INFORMATION AND PRICE DISPERSION: THEORY AND EVIDENCE

Limited information is the key element generating price dispersion in models of homogeneous-goods markets. We show that the global relationship between information and price dispersion is an inverse-U shape. We test this mechanism for the retail gasoline market using a new measure of information based on commuter data from Austria. Commuters sample gasoline prices on their commuting route, providing us with spatial variation in the share of informed consumers. Our empirical estimates are in line with the theoretical predictions. We also quantify how information affects average prices paid and the distribution of surplus in the gasoline market.     

JAPANESE ANTITRUST: RECONCILING THEORY AND EVIDENCE

Japanese antitrust law exempts a variety of vertical and horizontal restraints that remain closely regulated in the United States. Despite these dissimilar antitrust environments, however, market concentration, firms' exercise of market power, and deadweight loss from monopoly are highly similar in the two countries. The hypothesis that antitrust alters the relative mix of price to non-price competition rather than the absolute level that competition assumes might explain this empirical puzzle. Thus, this paper studies Japanese antitrust exemptions for resale price maintenance and export cartel associations to illustrate how adopting vertical and horizontal restraints has allowed Japanese firms to substitute towards forms of non-price competition better tailored to industry characteristics.     

市场价值、生产效率与上市公司多元化经营:理论与证据

理论建模和实证分析表明,在股票市场资源配置缺乏效率的情况下,多元化经营对上市公司的市场价值和生产效率具有不同影响。多元化经营最大化了市场价值,但却显著降低了生产效率。这一发现揭示了新兴市场下多元化经营有着自身特点,它体现出一种市场机会主义的短视行为,并由此导致了公司投资扭曲和长期绩效损失。     

SHORT-TERM CONTRACTS REGULATIONS AND DYNAMIC LABOUR DEMAND: THEORY AND EVIDENCE

We present a dynamic labour demand model where we evaluate the impact of employment regulations on permanent and temporary employment. We consider three different kinds of regulations, namely firing costs, hiring costs and a constraint on temporary contracts. These regulations differently affect the size and composition of employment. The theoretical results are interpreted and questioned on the basis of empirical evidence on the employment effects of the regulation reforms that occurred in the major European countries in the period 1983–1999. The empirical analysis is based on a new set of time‐varying indicators on permanent employment protection, fixed‐term contracts and temporary agency work regulations. We find evidence in support of the hypothesis that fixed‐term contracts have been effective stepping‐stones to permanent jobs during the period under observation. On the contrary, flexible temporary agency work regulations seem to induce a substitution of permanent with temporary contracts.     

PRODUCTIVITY MATTERS FOR TRADE POLICY: THEORY AND EVIDENCE*

In the growth literature that investigates the effect of trade liberalization on productivity, nearly all studies assume that trade policy is determined independently of productivity, and, hence, it is exogenous. I show, both theoretically and empirically, that this assumption is not valid in general. I find that in Colombia more productive sectors receive more protection and the sectors with higher productivity gains are liberalized less even in the presence of a large unilateral liberalization shock that affects all sectors. Researchers may be underestimating the positive effect of liberalization on productivity when they do not account for the endogeneity bias.     

ENDOGENOUS ECONOMIC POLICY AND THE STRUCTURE OF PRODUCTION: THEORY AND EVIDENCE

This paper develops and tests a model that predicts a positive relationship between absolute levels of capital stock and how favourable are policies toward capital. The theoretical model we use is a model of campaign contributions and electoral competition, extended to consider the implications for factor mobility and hence the structure of production. There are two main predictions. First, countries with more capital stock tend to implement more pro‐capital policies. Second, in a two‐country model, the country that initially has more capital will be able to attract capital inflows from the other country. Given additional assumptions on the production side, this yields the prediction that the more different are countries' policies, the more different will be the set of goods that they produce. These predictions of the model are confirmed using panel data on cross‐state differences in policies and economic outcomes in India.     

FISCAL EXPENDITURE AND INDUSTRIAL LAND PRICE IN CHINA: THEORY AND EVIDENCE

This paper aims to discover the mechanism behind the positive correlation between local fiscal expenditure and industrial land price in China, a stylized fact discovered by bivariate and regression analyses. The model shows that if the positive externality of government expenditure on growth is sufficiently high, the local government has an incentive to increase public spending in exchange for the reduced demand for industrial land by charging a higher markup and driving up the industrial land price. Therefore, we observe a positive correlation between the local fiscal expenditure and industrial land price. (JEL D42, H72, R51)     

集群网络学习与企业创新绩效:基于嵊州领带生产企业集群的实证分析

随着交通运输条件的改善和信息技术的快速发展，传统的以节约运输和通讯费用为追求的地理集聚已经很难再对当前企业集群的存在与发展作出令人信服的解释。当前企业集群的存在与发展在于地理相近性和社会根植性，企业集群能够为群内企业的发展提供一个知识丰富并能够易于溢出与共享的网络学习平台，因此，集群内企业网络学习的强度成为影响其创新绩效的关键因素。利用浙江嵊州领带企业集群的数据，对集群内企业网络学习强度和创新绩效之问的关系进行了实证分析。结果表明，无论是正式还是非正式的网络学习强度均对集群内企业的创新绩效具有显著的积极作用。     

GOVERNMENT‐MANDATED DISCRIMINATORY POLICIES: THEORY AND EVIDENCE*

We study an economy with private and public sectors in which workers invest in imperfectly observable skills that are important to the private sector but not to the public sector. Government regulation allows native majority workers to be employed in the public sector with positive probability while excluding the minority from it. We show that even when the public sector offers the highest wage rate, it is still possible that the discriminated group is, on average, economically more successful. The widening Chinese/Malay wage gap in Malaysia since the adoption of its New Economic Policy in 1970 supports our model.     

DEMOCRACY AND ECONOMIC REFORM: THEORY AND SOME EVIDENCE FROM THE RUSSIAN CASE

The paper examines theoretical issues concerning the relationship between political democracy and economic reform and builds on the empirical material from the recent experience of Russia. The process of transition to democracy is shown to have started spontaneously due to the situation of power stalemate among pressure groups that came to control the communist system in the years preceding its ultimate collapse. The unrestrained control by those groups is shown to be the reason behind the continued economic collapse, while gradual build-up of the democratic system can in the long run act in the direction of improving the chances for a successful economic reform.     

CROSS‐BORDER MARRIAGE COSTS AND MARRIAGE BEHAVIOR: THEORY AND EVIDENCE

This article analyzes cross‐border marriages between mainland China and Hong Kong (HK). We examine the effects of a reduction in cross‐border marriage costs following an increase in marriage‐migration quotas and the handover of HK to China. We find that cross‐border marriages mainly involve men from the low tail of the HK attribute distribution. We also find that HK women's position in the marriage market and within households deteriorated following the reduction in cross‐border marriage costs and that their disadvantaged position exerts an incentive effect on their labor market behavior. These outcomes are consistent with our matching model.     

新贸易理论、比较利益理论及其经验研究的新成果:文献综述

此文择要评述否定贸易理论四大命题(比较利益说、要素价格均等说、斯托尔珀-萨缪尔森定理、罗宾辛斯基定理)的理论研究和经验证据,以及最新的内生比较优势理论和区别分工网络效应和规模经济的新贸易理论.大量的理论研究成果证明,上述四大命题不可能是一般规律,它们只在非常不现实的假定条件、特别的模型和特定参数值范围内成立,而相关的经验证据也推翻了这四大命题.但是,交易效率改进会使更多的分工正网络效应被利用的理论,却是有着相当广泛适用性的规律.     

UNCERTAINTY AND THE POSITIVE THEORY OF THE PUBLIC ENTERPRISE*

This paper extends the analysis of Rees (1984a) of a public enterprise pursuing a size-related objective in the face of uncertain demand to a situation where its managers may be risk neutral or risk averse and where the public enterprise may produce more than one output. The optimal pricing policy of the public enterprise is analysed and the importance of not only the expected profit constraint but also the attitude to risk of the public enterprise in determining its relative prices is demonstrated.     

FISCAL EXPANSIONS,UNEMPLOYMENT, AND LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION: THEORY AND EVIDENCE*

Structural VARs indicate that for many OECD countries labor force participation, employment, and the unemployment rate significantly increase following increases in government expenditures under a variety of specifications and identification schemes. Fiscal expansions also tend to increase real wages. Existing models have difficulties in generating such responses. We show that the empirical regularities can be reproduced with two additions into a standard New Keynesian model with matching frictions: (a) a labor force participation choice and (b) workers’ heterogeneity.     

USING LOTTERIES TO FINANCE PUBLIC GOODS: THEORY AND EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE*

This study explores the economics of charitable fund‐raising. We begin by developing theory that examines the optimal lottery design while explicitly relaxing both risk‐neutrality and preference homogeneity assumptions. We test our theory using a battery of experimental treatments and find that our theoretical predictions are largely confirmed. Specifically, we find that single‐ and multiple‐prize lotteries dominate the voluntary contribution mechanism both in total dollars raised and the number of contributors attracted. Moreover, we find that the optimal fund‐raising mechanism depends critically on the risk postures of potential contributors and preference heterogeneity.