Migration,population aging,and income inequality in China

In this study, we examine the effects of four demographic factors, namely, birth, death, natural aging, and net migration, on population aging and income inequality in China. We use the official Chinese data and the China Household Income Project Survey data for the 2007–2013 period and apply a decomposition model based on the Shapley method. Unlike previous studies, we include migration in our decomposition model and find that natural aging is the primary factor contributing to population aging in both urban and rural areas. Further, migration may accelerate population aging in rural areas. Moreover, migration contributes to reducing income inequality in urban areas, while widening income inequality in rural areas. The effect of migration is larger than those of birth, death, and natural aging on income inequality. The robustness checks confirm these conclusions.     

Retaining and engaging older workers: A solution to worker shortages in the U.S.

Over the next 20 years, many organizations will experience significant shortages of skilled workers. At the same time, because of longer lifespans and a gradual rise in what society has considered the traditional retirement age of 65, older workers will represent a growing proportion of the American workforce. For a variety of reasons, many of these older workers desire to continue working and, if retained and engaged, they constitute a significant labor source for mitigating the emerging shortages of skilled workers. However, many organizations are not prepared to take advantage of this demographic shift; some even generate barriers that impede the retention and engagement of older workers. In this article, we identify a variety of ways in which organizations can retain and engage older workers to meet their staffing needs and enhance organizational performance. We also discuss the relationship of these proposals to prominent theories of motivation in management.     

Consumption,welfare, and stochastic population dynamics when technology shocks are (Un)tied

The impact of uncertainty on consumption and welfare seems obvious; because of the precautionary saving motive, higher uncertainty reduces consumption, and subsequently, deteriorates welfare. Recent several studies, however, find that this intuitive narrative is not necessarily true. This paper provides the analytical underpinnings for this. In the absence of technological progress, I find that the larger demographic shocks always reduce consumption, but improve the welfare of households. Moreover, when demographic shocks are negatively tied to technology shocks, there emerges an inverted-U relationship between the size of two shocks and consumption, and a U-shaped relationship between the size of two shocks and household welfare. These results are all characterized analytically in the framework of the stochastic two-sector growth model featuring the correlated Brownian motion process. The findings suggest that demographic policies should not be implemented with no reference to the state of technology.     

Macroeconomic implications of population aging: Evidence from Japan

Population aging is an important feature of Japan’s economy, which since 2006 has become a super-aged society. Changes in the age distribution of the population have important macroeconomic implications. Using annual data for 1960–2015, this study tests whether population age shares have long run influences on domestic saving, domestic investment, real GDP, inflation, the fiscal balance, and the current account balance. Cointegration is found between each macroeconomic variable and the demographic variables, which is a key finding of the analysis. The main empirical findings from the long-run cointegrating equations are that the effects of demographic change on the macroeconomic variables are statistically significant and quite strong. Alternative variants of the United Nation’s population projections provide further evidence of the importance of the demographic changes for Japan’s macroeconomic future. This study finds that future trends of key macroeconomic variables are not monotonic, but rather that long swings in the demographic factors produce a mixture of moderate growth periods and episodes of GDP stagnation.     

Residential mobility and the local context: Comparing long-term and short-term spatial trends of population movements in Greece

Residential mobility is a key dimension of population dynamics shaping urban growth and rural development at different spatio-temporal scales. Assuming spatial mobility as increasingly dependent on the intrinsic characteristics of local contexts, the present study investigates long-term and short-term population movements in a European country (Greece), in light of regional urbanization processes and socioeconomic development. A multidimensional analysis of indicators of residential stability and background variables was carried out with the aim at evaluating the influence of local contexts on more general processes of population mobility. Different typologies of spatial mobility associated to factors (directly or indirectly) dependent on demographic dynamics, economic performances and urban cycles were identified. The empirical findings of this study evidence (more or less traditional) paths of internal migration and a latent process of population relocation across metropolitan regions, together with more recent international migrations at both working and retirement age. While short-range population movements were the ultimate result of late suburbanization in Greece, medium- and broad-range mobility consolidated the country's divide in urban and rural areas, evidencing the attractive role of Athens. Spatial direction and intensity of population movements reflect complex socioeconomic transformations, whose knowledge provides innovative visions for a better understanding of future demographic dynamics in Mediterranean Europe.     

本世纪以来的西方经济增长理论

中国经济正处于动能转换的关键时期,需要来自增长理论研究的支持。21世纪以来,经济增长理论的研究取得了显著进步。本文旨在评述增长理论的最新发展,进一步梳理理论脉络和主流观点,为学术研究和经济实践提供参考。本文认为,经济增长理论已逐渐形成制度决定理论、结构转变理论和人口过渡理论三大主流观点。同时,本文指出了增长理论存在的不足。在总结现有文献贡献与不足的基础上,对未来研究方向进行了展望。     

中国健康资本内生折旧率估算及成因分析

"健康中国"战略背景下,准确估算健康资本折旧率对把握我国人口健康资本动态变化具有重要意义。在经典的健康资本需求框架内,正式引入年龄、环境与健康投资的异质性,扩展构建健康资本内生折旧率模型。基于永续盘存法基本原理,结合精算模型与生命表数据,对不同年龄、性别和风险假设下我国居民健康资本折旧率进行估算与分析。研究发现,我国居民健康资本折旧率存在明显的年龄差异与性别差异:中青年阶段折旧率缓慢提高、老年阶段加速上升;男性健康资本折旧率始终高于女性。随着人口老龄化程度加深,年龄对健康资本折旧率的影响下降,健康投资的影响则持续增强。提高健康投资回报率,是降低折旧率进而提高我国人均健康资本存量的关键。     

Do housing prices promote total factor productivity? Evidence from spatial panel data models in explaining the mediating role of population density

The issue of what to promote in total factor productivity (TFP) in urban areas has been widely discussed in academia and housing prices and population density are confirmed to be two of the most essential driving factors. However, research into the interaction of housing prices and population density with TFP has been neglected, with no previous studies taking spatial factors into consideration, which may bias the results. From this perspective, using spatial panel data models and employing instrumental variables to solve the endogenous problem, this study examines the impact of housing prices on TFP through the mediating effect of population density for 283 Chinese cities during the period 2000–2013, and confirms that the mediating effect accounts for 18.70 % of the total effect. The results show the positive and significant association of housing prices with TFP and the inverted U-shape of population density. The underlying logic is that housing prices change population density by attracting people with high purchasing power and discouraging those unable to afford housing, whereas increased density helps to promote productivity since the settled inhabitants always have highly developed work skills and are well educated. The influencing mechanism of housing prices on TFP through population density is analyzed, namely the spillover effect. We find that the spillover effect exists in the eastern and central regions, as well as first, second, and third tier cities, while for western regions and fifth tier cities, population mobility and increased in housing prices slows their economic development. There is no evidence of any spillover effect in fourth tier cities. A discussion and suggested policy implications are also provided.     

Forecasting the urban skyline with extreme value theory

The world’s urban population is expected to grow fifty percent by the year 2050 and exceed six billion. The major challenges confronting cities, such as sustainability, safety, and equality, will depend on the infrastructure developed to accommodate the increase. Urban planners have long debated the consequences of vertical expansion—the concentration of residents by constructing tall buildings—over horizontal expansion—the dispersal of residents by extending urban boundaries. Yet relatively little work has predicted the vertical expansion of cities and quantified the likelihood and therefore urgency of these consequences.We regard tall buildings as random exceedances over a threshold and use extreme value theory to forecast the skyscrapers that will dominate the urban skyline in 2050 if present trends continue. We predict forty-one thousand skyscrapers will surpass 150 meters and 40 floors, an increase of eight percent a year, far outpacing the expected urban population growth of two percent a year. The typical tall skyscraper will not be noticeably taller, and the tallest will likely exceed one thousand meters but not one mile. If a mile-high skyscraper is constructed, it will hold fewer occupants than many of the mile-highs currently designed. We predict roughly three-quarters the number of floors of the Mile-High Tower, two-thirds of Next Tokyo’s Sky Mile Tower, and half the floors of Frank Lloyd Wright’s The Illinois—three prominent plans for a mile-high skyscraper. However, the relationship between floor and height will vary considerably across cities.     

Non-stationary additive utility and time consistency

Within a continuous time life cycle model of consumption and savings, I study the properties of the most general class of additive intertemporal utility functionals. They are not necessarily stationary, and do not necessarily multiplicatively separate a discount factor from “per-period utility”. I prove rigorously that time consistency holds if and only if the per-period felicity function is multiplicatively separable in $t$, the date of decision and in $s$, the date of consumption, or equivalently, if the Fisherian instantaneous subjective discount rate does not depend on $t$. The model allows to explain “anomalies in intertemporal choice” even when the agents are time consistent and various empirical regularities. On the other hand, the model allows to characterize mathematically the “effective consumption profile” of naive, time-inconsistent agents.