of New Political Economy), 2006, 2(1): 46–69     

A tale of two traditions: Pierre Force's Self-interest before Adam Smith

Abstract

The paper compares different strands of New Keynesian Economics with regard to Keynes' original work. Two issues are analysed in detail. First, the explanations provided by Keynes and New Keynesians of nominal and real wage behaviour. Second, the different theories concerning the ability of flexible nominal wages in assuring full employment. It is argued that, although involuntary unemployment is a central problem both in Keynes' and New Keynesians' views, referring to the role of nominal and real wages in explaining unemployment, New Keynesians theories present important features that differ, sometimes substantially, from the concepts developed by Keynes in his General Theory.     

UNEMPLOYMENT AND HOURS OF WORK: THE NORTH ATLANTIC DIVIDE REVISITED*

I examine the dynamic evolutions of unemployment, hours of work, and the service share since the war in the United States and Europe. The theoretical model brings together all three and emphasizes technological growth. Computations show that the very low unemployment in Europe in the 1960s was due to the high productivity growth associated with technological catch‐up. Productivity also played a role in the dynamics of hours, but a full explanation for the fast rise of service employment and the big fall in aggregate hours needs further research. Taxation has played a role but results are mixed.     

Rural-urban migration,informal sector and development policies: a theoretical analysis

"A theoretical model of rural-urban migration has been developed with special reference to the informal sector. The wage rate and employment in the informal sector are determined endogenously. The paper shows the simultaneous existence of open unemployment and informal sector in the urban area in migration equilibrium. The effects of alternative subsidy policies on unemployment and welfare of the workers are studied." The model is intended primarily for use in analyzing trends and policies in developing countries.