Globalization,product differentiation,and wage inequality

Abstract This paper develops a two‐country, general equilibrium model of oligopoly in which the degree of horizontal product differentiation is endogenously determined by firms’ strategic investments in product innovation. Consumers seek variety and product innovation is more skill intensive than production. Stronger import competition increases innovation incentives, and thereby the relative demand for skill. An intra‐industry trade expansion following trade liberalization can therefore increase wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers. As long as some industries remain shielded from international competition, the welfare implications of globalization are found to be generally ambiguous.     

Flexible and Committed Profit Sharing with Wage Bargaining: Implications for Equilibrium Unemployment

We analyze the relationship between profit sharing, employee effort, wage formation and unemployment under different relative timings of the wage and profit sharing decisions. The optimal profit share under commitment exceeds that under flexibility, because through a profit share commitment the firm can induce wage moderation. The negotiated profit sharing depends positively on the bargaining power of trade union and it has both effort-enhancing and wage-moderating effects. Higher profit sharing is shown to reduce equilibrium unemployment under ``sufficiently rigid' labor market institutions, but it can harm employment when labor market ``rigidities' are ``small enough'.     

中国发展加工贸易中要素的优劣势分析

劳动力和技术要素所具有的比较优势,在一国的加工贸易发展中作用明显。就我国而言,劳动力方面,劳动力丰富且成本低廉一直是我国加工贸易的比较优势之一,但其地域分布不均衡,劳动者结构性需求矛盾突出;在技术方面,中国具有较强的技术基础,但技术缺乏创新优势,技术水平与发达国家存在着较大的差距。     

中国农产品频遭"技术壁垒"浅析

随着经济日益趋向全球化和关税壁垒的降低，许多国家，尤其是发达国家在国际贸易中越来越多的使用非关税壁垒，其中，技术壁垒就是首当其冲的选择。近年来，中国的农产品在国际贸易中频频遭遇到来自发达国家的技术壁垒。因此，探析中国农产品频遭技术壁垒的原因，寻求突破技术壁垒的措施已成为值得关注的问题。     

Contributions to an economic theory of human resource management

In this article, it is argued that the firm-specificity of employee competences and the measurability of their individual productivity require different human resource management practices with regard to planning and acquisition, compensation, and control of such resources. On this basis, elements that can be building blocks in a future normative economic theory of human resource management are presented in the form of empirically testable propositions about variations in firms' management of human resources, under the assumption that economic rationality is sought after. Finally, critical aspects of the logic of the presentation are discussed.     

PRIM I: A MODEL OF THE PRICE AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION MECHANISM OF AN OPEN ECONOMY

PRIM I is a numerical model which has been extensively used as a basis for an income policy in Norway in recent years. It is a static, cost-push, input-output model. Wage rates, agricultural prices, productivities and world market prices are treated as exogenous variables, and the model derives short-term changes in income shares and in the national price level from changes in these exogenous variables. A key feature of the model is a distinction between "exposed industries" which are subject to strong foreign price competition, and "sheltered industries" which are relatively free of such competition. These two groups of industries are found to react with very different pricing policies in response to increases in costs; furthermore, possibly for technological reasons, the export industries have greater scope than the majority of the sheltered industries for compensating cost increases through productivity gains. These two facts are shown to have important implications for a price and income policy. It is demonstrated, i.a. that the goal of a stable national price level is, in general, inconsistent with the maintenance of stable income shares when exchange rates are kept constant.     

Merger,Partial Collusion and Relocation

We set up a three-firm model of spatial competition to analyse how a merger affects the incentives for relocation, and conversely, how the possibility of relocation affects the profitability of the merger, particularly for the non-participating firm. We also consider the cases of partial collusion in either prices or locations. Under the assumption of mill pricing, we find that a merger will generally induce the merger participants to relocate, but the direction of relocation is ambiguous, and dependent on the degree of convexity in the consumers transportation cost function. Furthermore, we identify a set of parameter values for which the free-rider effect of a merger vanishes, implying that the possibility of relocation could solve the merger paradox.Acknowledgement We thank Jonathan Cave, Frode Meland, participants at the Royal Economic Society Conference 2003 and an anonymous referee for valuable comments.     

Influence of Leadership on Job Satisfaction: The Moderating Effects of Follower Individual‐Level Masculinity–Femininity Values

The current study examined whether employee individual‐level masculinity–femininity values moderate the relationship between leadership styles (structural, human resource, political, and symbolic) and employee job satisfaction. Overall, the research provided support for the impact of individual‐level masculinity–femininity on follower reactions to various leadership behaviors. The findings indicated that followers who scored high on feminine orientation perceived a weaker relationship between all leadership behaviors and job satisfaction. Followers with more masculine values associated more perceptions of job satisfaction with human resource, political, and symbolic leadership and viewed leaders' structural behaviors as less important for satisfaction at work.     

Mergers and capital flight in unionised oligopolies: Is there scope for a “national champion” policy?

Many policy makers seem to prefer domestic alternatives to cross-border mergers. We construct a model where cross-border mergers drive down union-set wages, domestic mergers have non-labour cost synergies and policy evaluators care more about workers than capital owners. Apparently, the stage is set for “national champion” policies to be sensible. However, we also introduce the possibility of capital flight by allowing a domestic firm to move production abroad. Restrictive cross-border merger policies can then seriously backfire, since they do not necessarily bring about a domestic merger — but capital flight instead.