The effect of reforms on employment flexibility in Chinese SOEs, 1980–94

This paper tries to document the increased flexibility in employment relations in Chinese SOEs until 1994, as well as the effects this had on productivity and on the allocation of workers. A number of measures were introduced to enhance such flexibility, such as autonomy in the decision to hire and fire workers, and a new contract status which could at least in theory be terminated. This was aimed at improving the motivation as well as the allocation of workers across firms. Both should have improved the productivity of SOEs. The evidence found, however, indicates that these measures had few effects. This conclusion is based first on turnover data where hardly any change is found. Estimates of productivity and allocative efficiency gains lead to the same conclusion. This confirms the view that the Chinese state sector reforms regarding employment decisions remained very limited in scope until 1994. JEL classification: P23, P31, J63.     

Real Wages,Demand and Employment in the UK 1921–1938: A Disaggregated Analysis

This paper uses the Layard and Nickell model of the labour market to examine the determinants of employment at a sectoral level for the interwar UK economy. Sectoral level data permits examination of the differing responses to changes in the determinants of employment. Estimation of employment functions indicates significant elasticities with respect to aggregate demand variables across a wide range of sectors but less support for a negative real wage effect, particularly in those industries responsible for major losses in employment. The evidence is therefore more consistent with the low-aggregate-demand explanation of labour market behaviour than it is with the high-real-wage hypothesis.     

Unobserved Heterogeneity,Exit Rates,and Re‐Employment Wages

Exit rates from unemployment and re‐employment wages decline over a period of unemployment, after controlling for worker observable characteristics. We study the role of unobserved heterogeneity in an economy with asymmetric information and directed search. We show that the unique equilibrium is separating and that skilled workers have more job opportunities and higher wages. The composition of the unemployed varies with the duration of unemployment, so average exit rates and wages fall with time. The separating equilibrium relies on performance‐related pay schemes and the ability of firms to commit to renting an input that is complementary to worker skills.     

China's Profits and Losses from Currency Intervention, 1994–2011

China's currency policy has been criticized for its apparent pursuit of mercantile advantage by artificially stimulating exports, with potential adverse effects on other economies. While China's currency policy may have positive output effects, there may be additional profits or losses. This paper computes the annual and cumulative accounting profits from currency intervention since 1994 when China began its currency intervention. It is shown that profits initially were positive but since 2007 China has lost a massive amount from the currency market.     

城市劳动力市场中户籍歧视的变化:农民工的就业与工资

本文利用中国社会科学院人口与劳动经济研究所的中国城市劳动力调查,从就业进入、工资影响因素和工资歧视三个方面对2001年、2010年城市劳动力市场中户籍歧视的变化进行研究。对农民工和城市本地劳动力教育回报率的比较发现,农民工的教育回报率大幅提高,与相同学历的城市本地劳动力的教育回报率相似。农民工的工资决定机制与城市本地劳动力正在趋同。2010年农民工面临的就业隔离比2001年大幅下降,而且在各部门内部小时工资的歧视也大幅下降。然而,当农民工进入公有单位时依然受到较强歧视,就业隔离依然存在,因此,城市劳动力市场需要进一步健全,仍需规范公有单位的用工和招聘制度。     

技术势力、市场势力与战略性新兴产业高端化发展研究

战略性新兴产业发展潜力大,引领作用强。为了抢占未来科技和经济发展的制高点,我国正在大力培育新兴产业。目前,我国战略性新兴产业呈现高端产业、低端制造的特征。如何避免我国刚起步的战略性新兴产业像传统产业一样陷入低端化发展困境,这是理论界和实践界关心的热点,产业高端化是产业势力提升的过程,战略新兴产业高端化必须培育和提升产业势力。为此,对技术势力、市场势力的内涵及形成,以及技术势力、市场势力与产业高端化三者之间的互动关系进行了研究,提出了培育技术势力和市场势力的相关建议。     

Changes in Wages,Wage Inequality and the Return to Human Capital Skills in Kenya: 1977–2005

The conventional literature on wage inequality in Kenya has two drawbacks: first, by focusing on manufacturing sector wages, overlooking wages in other sectors, the results may be biased. Second, previous studies emphasize wage determination solely at the conditional mean rather than resort to wage determination across the entire earnings distribution. We remedy these weaknesses and add a new layer of research previously unexamined. Particularly, we consider wage changes during periods of wide GDP fluctuations from 1977 to 1986, 1986 to 1999, and 1999 to 2005 and explore if prices of measured human capital skills moved in tandem with changes in the dispersion of unmeasured human capital skills as is postulated by human capital theory. Our results support human capital theory: we find higher wages and higher residual wage dispersion during periods of rising GDP (1999–2005) but find lower wages and lower residual wage dispersion during periods of falling GDP (1977–86 and 1986–99).     

Labor Regulations,Employment and Wages: Evidence from India's Apparel Sector

While India is among the world's largest producers and exporters of apparel products, the sector has not performed to its potential. This study analyzes why this might be so from the perspective of the structure of production in the sector, the most striking aspect of which is a firm size distribution heavily dominated by small firms. Using nationally representative firm‐level and labor force survey data, we argue that the dominance of firms operating at scales too small to apply modern production and management technologies is one proximate reason for India's relative underperformance. Further, we note that India's labor regulations and the associated enforcement regime are important policy drivers of Indian firms' tendency to avoid placing “too many workers under one roof”.     

Labor Market Institutions, Wages, and Investment: Review and Implications

Labor market institutions, via their effect on the wage structure,affect the investment decisions of firms in labor markets withfrictions. This observation helps explain rising wage inequalityin the US, but a relatively stable wage structure in Europein the 1980s. These different trends are the result of differentinvestment decisions by firms for the jobs typically held byless skilled workers. Firms in Europe have more incentives toinvest in less skilled workers, because minimum wages or unioncontracts mandate that relatively high wages have to be paidto these workers. I report some empirical evidence for investmentsin training and physical capital across the Atlantic, whichis roughly in line with this theoretical reasoning. (JEL E22,E24, J23, J24, J31)     

Private and Government Employment in the OECD: Productivities and Wages

This paper estimates the productivity of private and government employment for a panel of 23 OECD economies over the 1961–1992 period, and investigates their relation to the government/private wage ratio. The paper finds that (i) the elasticities of output with respect to private and government employment are statistically significantly different from each other; (ii) the marginal products of private and government employment are not statistically significantly different, which suggests that government employment is neither over- nor under-provided, and that shifting employment from one sector to the other is not likely to produce substantial output gains; and (iii) in most of the countries examined, government workers are overpaid in the sense that the government/private wage ratio exceeds the corresponding ratio of marginal products.
(J.E.L. E24, E62).     

THE PUZZLING DIVERGENCE OF RENTS AND USER COSTS, 1980–2004

This paper demonstrates that, in the context of U.S. housing data, rents and ex ante user costs diverge markedly—in both growth rates and levels—for extended periods of time, a seeming failure of arbitrage and a puzzle from the perspective of standard capital theory. The tremendous volatility of even appropriately‐smoothed ex ante annual user cost measures implies that such measures are unsuitable for inclusion in official price statistics. The divergence holds not only at the aggregate level, but at the metropolitan‐market level as well, and is robust across different house price and rent measures. But transactions costs matter: the large persistent divergences did not imply the presence of unexploited profit opportunities. In particular, even though detached housing is readily moved between owner and renter markets, and the detached‐unit rental market is surprisingly thick, transactions costs would have prevented risk‐neutral investors from earning expected profits by buying a property to rent out for a year, and would have prevented risk‐neutral homeowners from earning expected profits by selling their homes and becoming renters for a year. Finally, computing implied appreciation as a residual yields a house price forecast with huge errors; but either longer‐horizon or no‐real‐capital‐gains forecasts—which turn out to have similar forecast errors—imply a far less divergent user cost measure which might ultimately be useful for official price statistics. Some conjectures are offered.     

Fertility Decisions and Gender Differences in Labor Turnover, Employment, and Wages

A striking observation of the U.S. and other labor markets is the weak position of women in terms of job attachment, employment, and earnings relative to men. We develop a model of fertility and labor market decisions to study the impact of fertility on gender differences in labor turnover, employment, and wages. In our framework, individuals search for jobs and accumulate general (experience) and specific (tenure) human capital when they work. They can also increase their wage by moving to a job of higher quality. Labor market decisions (e.g., job acceptance and job mobility) may differ across genders: females that give birth may decide to interrupt their labor market attachment in order to enjoy the value of staying at home with their children. The model economy is successfully calibrated to match aggregate statistics in terms of fertility, employment, and wages. We find that fertility decisions generate important gender differences in turnover rates, with long lasting effects in employment and wages. These differences in labor turnover account for almost all the U.S. gender wage gap that is attributed to labor market experience by Blau and Kahn (2000, Journal of Labor Economics15(1), 1–42). The model also implies a very small role of tenure capital in accounting for wage differences between males and females (gender gap), and between females with and without children (family gap). Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E24, J13, J21, J31.