The effect of minimum wage on firm markup: Evidence from China

Our paper examines the impact of minimum wage on firm markup in China. We find that minimum wage generates a positive effect on firm markup. More value-enhancing innovative activities, TFP improvement, and efficient labor resource allocation are the potential channels. Further, the positive influence of minimum wage is more pronounced for privately-owned firms, for firms with higher labor intensity and firms with less financial constraints. Besides, these findings are generally robust to different estimation methods. Our results provide new insights into understanding the channels through which labor regulation may cause the change of markup for the emerging markets countries.     

Misallocation in Chinese Manufacturing and Services: A Variable Markup Approach

Cross‐country comparison reveals an unusually small service sector in China. Using firm‐level data from China's 2008 economic census, we find two facts that speak to a novel mechanism of misallocation within service and between manufacturing and service sectors. First, compared with the manufacturing sector, there are more state‐owned enterprises and fewer entrants in the service sector. Second, markups increase with firm size, and the increase is more dramatic among service firms. We interpret these facts through the lens of a monopolistic competition model with heterogeneous firms and variable markups. A multisector model shows a new channel that translates asymmetric barriers to entry across sectors into sectoral markup differences, which in turn cause sectoral misallocation. Quantitative analysis shows that when reducing entry barriers to service firms to the extent observed for manufacturing firms, the model predicts a 12‐percentage‐point increase in the service employment share.     

Markups of Exporters and Importers: Evidence from Hungary

In this paper, we study the relationship between different proxies of firm‐level markups and trade status, using balance sheet information linked to detailed trade data from Hungary between 1995 and 2003. We find that importing is strongly positively correlated with markup measures, both across and within firms. We argue that this correlation can reflect three channels: self‐selection, higher physical productivity resulting from access to a larger variety of inputs, and quality upgrading based on high‐quality imported intermediate inputs. We present evidence for the relevance of the third channel by showing that importers’ markup premium is higher when inputs arrive from developed countries, and that importing is correlated with higher‐quality (price‐adjusted revenue) exports. We find no robust evidence for exporter premium when controlling for importing. We argue that the non‐existent exporter premium might result from the stronger competition in export markets relative to domestic markets.     

EPC网络Savant中间件的设计与实现

通过融合物联网、EPC(产品电子码)、RFID(射频识别)、PML(物理标识语言)、Savant中间件等一系列新技术,研究与实现了一种Savant中间件系统,可同时读出EPC编码的多个物品的基础数据,并在进行计算后将数据存入/取出数据库。文章详细描述了使用物理标示语言(PML)从多个EPC标签中获取信息、进行计算操作、完成信息改变、及时更新数据库信息的技术过程。     

Trade Openness and Exchange Rate Regimes

The paper evaluates the net welfare gains of inflation targeting over a fixed exchange rate as a function of a country's trade openness, using a multisectoral structural model calibrated to Chile. For most calibrations with separable preferences, net welfare gains are increasing in trade openness. The reason is that in more open economies terms of trade shocks, which favor inflation targeting, become quantitatively more important, while price markup shocks in the imperfectly competitive nontradables sector, which favor exchange rate targeting, become less important. The most important exception is heavily indebted countries, where net welfare gains are decreasing in trade openness.     

Has Austria’s Accession to the EU Triggered an Increase in Competition? A Sectoral Markup Study

We estimate the pro-competitive effects of Austrias participation in the Single Market after its European Union (EU) accession in 1995 in terms of firms market power as measured by the Lerner index, using a sample of 46 industries and 7 industry groups, covering the period 1978–2001. In the framework of the markup estimation method suggested by Roeger (1995), we test for both an instantaneous structural break between 1993 and 1998 and also estimate logistic smooth transition models to take up the proposition that the regime shift is likely to have occurred gradually rather than as a big bang. In sum, the results provide no reason for being euphoric: Pronounced markup reductions were only found in three industry groups (mining and quarrying, wholesale and retail trade; financial services and real estate). At the more disaggregate level, the picture is mixed: Both increases and reductions in market power have been found.     

竹材的价格—成本加成率研究

价格—成本加成率是常用的企业或产业业绩衡量指标之一 ,它在某种程度上表现了企业或产业的市场竞争力。作者根据江西省林产品成本调查历史数据 ,对竹材生产的价格—成本加成率进行了实证研究。发现 ,竹材的价格—成本加成率有相当高的水平 ,农村劳动力价格以及经济增长状况对竹材的价格—成本加成水平及变动有着重要的影响。     

EDI and the Internet in the E-Business Era

This article presents cost effective guidelines to assist hotels of all sizes with the usage of electronic data interchange (EDI) in the Internet e-business era. The evolution of web-based EDI makes it easier for hotels of all sizes to support their business processes with traditional EDI technology, but without the extensive capital outlay in computer hardware and software. This is an attempt to encourage investment in basic EDI technologies before implementing more sophisticated applications. The focus is to allow hotels of all sizes to improve their competitive advantage with successive EDI technological advances.     

Market power and fiscal policy in OECD countries

We compute average markups as a measure of market power throughout time and study their interaction with fiscal policy and macroeconomic variables in a VAR framework. From impulse-response functions, the results, with annual data for a set of 14 OECD countries, show that the markup (i) depicts a pro-cyclical behaviour with productivity shocks and (ii) a counter-cyclical behaviour with fiscal spending shocks. We also use a PVAR, increasing the efficiency in the estimations, which confirms the country-specific results.     

环境立法管制对企业出口国内附加值率的影响*

本文通过理论建模和经验数据研究了环境立法管制与中国企业出口国内附加值率之间的关系。结果发现,环境立法管制有助于提升中国企业出口国内附加值率。机制分析证明：一方面,加强环境立法管制的“成本效应”促使直接受约束的企业寻找其他可替代要素。这种替代效应的大小取决于企业对污染型资源的依赖程度。“创新效应”通过改变企业生产效率影响企业成本加成。这两种效应均影响了出口国内附加值率。另一方面,环境立法管制提高了本国企业出口到国外市场的生产率下界,使间接受约束的企业改变定价策略,进而影响出口国内附加值率。本文研究表明,地区严格的执法力度有助于扩大环境立法管制对污染型资源依赖程度较低企业出口国内附加值率的积极影响。