Relative wages, labor specialization and bargaining patterns

The goal of this paper is to study the effects of centralized and decentralized bargaining patterns on wage inequality when there are two different types of labor, skilled and unskilled. We present two models where labor is specialized between firms, that is, there are two types of firms, each one employing one type of labor. We show that the revenue shares of the production factors in each type of firm and the union power are crucial determinants of the relative wage. In contrast, the relative expected wage is the same across models and bargaining patterns.     

The evolution of debt and equity markets in economic development

Summary. As noted by Gurley and Shaw, there is a typical pattern of economic development in which the evolution of the financial system is an essential aspect of the growth process. We focus on one component of this evolution: the increasing importance of equity markets as an economy grows. We develop a growth model where capital accumulation is financed externally through a combination of debt and equity. We illustrate why equity market activity might grow – often very rapidly – as an economy develops. We also illustrate why access to equity markets may not be needed in the early stages of economic development. Received: December 30, 1997; revised version: May 26, 1998     

Schumpeter's circular flow,learning by doing and cyclical growth

A two-sector growth model with endogenous technical change is presented. Concerning technical change, we assume that it is reflected by increases in the stock of human capital which are acquired through learning by doing. As a result, it turns out that transitory or, using the Hopf bifurcation theorem, persistent oscillations of the economic variables may be the outcome. Thus we are able to show that learning mechanisms alone may be sufficient to destroy the circular flow as described by Schumpeter.     

Cooperation and specialization in German technology regions

In this paper we focus on the technological knowledge of a region and the pattern of cooperative behavior of the innovative actors within that region as a means of transferring this knowledge. In particular, we are concerned with the relationship between the kind and level of knowledge and/or the degree of specialization within a region, the propensity to cooperate and the kind of cooperation. Based on a theoretical discussion of research cooperation we derive appropriate hypotheses and provide an econometric analysis based on data of co-patenting. We find that technologically moderately specialized regions show the highest number of research cooperations, and the higher a regions specialization, the more cooperations take place with partners inside that region.JEL Classification: L29, O31, R12We thank Jens J. Krüger, Michel Quéré, Cees van Beers, Henry Overman and participants of the ZEW Summer Workshop on Innovation, Location and European Integration in Mannheim as well as two anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions.     

Financial market integration, labor markets, and macroeconomic policies

We used a dynamic two-country optimizing model featuring a labor–market friction to analyze the implications of financial market integration for the propagation of macroeconomic policies in an open economy. Our main result is that the labor–market friction we analyzed substantially reduces the magnitude of the effect of financial market integration on the propagation of macroeconomic policies.     

Financial Market Imperfections, Labour Market Imperfections and Business Cycles

A Greenwald–Stiglitz (1993a) style rational expectations business cycle model is introduced in which uncorrelated productivity shocks or monetary shocks generate autocorrelated employment fluctuations due to financial constraints. The propagation mechanism is carefully modelled: because of capital market imperfections (only standard debt contracts are traded), firms' labour demand changes in response to changes in their balance-sheet position; because of labour market imperfections (efficiency wages), employment and unemployment fluctuate in response to shifts in labour demand. The virtue of the model is its simplicity. Despite the fact that unemployment is endogenous, the dynamic behaviour of the model under rational expectations can be characterised analytically.
JEL classification : E 32     

Matching and bargaining models of markets: approximating small markets by large markets

Summary. We show that the equilibrium of a matching and bargaining model of a market in which there is a finite number of agents at each date need not be near the equilibrium of a market with a continuum of agents, although matching probabilities are the same in both markets. Holding the matching process fixed, as the finite market becomes large its equilibrium approaches the equilibrium of its continuum limit.Received: January 22, 1996; revised version: September 24, 1996This revised version was published online in February 2005 with corrections to the cover date.     

Market crashes,speculation and learning in financial markets

A natural conjecture is that if agents’ beliefs are almost correct then equilibrium prices should be close to rational expectations prices. Sandroni (J Econ Theory 82:1–18, 1998) gives a counterexample in an economy with sunspots and complete markets. We extend Sandroni’s result by showing that the conjecture is generically true for economies with complete markets. We consider a standard General Equilibrium model with large but finite horizon and complete markets. We show that, for almost every such economy, if conditional beliefs eventually become correct along a path of events then equilibrium prices of assets traded along this path converge to rational expectations equilibria in the sup-norm. Moreover, we establish that, generically, there exist along any such path local diffeomorphisms between individual beliefs and equilibrium prices. I would like to thank C. Ewerhart and A. Kirman for their comments, as well as the seminar participants at the University of Minho, the General Equilibrium Workshop 2005 in Zurich, and the 15th Asian General Equilibrium Conference 2007 in Singapore. An anonymous referee also provided very valuable comments.     

Endogenous growth cycles—Arrow's learning by doing reconsidered

A two-sector growth model is presented in which human capital is acquired through learning by doing. It is shown that, for both the competitive situation and the social optimum, endogenous growth cycles may be the outcome. Concerning the economic prerequisite for persistent oscillations we detect a bunching of investment at nearby dates leading economic variables to overshoot the long-run steady state values. This clustering of investment, for its part, may be caused by adjacent complementarity with respect to the stocks or by a sufficiently strong external effect of investment on the marginal product of physical capital or on the opportunity costs of investment.     

公共财政、金融支农与农村金融改革--基于贵州省及其样本县的调查分析

本文通过对贵州省及其样本县农户和金融机构的问卷调查和分析,得出了一些实证性的结论。一方面,贫困地区公共财政未能发挥其应有的作用,健全的农村金融体系无法建立;另一方面,将农村金融机构作为支农的工具,进一步扭曲了农村的金融体制。分析表明,只有让公共财政发挥应有的作用,才能进一步改革农村金融体系,形成商业可持续的农村金融体制。     

消费者金融行为、消费者金融教育和消费者福利

消费者金融行为的研究是一个多学科的研究领域,并在近十年来开始得到主流经济学和金融学的重视。消费者金融行为的研究集中在如何定义、描述、理解和预测、改变、发展,以及比较消费者的金融行为。本文从上述六个方面对美国关于消费者金融行为的研究进行了简要综述,并讨论了消费者金融行为与消费者金融教育、消费者福利之间的关系。最后,对中国消费者金融学的研究提出了几点建议,希望对中国消费者金融学领域的发展有所贡献。     

Financial markets and the post-crisis scenario

Starting from August 2007, the FED intervened by injecting liquidity in the inter-banking market and reducing interest rates. Day after day, the financial markets register negative trends and rallies. This is not due to events which are particularly related to the market itself. This appeared in the days when there were government interventions, when everybody expected a positive sign in the financial market but a negative sign occurred. Sometimes, this is due to the intensity of actions taken by the governments. The markets always expect appropriate interventions (in terms of intensity). Looking at these market reactions (in unexpected signs) after each government action, we can suppose that policy makers underestimate the intensity of this crisis. The capacity of making enforcement on the system should avoid underlining the side of governance rules which will never be precise. Being able to count on an active control of the market dealers, broadly speaking is a way of giving active confidence to individual/institutional agents who decide the allocations of saving in the financial market. There is no such confidence at the moment, if one focuses only on the definitions of new rules. If one starts from existing rules and does continuous monitoring so that they are applied adequately at crucial moments, then one could reduce the possibility of facing new exceeding volatilities of banking securities in the stock market. This work is focused on understanding how governance as well as central banks’ policy impact on the crisis, as well as possible future scenarios.

Human capital formation,learning by doing and the government in the process of economic growth

We present an endogenous growth model with human capital and learning by doing. Human capital is not an input factor in the production process of final output but it affects the ability to build up knowledge capital as a by‐product of cumulated investment (learning by doing). Human capital is formed in the schooling sector that is financed by the government. The government may run into debt but obeys the inter‐temporal budget constraint. The article analyzes the structure of the model and studies the effects of different budgetary policies as regards the balanced growth rate, transition dynamics and with respect to welfare.     

Climate policies and learning by doing: Impacts and timing of technology subsidies

We study the role of technology subsidies in climate policies, using a simple dynamic equilibrium model with learning by doing. The optimal subsidy rate of a carbon-free technology is high when the technology is first adopted, but falls significantly over the next decades. However, the efficiency costs of uniform instead of optimal subsidies, may be low if there are adjustment costs for a new technology. Finally, supporting existing energy technologies only, may lead to technology lock-in, and the impacts of lock-in increase with the learning potential of new technologies as well as the possibilities for early entry.     

Learning by doing,spillovers and shakeouts

This paper studies industry evolution driven by non strategic learning by doing and spillovers. We characterize a dynamic process of cost and output changes and its effect on welfare and industry profits. The paper gives conditions for shakeouts to occur and analyzes the key factors affecting these conditions. Since shakeouts could lead to a long-run social loss due to higher market concentration, there is a role for a government to play in limiting unnecessary shakeouts. The most effective way to do so is to enhance spillovers.JEL Classification: L11, L13, O31Correspondence to: Michael TroegeWe would like to thank Hans Mewis, Christophe Moussu and an anonymous referee for valuable comments and suggestions. We also benefited from comments of seminar participants at WZB, Humboldt University, Northwestern University and the EEA/ESEM 1999 meetings. Part of the research was carried out while Michael Tröge was visiting Northwestern University. Financial support by the German Research Council (DFG) is gratefully acknowledged.     

外债对晚清中央与地方财政关系的影响

晚清中央对地方财政监管的失控，财权的不断下移以致崩溃，构成了中央与地方财政关系变化的基本态势。其间外债作为晚清财政的产物，一直伴随和影响着中央与地方权力的消长，并使得这一关系更为复杂和特殊。     

培育东部地区金融中介和提升金融市场化程度的构想

东部地区经济持续增长，且金融深化趋势明显。通过实证分析发现，东部地区金融发展与经济增长存在显著的正相关关系，以金融市场化程度的提高为协助，东部地区金融发展促进了东部地区经济增长。而培育金融中介和提升金融市场化程度，则对于促进金融发展和东部地区经济增长具有重要作用。     

农村金融竞争程度与农村金融机构的发展——基于县域金融调查样本

关于农村金融市场在经济中的重要作用,迄今已有许多讨论。但是,目前的讨论多数是在一般意义上进行的,其分析过程缺少对农村金融竞争程度及金融机构功能发挥关联度的实证分析。我们认为,在反映农村金融市场基本特征的各种因素中,从客观上有决定意义的因素就是农村金融竞争程度。中国作为发展中国家,是否存在农村金融抑制问题?金融竞争的程度如何?是否需要重新改革农村金融服务政策体系?本文拟从典型实证及相关金融指标分析两方面进行研究。     

An analysis of China’s global industrial competitive strength based on vertical specialization

At the beginning of the 1990s, China witnessed an increase in its international competitive strength in technology-intensive and capital-intensive industries, and a decrease in strength in labor-intensive industries. This paper analyzes the effect of vertical specialization on China’s international industrial competitive strength, explores how different industries have varying reactions under its implementation, and employs theory to explain the possible causes of these reactions. It is found that vertical specialization can help to strengthen China’s global industrial competitiveness, and on that basis, some suggestions are given on how to improve that competitiveness. __________ Translated from Shijie Jingji 世界经济 (Journal of World Economy), 2006(5): 12–21