Inflation dynamics with search frictions: A structural econometric analysis

The New Keynesian Phillips curve explains inflation dynamics as being driven by current and expected future real marginal costs. In competitive labor markets, the labor share can serve as a proxy for the latter. In this paper, we study the role of real marginal cost components implied by search frictions in the labor market. We construct a measure of real marginal costs by using newly available labor market data on worker finding rates. Over the business cycle, the measure is highly correlated with the labor share. Estimates of the Phillips curve using generalized method of moments reveal that the marginal cost measure remains significant, and that inflation dynamics are mainly driven by the forward-looking component. Bayesian estimation of the full New Keynesian model with search frictions helps us disentangle which shocks are driving the economy to generate the observed unit labor cost dynamics. We find that mark-up shocks are the dominant force in labor market fluctuations.     

La participación laboral femenina y el uso del tiempo en el cuidado del hogar en México

This paper presents empirical evidence showing that women's time assigned to non-paid household work constrains their workforce supply in the formal labor market in México, where household duties and child and elderly care activities are mostly undertaken by women. Heckman's selection model is used in the paper to fix the potential selection bias in the sample as the latter does not directly measure female conditions in the labor market. Our results are based on data from the 2009 Time Use National Poll for the 32 states of the Mexican Republic.     

Intra-Industry Trade and Labor Market Adjustment in Taiwan

This paper investigates the relationship between intra-industry trade (IIT) expansion and labor market adjustment in Taiwan. We adopt a panel data set containing detailed employment information and utilize various measures of labor market adjustment to conduct empirical estimations. After controlling for industry-specific effects and occupational composition, the empirical results demonstrate that IIT expansion does have a smoothing effect on labor market adjustment. Moreover, industries with abundant skilled workers experience lower employment adjustment costs.     

基于内部劳动力市场理论的中国企业劳动关系研究

计划经济向市场经济的转型,是上世纪后期全球最令人瞩目的大事,其中社会经济关系中最基础最敏感的一个因素就是劳动关系,它不仅对一个国家的经济成长和发展有重要影响,而且对于一个国家的政治格局和社会的稳定性都有着重要的作用。劳动关系从二十世纪九十年代中期开始步人中国市场化轨道,其进程也逐渐加快,至此,劳动关系成为国内研究的热点。本文结合了我国进入转轨时期后社会劳动关系所呈现出的特点和状况,提出运用内部劳动力市场理论,对我国企业劳动关系的重塑进行了较为深入的研究,为构建和谐的劳动关系奠定一定的基础。     

Externalities of Financial Statement Fraud on the Incoming Accounting Labor Force

Financial statement fraud generates many negative effects, including reducing people's willingness to participate in the stock market. If it also stigmatizes accounting, it may similarly adversely affect the quantity and quality of workers willing to become accountants, thereby potentially creating negative effects for years to come. We examine the impact of fraud on the labor force entering the accounting profession, which is a key input into the production of accounting information (i.e., the output). Using data describing millions of college students across the United States, we find incoming students are actually more likely to major in accounting when local frauds occur during their formative years. These students are also more likely to have attributes desired by the accounting profession (e.g., high academic aptitude) and are more likely to subsequently serve in public accounting and become Certified Public Accountants. In the context of other fields (i.e., all college majors), we find that fraud similarly spurs interest in other business disciplines, but not in majors outside of business schools. Those attracted to other business disciplines, however, generally possess different traits. Specifically, students entering accounting are distinctively more likely to exhibit values espoused by the accounting profession, including a predisposition to public service and less commercial orientation. Thus, nonpecuniary motives appear to uniquely drive accounting student enrollment following fraud. Collectively, our findings suggest that, while fraud is unmistakably bad, it appears to have the positive unintended consequence of attracting labor into business disciplines and, in accounting, increasing the prevalence of desirable traits among entrants.     

The Effect of Labor Market Demand on U.S. CEO Pay Since 1980

This paper shows that the rise in U.S. chief executive officer (CEO) pay from 1980 to 2003 is only partially explained by competition for profit‐producing talent in the labor market. This conclusion is obtained by removing unintended data biases from tests of the only theoretical model in the literature that relates labor market competition (measured by large firm size) to CEO pay level. When the biases are removed or minimized, no more than 33% of the 600+ percentage rise in large‐firm CEO pay since 1980 is explained by a corresponding increase in large firm size.     

Differences in Hours Worked in the OECD: Institutions or Fiscal Policies?

We study the determinants of the level and the evolution of per capita hours worked in a panel of OECD countries since the 1970s. Following Pesaran (2006) , our empirical strategy allows for the possibility of cross‐sectionally correlated error terms due to unobserved common factors, which are potentially nonstationary. We find that much of the variation in per capita hours worked across countries and over time can be explained by differences in the level and structure of taxes and government expenditures. Differences in (the evolution of) labor and product market institutions have much less of a role to play. Our results show that a careful treatment of the time‐series properties of the data is crucial.     

Optimal income taxation and social norms in the labor market

This paper concerns optimal income taxation in a two-type model extended to allow for social interaction and social norms in the labor market. One norm refers to “normal behavior” with respect to work hours (the hours of work norm), whereas another means that “one should earn one’s living by working” (the participation norm). The results show how the hours of work norm gives rise to a corrective motive for using income taxation. We also show how the interaction between the hours of work norm and the private incentive to participate in the labor market (which reflects the participation norm) gives rise to an employment motive for using the income tax.     

加入工会能有效改善职工工作条件吗

工会是劳动力市场的重要调节机制。本文基于中国社会综合调查数据,采用倾向值匹配方法来控制样本选择偏误,并利用自抽样进行统计推断,以克服小样本偏误,试图回答工会组织对职工工作条件的影响。研究结果显示:整体而言,加入工会可以明显地改善职工的工作条件。进一步研究发现,加入工会对体制内部门职工的工作条件有显著的改善作用,而对体制外部门职工工作条件的改善作用并不明显。此外,工会对职工工作条件的改善作用会随着市场化程度的影响而逐渐弱化。上述结果意味着中国工会组织对收入机制具有影响作用,通过夏普利值过程的回归分解发现,工会对职工小时收入差距和年收入差距的贡献率分别为4.53%和9.77%。     

Aggregate implications of indivisible labor, incomplete markets, and labor market frictions

We study the impact of tax and transfer programs on steady-state allocations in a model with search frictions, an operative labor supply margin, and incomplete markets. In a benchmark model that has indivisible labor and incomplete markets but no trading frictions we show that the aggregate effects of taxes are identical to those in the economy with employment lotteries, though individual employment and asset dynamics can be different. The effect of frictions on the response of aggregate hours to a permanent tax change is highly nonlinear. There is considerable scope for substitution between “voluntary” and “frictional” nonemployment in some situations.     

Labor Market and Financial Shocks: A Time-Varying Analysis

We estimate a time-varying VAR model to analyze the effects of a financial shock on the U.S. labor market. We find that a tightening of financial conditions is highly detrimental to the labor market. We show that while negative financial shocks have been responsible for increases in unemployment, our model does not find significant contributions of financial shocks during periods of expansion. The source of this asymmetry is the time-varying standard deviation of the identified shock, which is higher in times of financial distress; on the other hand, we find that the transmission mechanism does not significantly change over time.     

智能化对中国劳动力市场的影响——基于就业广度和强度的分析

随着自动化、智能化技术的不断发展,越来越多的工作岗位可能被机器和人工智能所替代。本文将美国劳工部标准职业代码与中国职业代码相匹配,基于Frey and Osborne(2017)对美国各种职业被智能化替代概率的估计结果,估算了中国各职业被智能化替代的概率,并在此基础上计算了城市层面的被替代指标。接下来,利用多个年份的人口普查和家庭调查微观数据以及欧盟的机器人使用数据,本文在城市层面和个人层面估计了智能化对就业广度(就业人数)和就业强度(工作时长)的影响。研究发现,智能化对中国劳动就业产生了明显的替代作用,一方面减少了就业人数的增长,另一方面却增加了在职劳动力的工作时间,分样本分析发现女性、低教育劳动者、大龄劳动者、移民等劳动力市场中相对脆弱的群体所受的冲击更大。     

Heterogeneous real-time trading strategies in the foreign exchange market

The foreign exchange (FX) market is worldwide, but the dealers differ in their geographical locations (time zones), working hours, time horizons, home currencies, access to information,transaction costs, and other institutional constraints. The variety of time horizones is large: from intra-day dealers, who close their positions every evening, to long-term investors and central banks. Depending on the constraints, the different market participats need different strategies to reach their goal, which is usually maximizing the profit, or rather a utility function including risk. Different intra-day trading strategies can be studied only if high-density data are available. Oslen & Associates (O & A) has collected and analysed large amounts of FX quotes by market makers around the clock (up to 5000 non-equally spaced prices per day for the German mark against US$). Based on these data, a set of real-time intra-day trading models has been developed. These models give explicit trading recommendations under realistic constraints. They are allowed to trade only during the opening hours of a market, depending on the time zone and local holidays. The models have been running real-time for more than three years, thus leading to an ex ante test. The test results, obtained with a risk-sensitive performance measure, are presented. All these trading models are profitable, but they differ in their risk behaviour and dealing frequency. If a certain profitable intra-day algorithm is tested with different working hours, its success can considerably change. A systematic study shows that the best choice of working hours is usually when the most important markets for the particular FX rate are active. All the results demonstrate that the assumption of a homogeneous 24-hour FX market with identical dealers, following an identical ‘rational expectation’, is far from reality. To explain the market dynamics, a heterogeneous model of the market with different types of dealers is more appropriate.     

经济增长视角下的中国劳动力数量与结构变化

我国劳动年龄人口（15-59岁）已经在2012年呈现负增长,劳动力（20-59岁）数量也将从2016年开始下降,2022年开始,我国劳动力数量则会快速下降。目前劳动供给紧平衡,农村向城镇转移劳动力速度放缓,工资快速上涨,求人倍率连续三年大于1。伴随我国劳动力数量下降,劳动市场将供小于求,影响我国经济增长。文章建议,一方面要提高劳动参与率,降低经济对劳动力数量的依赖,另一方面要提高劳动效率,采取有效措施促进农村就业人口向城镇转移,减少结构性就业矛盾。     

THE IMPLICATIONS OF TRADER COGNITIVE ABILITIES ON STOCK MARKET PROPERTIES

Market structure and individual rationality remain at the centre of a debate as to which is the main driving force in market performance. We examine the role of individual rationality, comparing zero‐intelligence traders with traders with different levels of intelligence using a special adaptive form of strongly typed genetic programming‐based learning algorithm. We use this approach with real data: historical quotes of the S&P 500 and Coca‐Cola stock prices. We find a mixture of positive and negative impacts from intelligence on market performance. Because the concept of market structure as a driving force has been significantly challenged in the literature, we suggest that the inclusion of both intelligence and market structures is important when examining the driving forces of market performance. This inclusion is consistent with the research of Todd and Gigerenzer (Journal of Economic Psychology, 24 (2003) 143–165), which asserts that both environment (market structure) and agents’ cognition play important roles. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A simple asset pricing model with heterogeneous agents,uninsurable labor income and limited stock market participation

In this paper we study a simple two-period asset pricing model to understand the implications of uninsurable labor income risk and/or borrowing constraints, limited stock market participation, heterogeneous labor income volatilities, and heterogeneous preferences. We appraise the performance of each of these in matching moments of asset returns to the data and show that limited stock market participation generates a significantly large equity premium. We also show that the distribution of wealth between stock market participants and non-participants plays an important role in asset pricing, and that the effect of borrowing constraints on asset returns are similar to that of limited participation. Finally, we discuss the practical implications of our investigation, providing an appraisal of ongoing changes in asset returns.     

Search Frictions,Labor Supply,and the Asymmetric Business Cycle

We develop a business cycle model that generates asymmetry between peaks and troughs of the unemployment rate and symmetric fluctuations of the participation rate as in the U.S. data. We calibrate the model and find that search frictions are solely responsible for the peak–trough asymmetry. Participation decisions do not generate asymmetry but contribute to the fluctuations in search frictions by changing the size and composition of the pool of job seekers, which in turn affects the tightness ratio and thereby slack in the labor market. The participation rate would be counterfactually asymmetric absent labor supply responses to shocks.     

Do supply shocks in the audit partner labor market affect auditor choice? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment

We examine whether supply shocks in the audit partner labor market induce clients to switch audit partners. We argue that audit partners in their early careers (i.e., junior partners) charge low audit fees to attract clients, which induces client firms to switch from senior partners to junior partners when there are more junior partners available. Utilizing the Big4 localization policy, we find that Big4 clients are more likely to replace senior auditors with junior auditors to cut costs after the policy. Furthermore, the results are mainly driven by clients who are charged high fees. Our empirical evidence enriches the understanding of auditor choice determinants and informs the ongoing debates surrounding new regulations for Big4 firms in China.     

担保物权制度改革与企业劳动力结构北大核心

本文以《物权法》出台为标志的担保物权制度改革为准自然实验情境,考察资本市场制度建设对企业劳动力结构的影响。结果发现:相比固定资产占比较高企业,固定资产占比较低企业在改革后高技能劳动力增长显著更多、高技能员工在全体员工中占比显著提高。机制检验表明,担保物权制度改革通过加大企业的先进机器设备投资及研发活动进而影响了劳动力结构,特别是对改革前信贷可获得性较低或融资约束较高的企业更明显,这使担保物权制度改革、资本技能互补及企业劳动力结构间的逻辑关系得以进一步增强。横截面差异检验发现,法律制度环境较差地区企业以及成长机会较高企业,其劳动力结构更可能受《物权法》影响。最后,担保物权制度改革对企业劳动力结构的改变能提高其全要素生产率及盈利能力。本文从劳动力结构视角为识别《物权法》实施后果提供了证据支持,对于理解法律制度建设的经济效益、破解我国劳动力市场难题具有启示意义。     

Taxing Mobile Capital with Labor Market Imperfections

Taxing internationally mobile factors of production has been dismissed as an inefficient means of raising tax revenue. This paper addresses the question of whether it is efficient to tax capital at source when labor markets and the taxation of lumpsum income suffer from imperfections. Four reasons for taxing capital are identified: (i) institutional constraints rendering any taxation of profit income infeasible; (ii) market power in the demand for labor; (iii) market power in the supply of labor if it increases with the employment of capital; (iv) unemployment benefits that are not tied to net real wages. It is argued that the case for taxing capital is not particularly strong. By reinterpreting capital as energy the results are applicable to the discussion about ecological tax reforms.