Books and publications received

ABSTRACT

Economic theory predicts that regional wages will converge as transport and communication technologies bring labour markets together. An exploration of this transition from labour market segmentation to unification requires long-term evidence of nominal wages and cost of living by region. This paper presents new evidence of wages for male manufacturing workers and cost-of-living indices across 24 Swedish counties between 1860 and 2009. Our findings indicate that the Swedish regional wage differentials were a great deal larger in the 1860s than in the 2000s. Most of the compression took place between the 1860s and World War I, as well as in the 1930s and during World War II. Differences in expenditures on housing impact on our assessment of convergence in the post-World War II decades: the nominal measure declines, while the real one stays constant. Our concluding discussion engages with the assumption that before World War I, regional wage convergence was associated with labour mobility, spurred by improved communication and transportation technologies as well as by the implementation of modern employment contracts. In the 1930s and 1940s, in contrast, regional wage convergence can be traced to high unionisation and centralised collective bargaining in the labour market, two distinguishing features of the Swedish Model.     

正项级数收敛性的判别法的进一步研究

用初等方法深入研究了正向级数判别法,基于比值判别法和根值判别法判别法思想,研究了更高精度判别法,给出不断提高精度的判别法的构造思想以及一般性定理。     

Employment and wage practices of Japanese firms in the Philippines: convergence with Filipino-Chinese and Western-owned firms

In foreign-owned Philippine firms, human resource approaches and practices tend to converge. Japanese-owned firms localize their human resource practices by emphasizing local standards and practices in compensation, hiring, recruitment, job assignments and the like. On the other hand, Western-owned firms tend to adopt well-known Japanese style practices. Filipino-Chinese-owned firms tend to be traditional, emphasizing both informal and hierarchical control mechanisms which put a premium upon loyalty and trust, through familistic, informal but hierarchical control mechanisms. As the owners of these firms pass on control to the next generation, they tend to hire professional managers. These managers include younger generation Filipino-Chinese educated abroad. They are torn between the rational, and traditional norms and practices insisted upon by their Confucian-oriented elders, and the demands of a competitive and ever-changing technology and economy.

It is quite meaningless to attach adjectives like ‘Japanese’, ‘Filipino-Chinese’ or ‘Western’ to universal concepts like industrial relations and human resource approaches - the search for the best approach in work relations is beyond the issue of convergence or divergence.     

Assessing economic convergence in the EU: is there a perspective for the ‘cohesion countries’?

This article analyses the stochastic income convergence within the EU-15. The empirical analysis uses per capita GDP, in PPP and in constant prices of 2005 for the period 1950 to 2010. Apart from the traditional DF type tests we also account for possible structural changes. In this direction, we employ the Zivot-Andrews (1992) and the Lee-Strazicich (1999, 2003) testing procedures, for one and two breaks, endogenously determined. Furthermore, we apply the Carlino and Mills (1993) methodology proposed for the detection of β-convergence. The overall evidence supports the existence of two discrete clubs, the first by the ‘cohesion countries’ (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) and the second by the remaining members. In particular, there is a clear evidence of convergence within each club, whereas between clubs there is a luck of catching-up effects. Furthermore, investigation of correlation between relative per capita GDP of each country and several factors that are often identified as growth stimulants, namely Total Factor Productivity, FDI, investment and openness confirm, with the exception of Greece, a strong association between these factors and the convergence process. However, progress in the convergence has not been uniform across countries and over time, reflecting the specific interactions between domestic and international factors and their impact on the convergence process of individual countries.     

我国会计准则与国际财务报告准则趋同研究

针对LASB对于金融工具、公允价值计量、财务报表列报等方面的最新举措,指出我国与其趋同中存在的计入其他综合收益的累计公允价值变动在处置时能否转回至损益、预计损失法的应用和公允价值的确定等具体问题,并提出要解决这些问题需要IASB对我国的特殊经济业务的理解与认定,同时要求我国能够做到广泛参与、讨论LASB征求意见稿存在的问题,积极参与准则制定过程,争取发言权,维护我国自身利益并肩负起新兴经济体的主导责任,推动全球统一的高质量会计准则的建立.     

中国农业生产率增长的地区差距与收敛性分析

在利用非参数的DEA曼奎斯特生产率指数方法对中国农业全要素生产率进行求解的基础上，论文运用经济增长收敛理论对农业TFP（Total Factor Productivity）增长在1978～2005年转型期的收敛性情况进行检验，这包括从σ收敛、绝对β收敛到条件β收敛的全面检验。论文基本结论表明，整个转型期中国农业TFP增长并不存在显著的σ收敛和绝对β收敛性，但存在显著的条件β收敛性。论文最终还认为，通过一定政策性措施来实现中国农业TFP增长的绝对收敛是可能的。     

我国电信行业三网融合问题研究

随着信息技术和我国信息产业的发展,电信网、因特网、有线电视网的三网融合已成必然趋势.文章介绍了国外国家三网融合的经验,分析了我国三网融合的现状与存在的主要问题,提出应打破行业垄断,尽快使单一运营商向综合信息服务商转型.     

Fueling agricultural growth in India: Some reflections

Indian agriculture is experiencing under-performance despite increased attention given to it in the recent past. This paper analyzes the disparities in agricultural growth across Indian states and explores the determinants of agricultural growth, using Panel Corrected Standard Error approach. Analysis using beta convergence shows that the disparities across the state's agricultural growth are narrowing down for the period 1980–1981 to 2011–2012. However, to stimulate growth in the states where agriculture is lagging behind, a higher emphasis on increasing the area under irrigation, expenditure on agricultural research, area under fruits and vegetables, number of regulated markets, length of roads, cold storage facilities and institutional credit for investment purposes is needed. Private sector should be involved in public–private-partnership mode for improving the infrastructure in this sector.     

Consumer workers as immaterial labour in the converging media markets: three value‐creation practices

This paper takes a practice‐based approach to consumer studies and focuses on the strategic and productive roles that consumers play as immaterial labour or consumer workers in the converging media markets. Based on a case study of a print media organization and its customers, the aim is to discuss the collaborative practices through which value is created in the market. By means of a textual analysis of online and interview data, three value‐creation practices are abstracted and illustrated: constructing a sense of belonging and collective identity, mutual helping and peer support, and building pride and self‐respect. Overall, the paper suggests that in global media environments, consumer‐customers are playing increasingly significant strategic roles in the practices and processes through which value is co‐created in the market. It is therefore concluded that the idea of consumers, and media audiences in particular, as recipients of communication and targets of marketing activities needs to be problematized and the dynamic strategic roles that consumers currently play in the market need to be acknowledged and actively incorporated into the business praxis of media corporations.