Probability of survival in a random exchange economy with dependent agents

Summary. In this paper I analyze the general equilibrium in a random Walrasian economy. Dependence among agents is introduced in the form of dependency neighborhoods. Under the uncertainty, an agent may fail to survive due to a meager endowment in a particular state (direct effect), as well as due to unfavorable equilibrium price system at which the value of the endowment falls short of the minimum needed for survival (indirect terms-of-trade effect). To illustrate the main result I compute the stochastic limit of equilibrium price and probability of survival of an agent in a large Cobb-Douglas economy. Received June 7, 2001; revised version: January 7, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" I would like to thank Mukul Majumdar and Thomas DiCiccio for helpful discussion and an anonymous referee for valuable comments and suggestions.     

Is current institutional quality linked to legal origins and disease endowments? Evidence from Africa

This paper empirically assesses if and to what extent cross-country differences in institutions inherited from the past affect current institutional quality in Africa. Specifically, the work evaluates if legal origins and disease endowments explain cross-country differences in the quality of contemporary institutions that are widely considered to be important for financial system development and other economic outcomes, such as those related to creditor rights protection and the credit information infrastructure, as well as the judicial, legal property and insolvency systems. Empirical tests are carried out on a sample of 46 African former European colonies with data on current institutional quality from 2004 to 2013. The findings reveal that the legal origins hypothesis receives strong support in the data: historical factors, rooted in legal origins, have long-lasting effects on current institutional quality in the African context. Mixed evidence is instead found for the endowment view.     

Shortfall aversion

Shortfall aversion reflects the higher utility loss of spending cuts from a reference than the utility gain from similar spending increases. Inspired by Prospect Theory's loss aversion and the peak‐end rule, this paper posits a model of utility from spending scaled by past peak spending. In contrast to traditional models, which call for spending rates proportional to wealth, the optimal policy in this model implies a constant spending rate equal to the historical peak when wealth is relatively large. The spending rate increases when wealth reaches a model‐determined multiple of peak spending. In 1926–2015, shortfall‐averse spending is smooth and typically increasing.     

On the Scope for International Tax Cooperation: The Role of Capital Controls

Tax competition between independent authorities is known to lead to inefficient outcomes, implying there is scope for cooperation. In an international framework where the authorities are national governments, the undesirable features of tax competition may alternatively be mitigated by imposing restrictions on international capital flows. Using a two-country model it is shown that capital controls may fully remedy the adverse effects of tax competition and thereby render tax cooperation superfluous. In more general cases, however, capital controls have some undesirable side-effects, leaving room for cooperative actions. Moreover, the mere option of imposing capital controls may promote the implementation of tax cooperation.     

Specialization dynamics

This paper proposes a new empirical framework for analyzing specialization dynamics. A country’s pattern of specialization is viewed as a distribution across sectors, and statistical techniques for analyzing the evolution of this entire distribution are employed. The empirical framework is implemented using data on 20 industries in seven OECD countries since 1970. We find substantial mobility in patterns of specialization. Over time horizons of 5 years, this is largely explained by forces common across countries, including world prices and common changes in technical efficiency. Over longer time horizons, country-specific changes in factor endowments become more important. There is no evidence of an increase in countries’ overall degree of specialization.     

Effective factor endowments, trade openness and income distribution in China

This paper studies the empirical relationship among factor endowment, trade openness and individual income distribution. Using panel data, we show that factor endowment characters, to some extent, explains income gap in China. First, land and Capital intensive provinces have a more equal income distribution while human capital and labor-intensive provinces have a less equal income distribution. Second, Trade openness has a significant effect on China’s income distribution; the interaction between a special endowment and openness has different effect on income distribution; we also show that FDI, economy development, unemployment and reform have considerable negative effect on income distribution. Our results are robust to various kinds of test.     

要素禀赋、中间产品与技术赶超作用机理

扩展的要素禀赋理论包括要素数量和要素质量两个维度,它们对后发经济收敛的机理是不一样的。借鉴中间品扩张模型,将要素数量和质量转化为中间投入品的数量和质量,通过中间投入品的数量扩张和质量提升对技术赶超的作用机理推导发现,后发国家实现技术赶超的速度取决于技术基础、要素的数量(包括人力资本的规模)、要素的质量指数及创新成本等,特别注意的是赶超速度与要素质量参数的关系是不确定的,要看要素质量与其他要素的匹配程度。最后提出了一些措施,以有效地促进技术赶超。     

The role of trade and offshoring in the determination of relative wages and child labour

Incorporating family decisions in a two-period model of the world economy, we predict that trade liberalization raises the skill premium and reduces child labour in developing countries where the adult labour force is sufficiently well educated to attract production activities from abroad that will increase the demand for skilled relative to unskilled labour. Elsewhere, liberalization will reduce the skill premium, but it will not necessarily raise child labour. Our prediction is not rejected by the data, and it explains why child labour is negatively associated with trade openness in those developing countries where the labour force was relatively well educated when the liberalization took place, but not elsewhere.     

What is behind low wages in central and eastern Europe?

This paper compares wages across Europe in relation to the characteristics of workers and firms, with a particular focus on wage levels in central and eastern European countries. Worker and workplace endowments can be taken as a proxy for labour productivity. We estimate the extent to which wage differences observed at an aggregate level can be related to the different compositions of workforces and workplaces, as well as the types of jobs conducted in separate countries. We also decompose the observed differences in returns on endowments by identifying the sectors and occupational categories that contribute most to the wage gaps observed at the aggregate level. The wage gaps in low-wage countries actually appear larger once differences in worker, work and workplace characteristics are controlled for. In contrast, the differences in wages between high-wage countries diminish when we control for these endowments. The wage gap between East and West thus seems to be explained by a much lower return on skills and other characteristics rather than by differences in the composition of workforces and firms. Sectoral and occupational analysis suggests that central and eastern European countries have developed a generalised low-cost and low-wage model, with relative returns particularly low on higher skills. There is much less wage disparity across European countries in more labour intensive and lower-paid services sectors, such as accommodation and food service activities. The magnitude of the wage gap seems to be driven by the relative position of sectors and occupations in high-wage countries.     

海南省资源禀赋与平等效率分析

资源禀赋是研究福利的起点。本文在介绍海南省资源基本情况的同时，从福利问题研究的核心即平等与效率两个方面，为地方政府提出加强与内地的技术交流，积极引进人才，保护生态和环境，强调少数民族的人权等符合经济理论基本要求的行为建议。