Segmentation and discrimination in China's emerging industrial labor market

This article analyzes wage-setting behavior in four types of enterprise: state-owned enterprises (SOEs), township and village enterprises (TVEs), joint ventures (JVs), and foreign-invested firms (FIFs) in China's light consumer goods industry in 1998. We find that there is no significant difference among the four types of firms in the returns to education, while FIFs pay a wage premium for experience. Gender wage discrimination is found equally across all four firm types. However, the wage advantage enjoyed by urban residents seems to have disappeared across all ownership categories.     

Danish agricultural history ofthe 1920s

The aim of the paper is to qualify the meaning of an urban–rural wage gap by taking a household approach to the issue of standard of living, using household surveys for five worker groups in urban or rural Sweden in 1914/1920. The urban–rural gap in terms of total household real earnings is estimated by including all the household income and using controls for household size and composition, deflated by separate urban and rural costs-of-living indices. To further assess the results, levels of household expenditure and the nutritional value of food are compared between the worker groups. The results indicate that the urban–rural earnings gaps were small or moderate, due to the higher cost of living in urban areas and the practice of payments in kind and home production in rural areas. Some differences between urban and rural workers in terms of patterns of consumption and the nutritional value of food consumed can be attributed to differences in earnings, but a substantial part depended on the nature of the working loads, employment terms and housing conditions. These results thus modify the picture usually given in the literature on urban–rural wage gaps and income elasticity of food items.     

Wage differentials between urban and rural-urban migrant workers in China

Since the end of the 1980s, the number of migrants working in the urban labor market has increased dramatically. However, migrant workers are treated differently from urban workers. In this paper we examine the labor market discrimination against rural migrants from the point of view of wage differentials using CHIP-2007 data. We apply Jann pooled method to deal with index number problem and use Heckman two step model to correct selection problem when decomposing the wage gap. The decomposition results show that a significant difference in wage gains persists between the two groups as late as 2007. In 2007 migrants only earned 49% of urban workers' income and 17% of the wage gap cannot be explained by observed factors. In detail, differences in educational attainment, work experience and distribution across industry, occupation, and ownership of enterprises account for most of the explained wage gap.     

中间品进口多样化、企业创新与工资水平

基于2000-2006年中国制造业企业数据库以及进出口海关数据库的匹配数据引入企业创新机制效应检验中间品进口多样化的工资溢出效应。研究表明中间品进口多样化、企业创新均能显著提高企业的工资水平。进一步考察企业的出口状态、所有制结构及企业所属地区差异后发现中间品进口多样化对出口企业、外资企业以及东部地区企业的工资影响更为显著。分位数回归结果进一步显示中间品进口多样化及企业创新对工资分布高分位企业的工资影响更为显著。基于中介效应模型的传导机制检验，认为中间品进口多样化通过节约成本、提升生产率及企业创新影响中国制造业企业工资水平的利润共享机制存在。在控制成本效应及生产率效应两种机制之后，企业创新成为中间品进口多样化作用于企业工资的新机制。     

Causes of repressed inflation in the Soviet consumer market, 1965–1989: retail price subsidies,the siphoning effect,and the budget deficit

This article uses material which has recently been made available from Russian archives to analyse the causes of repressed inflation in the Soviet consumer market. It finds that retail price subsidies, which increased as a proportion of state budget expenditure from 4 per cent in 1965 to 20 per cent in the late 1980s, intensified consumer market disequilibrium. The provision of these subsidies had negative effects on the market by maintaining the purchasing power of households for consumer goods and by increasing the budget deficit. The unauthorized purchase of consumer goods by enterprises tended to increase during these years also.     

The gender wage gap in Myanmar: Adding insult to injury?

Using two surveys from 2017, we analyze the gender wage gap for urban workers in Myanmar. We start from a standard wage equation and condition on education, experience, health and a small set of household demographic attributes. Subsequently we control for differences in occupational choice and sector of employment. We estimate the models with sample selection correction and this leads to estimated average wage offers that are lower than the observed average wages for women. Selection into wage work results in a workforce where female wage-workers have higher levels of education compared to their male counterparts. However, average wages for female workers continue to be 29% lower than male average wages. Differences in observable attributes do not account for this gap. Instead, it is associated with a lower base wage and lower remuneration of women’s experience. Going beyond the traditional decomposition methods, we utilize our matched employer–employee survey to generate exact comparisons of female and male production workers with equal levels of education and experience, employed in the same enterprises. Even in this setting, we find a gender wage gap of 13%. Our analysis thus indicates discrimination against women in Myanmar’s labor markets.     

居民家庭耐用消费品变迁中的技术与市场

改革开放以来,中国经济社会各方面发生了重大变化,居民家庭耐用消费品的变化尤为明显。实证研究表明,随着市场化改革的不断深入,城乡居民家庭耐用消费品的种类日益增多,质量和性能不断提高,究其原因,则是耐用消费品中隐含的技术的不断进步。造成技术进步并进一步推动居民家庭耐用消费品种类和性能不断提高的根本原因则是市场经济体制的逐步建立和完善,尽管技术进步收益的城乡步伐并不同步。     

Was there an ‘industrious revolution’ before the industrial revolution? An empirical exercise for England,c. 1300–1830

It is conventionally assumed that the pre‐modern working year was fixed and that consumption varied with changes in wages and prices. This is challenged by the twin theories of the ‘industrious’ revolution and the consumer revolution, positing a longer working year as people earned surplus money to buy novel goods. In this study, we turn the conventional view on its head, fixing consumption rather than labour input. Specifically, we use a basket of basic consumption goods and compute the working year of rural and urban day labourers required to achieve that. By comparing with independent estimates of the actual working year, we find two ‘industrious’ revolutions among rural workers; both, however, are attributable to economic hardship, and we detect no signs of a consumer revolution. For urban labourers, by contrast, a growing gap between their actual working year and the work required to buy the basket provides great scope for a consumer revolution.     

企业形象的公关策划

随着我国经济的发展 ,感性消费阶段已在高级享受类消费品、部分舒适类消费品中出现 ,并呈现出一种加速发展 ,向全部舒适类消费品、生存必需消费品扩散的一种趋势。在这种趋势下 ,企业应该更加注重感性营销。运用感性设计、感性商标、感性包装、感性价格、感性广告、感性销售等     

The minimum wage,exports, and firm performance: Evidence from Indonesia

This paper examines the interrelationship between changes in the provincial minimum wage, firms’ export behavior, and firms’ performance in Indonesia. In this regard, we apply a two-stage least squares regression analysis to detailed firm-level data of manufacturing enterprises during 2002–2014. We find that an increase in the minimum wage is associated with a decrease in a firm’s employment and productivity, but increase in its probability of exporting and markup. We also use the 2012 minimum wage reform in Indonesia to conduct a difference-in-difference analysis to further mitigate the potential endogeneity of minimum wage regulation. Our findings are generally robust to alternative estimation methods. Moreover, quantile regression results indicate that the average wage, firm size, and the education level of workers also affect the predictions. Above all, this study suggests that Indonesian exports and the country’s comparative advantage in international markets are not negligibly affected by higher labor costs caused by the growth in the minimum wage.     

THE EVOLUTION OF GENDER EARNINGS GAPS AND DISCRIMINATION IN URBAN CHINA, 1988–95

This paper analyzes the impact of market liberalization on gender earnings differentials and discrimination against women in urban China at the beginning of the 1990s. The observed stability in the overall gender earnings gap between 1988 and 1995 is shown to result from a complex set of evolutions across enterprises, earnings distributions, and time. Our results highlight the interplay of opposing forces, with economic reforms contributing to changes in managers’ behaviors in different dimensions. On the one hand, by bringing more competition, liberalization favored a reduction in discriminating behaviors in both urban collectives and foreign‐invested enterprises; on the other hand, by relaxing institutional rules, it led to a loosening of the government's egalitarian wage‐setting policies, leaving more space for discrimination in state‐owned enterprises.     

Working Women in an Urban Setting: Traders,Vendors and Food Security in Accra

Data collected from a 1997 household survey carried out in Accra, Ghana are used to look at the crucial role that women play as income earners and securing access to food in urban areas. One-third of the households surveyed are headed by women. For all households, women's labor force participation is high with 75% of all households having at least one working woman. The high number of female-headed households and the large percentage of working women in the sample provide a good backdrop for looking at how women earn and spend income differently than men in an urban area. Livelihood strategies for both men and women are predominantly labor based and dependent on social networks. For all households in the sample, food is still the single most important item in the total budget. Yet, important and striking differences between men's and women's livelihoods and expenditure patterns exist. Compared to men, women are less likely to be employed as wage earners, and more likely to work as street food vendors or petty traders. Women earn lower incomes, but tend to allocate more of their budget to basic goods for themselves and their children, while men spend more on entertainment for themselves only. Despite lower incomes and additional demands on their time as housewives and mothers, female-headed households, petty traders and street food vendors have the largest percentage of food-secure households. Women may be achieving household food security, but at what cost? This paper explores differences in income, expenditure and consumption patterns in an effort to answer this question, and suggests ways that urban planners and policy makers can address special concerns to working women in urban areas.     

基于认同的消费者行为研究综述

通过购买具有符号象征功能的商品,来表达自我认同或者获得社会认同,已经成为解释消费者购买动机的重要路径,也是消费者行为学研究的前沿主题。文章系统回顾了认同对消费行为影响的西方相关文献,首先介绍了认同与符号消费的含义、消费认同理论的研究路径,然后从认同凸显、认同关联、认同威胁和认同冲突四个方面探讨了认同对消费行为的影响,最后探讨了未来研究方向。     

民营企业工资增长机制影响因素研究——以河北省为例

本文应用问卷调查和数理统计的方法针对河北省民营企业工资增长机制展开调查和分析,旨在描述河北省民营企业近15年的职工工资变化规律,发现国民收入初次分配中存在的问题,挖掘影响民营企业职工工资变化的关键因素,为构建适应河北省发展需求的科学合理的民营企业工资增长机制奠定基础。     

消费者民族中心主义30年:回顾、反思与展望

在消费者行为学研究领域,消费者民族中心主义是解释消费者进行跨国产品选择问题的重要概念。自Shimp and Sharma（1987）首次提出这一概念以来,迄今已经30年,受到研究者的广泛关注。但在当前经济全球化的浪潮下,伴随跨境消费行为的日趋频繁,消费者日益面临着"支持国货"与"偏好洋货"的选择性冲突,使得消费者民族中心主义能否适用于解决当前的现实问题开始受到质疑。近些年,部分研究者尝试对消费者民族中心主义进行重新建构,并提出了新的测量量表,以期为消费者民族中心主义适用新的时代背景开辟路径。基于此,本研究主要围绕着消费者民族中心主义这一构念,从其概念演化、历史渊源、取得成果及测度方法等方面进行较为全面的研究回顾与反思,同时也就近些年的最新研究进展进行了总结归纳,最后展望了未来可能的研究方向。     

我国居民消费的平滑性研究——基于“相关性UC模型”的实证

我国居民消费的平滑性是扩大内需的政策产生效果的一个障碍。本文利用"相关性UC模型"来研究收入-消费关系,试图利用该模型中消费、总收入和持久收入之间新息的相关性来验证我国居民消费行为更符合哪一种消费行为理论。最后实证结果说明,凯恩斯主义消费理论,习惯形成理论和预防性储蓄,持久收入假说都不能完美的解释我国居民的消费行为。相对来说,其消费行为更接近于持久收入理论。     

Employment constraints and sub-optimality in Chinese enterprises

In China the employment of rural migrants is tightly controlledby government, with regard both to numbers and to jobs: urbanresidents receive preference and are protected against competitionfrom migrants. A survey of enterprises employing both urbanresidents and rural migrants in four cities is analysed, usingenterprise-level earnings comparisons, employment functionsand production functions. We find both 'job discrimination'and 'wage discrimination' against migrants. The two groups arehighly imperfect substitutes or, in a sense, complementary:migrants do the jobs that non-migrants will nor or cannot do.The marginal product of migrants exceeds their wage whereasthat of non-migrants is below their wage. Although many enterpriseshave surplus urban workers, they find it beneficial to hiremigrant workers as well and are constrained in their employmentof migrants.     

Evaluating Chinese Industrial Reforms: SOEs between Output Growth and Profit Decline

This paper evaluates Chinese industrial reforms against a background of conflicting evidence for rapid output growth and declining profitability in China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Using enterprise level data for various ownership forms from four coastal cities it is shown that the profitability decline in SOEs has little to do with allocative inefficiency such as excess wage payments. Rather, growing competitive pressures on the domestic market are responsible for the erosion of profit rates in Chinese industry. Industrial reforms that lead to an increase in managerial, autonomy and provide material incentives to workers can be shown to have a positive impact on enterprise profit rates. The overall favourable assessment of industrial reforms in China is qualified by substantial regional differences not covered by the sample data.     

Wage misalignment in CFA countries: were labour market policies to blame?

Wage rigidity, stemming from highly distortive labour marketpolicies, is a natural candidate to explain the overvaluationof the CFA franc after the adverse external shocks of the 1980s.This paper uses a variety of data sources to assess wage rigidityin CFA countries until the 1994 devaluation, and to analysewhether it was due to labour market policies. The paper showsthat wages were high in CFA countries, compared with both wagesin similar countries and the labour earnings of similar individualswithin the same countries. It also shows that wages were rigidin real terms, in the sense of following closely the fluctuationsof government wages and consumer prices, but it finds no evidenceof nominal wage rigidity, though. From an international perspective,minimum wages were not high enough to account for the observedwage misalignment. Moreover, their adjustment over time washighly responsive to real shocks. Private sector unions, inturn, seemed more instrumental in achieving wage moderationthan wage drift. Their members usually had lower wages thansimilar, non-unionised workers, which probably reflects the'subordinate' nature of the labour movement. The most likelycandidates to explain wage misalignment and real rigidity inCFA countries in the 1980s and early 1990s are therefore governmentpay policies and (possibly) limited competition in product markets.     

The long run implications of a two sector model with immobile capital

Summary Keynesian IS-LM models assume the production of a single homogenous commodity which can either be consumed or added to an immobile capital stock. Elsewhere the short run implications of both fixed and flexible wage versions of this model were found altered when consumer and investment goods are produced in separate industries and sold for different prices. This paper reports the long run implications of such models. It turns out that qualitatively the steady state multipliers for the one and two commodity models are virtually identical.The research described in this paper was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Ford Foundation. This paper has benefited from suggestions by William Starnes and James Tobin.