Entrepreneurship as a non-profit-seeking activity

It is typically assumed that people engage in entrepreneurship because there are profits to be made. In contrast to this view, this paper argues that entrepreneurship is more adequately characterized as a non-profit-seeking activity. Evidence from a broad range of authors and academic fields is discussed showing that entrepreneurship does quite generally not pay in monetary terms. Being an entrepreneur seems to be rather rewarding because it entails substantial non-monetary benefits, like greater autonomy, broader skill utilization, and the possibility to pursue one’s own ideas. It is shown how incorporating these non-monetary benefits into economic models of entrepreneurship can lead to a better understanding of the phenomenon.

Can the HOSS framework help shed light on the simultaneous growth of inequality and informalization in developing countries?

Using simple, modified versions of the factor proportions framework, and focusing on structural features within developing economies, this paper attempts to reconcile puzzling developments observed in many post-reform, post-liberalization countries whereby increasing income inequality has emerged side-by-side with informalization of the economy. Measures undertaken to enhance public sector efficiency and attract investment in an import-intensive export sector may increase rental–wage and skilled–unskilled wage gaps, contra the predictions of the simple Heckscher–Ohlin–Stolper–Samuelson (HOSS) framework regarding skill- and capital-scarce countries. The common thread generating our interesting results is the presence of sectors that are even more labor-intensive than those producing traded goods.

Endogenous job destructions and the distribution of wages

This paper considers a matching model with both idiosyncratic productivity shocks that hit jobs at random and heterogeneity of workers according to ex ante unobservable abilities. We argue that firms' decisions about reservation productivity can help explain the shape of wage distributions. This is shown from numerical experiments, calibrated to French data, by considering alternative ranges of productivity shocks.     

Minimum distance estimation of the spatial panel autoregressive model

This paper contributes to the interface literature of new methodological foundation of analyzing historical data with space and spatio-temporal phenomena. In particular, I consider estimating the spatial panel autoregressive model using the minimum distance estimator. Spatial autoregression has important implications for economic system that typifies correlatedness across many spatial locations and which could evolve over long span of time. To overcome computational difficulties, I suggest a two-stage estimation procedure based on minimum distance estimators. A striking feature of the proposed model is that minimum distance estimates are derived under common slopes and complete equality of parameters across spatial units. Assumption of common slopes across spatial units is an empirical and theoretical plausibility as many spatial units are observed to share common trend and typology of changes occurring to the individual system under which equality of parameters are possibilities. The estimation strategy allows various restrictions on time-varying vector parameters. Moreover, those restrictions can easily be tested. I apply this procedure to the residential demand for water of 115 French municipalities over the biannual period 1988–1993. The primary contribution of the paper is to the methodological side of cliometrics while the empirical application (with shorter time period) has been presented for illustrative purpose although, it can nonetheless be readily applied to historical data with long-time horizon allowing for restrictions such as spatio-temporal common vector and structural break in parameter estimates.

A semi-analytic method for valuing high-dimensional options on the maximum and minimum of multiple assets

Valuing high-dimensional options has many important applications in finance but when the true distributions are unknown or complex, numerical approximations must be used. Approximation methods based on Monte-Carlo simulation show a steep trade-off between estimation accuracy and computational efficiency. This article presents an alternative semi-analytic approximation method for pricing options on the maximum or minimum of multiple assets with unknown distributions. Computational efficiency is shown to improve significantly without sacrificing estimation accuracy. The method is illustrated with applications to options on underlying assets with mean-reverting prices, time-dependent correlations, and stochastic volatility The authors would like to thank the two anonymous referees, the associate editor, and Dr. Jess H. Chua at the University of Calgary for valuable comments and insights on this research. This research was partly supported by NUS grant R-146-000-059-112     

Informal economy, wage goods and accumulation under structural adjustment theoretical reflections based on the Tanzanian experience

Economic development in sub-Saharan Africa under structuraladjustment witnessed the upsurge of informal sector development—thedevelopment of unregulated labour-intensive activities, in partexport-oriented. This paper argues that two factors played animportant role in shaping the dynamics of informal sector development:(1) the process of the relative cheapening of wage goods asa result of their importation, partly financed through foreignaid, thereby lowering unit-labour costs in labour-intensiveproduction, and (2) the processes at work of subsidising realwages by other forms of economic security as a result of multiple,diversified and spatially extended livelihood strategies. Whilethese factors undoubtedly brought a new vitality to economicdevelopment, this paper questions the long-run sustainabilityof this new trend for two reasons. One is its dependence onforeign aid to finance imports. The other is that it does notappear to propel endogenous increases in productivity by achievinggreater synergy in intersectoral linkages between agricultureand industry.     

贸易与就业:国际研究的最新进展与政策导向——兼论化解中美贸易冲突对我国就业影响的政策选择

随着全球经济一体化的深化,由劳动力国际化带来的失业增加、工资不平等、青年失业人口增多、非正规部门就业提高等诸多问题,已引起国际社会关注,贸易与就业成为当代国际贸易研究的重要课题。国际最新研究显示,贸易既能创造就业,也会导致失业,其就业净效应取决于不同国家的不同情况。从短期和局部看,因存在就业调整成本,贸易对不同国家、地区和个人会产生不同的影响;但从长期和整体看,贸易会对一国产业结构优化、高技能工人就业、工资提高和妇女就业产生积极影响。贸易能否发挥对劳动力市场水平和结构的积极影响,取决于政府的决策。中美贸易冲突将对我国就业产生重要影响,稳就业是中央提出的应对国内外复杂形势的首要任务。为化解中美贸易冲突对我国就业的影响,应尽快建立中国贸易调整援助制度,发挥中国在构建开放型世界经济中的引领作用,并从财政政策、金融政策、贸易政策、教育政策、区域政策和劳动力政策等方面综合施策。     

Detecting policy effects with wage rigidity and instability – evidence on the Taiwan labour market

With stagnant wages and growing productivity, a widening gap is becoming prevalent in global labour markets. The relationship between wages and productivity has become indeterminate, especially after the 2008 financial crisis. This article presents the phenomenon for why salary rarely follows up with productivity after an economy recovers. By using the GMM method, this study shows the interaction among wage, productivity and tightness, in which we illustrate the Taiwan labour market as an example to show how hiring system changes press wages away from an efficient allocation, causing instability and market failure. Surveying 35 labour markets for different industries, we reveal that the situation in the labour markets has drastically changed since 2008. We find that this resulted in a severe problem when the Taiwan firms got used to policies like ‘22K’, ‘fix-term contract’ and ‘unpaid leave’ programmes. These plans negatively impacted the economy and raised market failure with instability.     

非等间隔动态面板数据模型：估计方法与应用实例

非等间隔动态面板数据模型由于相邻两期观测之间的时间长度不尽相同使得传统动态面板数据模型的估计方法失效,本文提出使用非线性最小二乘、最短距离以及它们的一步估计量对该模型进行估计,证明了这四个估计量的一致性和渐进正态性,同时借助蒙特卡洛模拟的方法验证了它们在有限样本中的估计精度,并且进一步使用所提出的估计量讨论了以往文献由于缺乏相应的估计方法而没有被研究或者充分讨论的问题,得到了一些新的结论。     

Foreign direct investment, intellectual property rights, and wage inequality in China

This article incorporates foreign direct investment (FDI) and product differentiation in a general equilibrium trade model. The analysis shows that freer trade and FDI will upgrade China's technology, improve its skills of labor, and increase the competitiveness of local firms in the international market. At the same time, the relative wage of skilled labor to unskilled labor will rise. The size of this rise will be affected by the degree of protection for intellectual property rights. These theoretical results are consistent with empirical evidence. The analysis provides insights in coordinating policies on FDI, labor market reform, and intellectual property rights protection.