中国经济走势分析(1998—2002)——兼论以住宅金融创新为突破口实现城乡就业联动

本文首先分析了 2 0 0 1年在世界经济增速减缓中 ,中国经济显似“一枝独秀”。然而 ,就中国经济的自身情况看 ,仍存在着一些值得重视的问题。本文进一步考察了近几年来中国经济增长的特点 ,并提出今后发展的逻辑思路 :扩大就业问题 ,包括城镇人员就业与农村劳动力向城镇转移 ,是下一步中国经济增长中需要解决的一个突出问题 ;这主要靠城镇产业结构的升级来拉动 ;而这又要靠城镇消费结构的升级来拉动 ;住宅业的发展是城镇消费结构升级的一个重要内容 ;在提高和培育居民购买力的过程中 ,住宅金融创新是关键的一环 ;通过住宅金融创新 ,推动城镇住宅业的发展和我国城市化的进程 ,可以做到以城带乡 ,以乡促城 ,实现城乡就业联动 ;由此 ,推动中国经济实现新一轮的快速增长。     

Aggregate demand shocks and economic growth

The traditional view of growth and fluctuations implies that aggregate demand shocks result in only transitory departures from trend or “normal” output, which is determined exclusively by aggregate supply factors. Using a simple dynamic framework for a less-developed economy, a series of models is developed to show that aggregate demand can have a permanent effect on economic growth. It is shown that even if the economy converges to some “normal” path, this path itself may be altered by large demand shocks, due to increasing returns and hysteresis effects in labor markets and balance of payments constraints. It is also shown that the economy may not converge to its “normal” path, in which case fiscal and monetary policy will have long-term effects on output and growth.     

Marxist Theories of Crisis and the Current Economic Crisis

Abstract

This paper uses data from the US economy and finds that among Marxist theories of crisis the marxian law of the falling rate of profit as a result of the increasing composition of capital explains the crisis of the 1970s and the end of the “golden age” of capital accumulation. Despite the dramatic increase in the rate of surplus value and the limited fall in the capital-output ratio profitability has not recovered sufficiently during the neoliberal period due to the survival of lagging capitals and the increasing use of unproductive labor. Financialization is one of the effects of low profitability. In the recent years financial bubbles the associated wealth effects and the significant increase in the debt of all domestic sectors raised aggregate demand and provided the stimulus for the anemic growth of the period. The break of the bubbles implies the return to the weak fundamentals of the real economy and possibly a deep and prolonged period of stagnation and crisis.     

A Generalized Exactly Additive Decomposition of Aggregate Labor Productivity Growth

Aggregate labor productivity (ALP) growth—i.e., growth of output per unit of labor—may be decomposed into additive contributions due to within‐sector productivity growth effect, dynamic structural reallocation effect (Baumol effect), and static structural reallocation effect (Denison effect) of cross‐sectional components (e.g., industry or region) of output and labor. This paper implements ALP growth decomposition that is “generalized” to output in constant prices and to output in chained prices (i.e., chained volume measure or CVM) and “exactly additive” since with either output the sum of contributions exactly equals “actual” ALP growth. It compares this “generalized exactly additive” decomposition (GEAD) to the “traditional” (TRAD) ALP growth decomposition devised for output in constant prices. The results show GEAD and TRAD are exactly additive when output is in constant prices, but GEAD is exactly additive while TRAD is not when output is in CVM. Also, GEAD components are empirically purer than or analytically superior to those from TRAD. Moreover, considering that contributions to ALP growth can be classified by industry or region each year over many years, GEAD provides a more well‐grounded picture over time of industrial or regional transformation than TRAD. Therefore, GEAD should replace TRAD in practice.     

Aspects of International Fragmentation

The paper uses a specific‐factors framework to address efficiency and distributional implications of international fragmentation which is driven by a low foreign wage rate. Focusing on the cost‐savings linkage between fragmentation and labor demand in the remaining domestic activities, the author establishes a fragmentation surplus. If capital is an indivisible asset specific to the fragment produced abroad, then fragmentation may cause a domestic welfare loss, because outsourcing takes place in discrete steps where it affords firms “quasi‐market‐power” on the domestic labor market. The regime shift from domestic production to fragmentation is modeled as a two‐stage game. In stage one, firms locate indivisible assets at home or abroad; in stage two they choose optimal employment. The share of fragmented firms is endogenously determined. The paper explores conditions under which outsourcing is beneficial for the domestic economy.     

An essay on the biological origin of producing surplus value by human labor

In this essay, we explore the origins of the ability to produce surplus value through human labor. The main hypothesis is that the safety factor for energy capacity in humans determines the surplus value of human labor in human societies. We estimate the safety factor for Homo sapiens to be around 2.78. This is based on the rise of the encephalization quotient from 2.5 in Australopithecus africanus to 5.8 in H. sapiens, and we assume this rise is matched by a rise in the safety factor from 1.2 to 2.78. Being a communal species compels human individuals to produce both their personal and their community’s energy need. The possible correlation between Dunbar’s number and the safety factor of energy production capacity provides a very essential feature of human labor, namely “surplus value”. The average labor activity of a modern human is sufficient to provide energy for two to three people’s energy burden in a community. Human labor not only produces the energy for survival of an individual but also produces a surplus due to the safety factor. Therefore, work activity of an individual enables them to supply more than they need for themselves as a value.     

劳动、价值和企业所有权——马克思劳动价值论的现代拓展

现代“管理革命”和“资本革命”改变了马克思价值理论得以孕育的客观条件。在出资、创业、管理三种职能分离的当代大型企业中 ,创造价值的劳动是包含创业者、管理者及专业资本经营者在内的组合劳动。相应 ,剩余价值也由过去的资本独占演变成了由资本与劳动分享。而两者的分享比例则受创业必要资本量和劳动的人力资本特征(创新性、可测性 )等变量的影响。至于资本报酬及资本所有权的原因 ,则是资本的稀缺性。简言之 ,劳动分享净剩余的根源是劳动知识化 ,而资本分享净剩余则源于资本稀缺性的继续存在。本文最后简述了上述观点对我国社会主义改革的几点启示。     

Can Growth Ease Class Conflict?

This paper proposes a theory that links labor supply to wage growth and economic growth, and the conflict of interest between capital and labor. During the early stages of industrialization of a country, "surplus" labor drawn from the traditional sector of the economy is available to the modern capitalist sector at a constant or only slowly rising wage. As industrialization proceeds, this labor surplus vanishes, leading to wages rising in tandem with the growth of output. As long as there is surplus labor, workers in the modern capitalist sector, who are organized, have little interest in growth as it does not raise wages. The effect of growth is external to them, simply drawing more workers into the capitalist sector and enabling the entrants to receive rents. So capitalist-sector workers would like to redistribute income regardless of the adverse effect on growth. Once the economy grows enough for the subsistence sector to vanish, further growth raises wages. Hence, this change in the structure of the economy leads to a reduction in the intensity of the labor–capital conflict.
The dual economy model implies that growth rates rise over time and fall after the exhaustion of the labor surplus which is consistent with the stylized fact of economic growth.     

关于农村剩余劳动力转移对河南经济发展影响的实证分析

河南作为我国人口和农业大省,由于其农村中存在的大量剩余劳动力,造成了就业结构与经济结构的错位,这严重地制约着河南农业现代化和经济结构高级化的实现.实践证明,农村剩余劳动力转移的速度直接影响着河南经济增长的速度,因此,应采取多种措施促进劳动力的转移,以此为契机加速河南经济社会快速发展.     

Population,land, and growth

This paper suggests a new explanation for changes in economic and population growth with a long run perspective, emphasizing the role of land in the development process. Starting from a pre-industrialization state called the “Malthusian regime”, land and labor are the main production factors. The size of population is limited by the quantity of land available for households and by incomes. Technical progress driven by a “Boserupian effect” may push the economy towards a take-off regime. In this regime, capital accumulation begins and a “learning-by-doing” effect in production takes over from the “Boserupian effect”. If this effect is strong enough, the economy can reach an “ultimate growth regime”. In the different phases, land plays a crucial role.     

International Trade and Growth Miracles: the Implications of Nonhomothetic Preferences

If the rate of saving increases with income then a low per capita level of the capital stock may be self‐sustaining. In these circumstances international trade may allow an economy to quickly increase its per capita capital stock in a self‐reinforcing “growth miracle” process. A labor‐abundant economy trading with a capital‐abundant economy will see its wage rate rise relative to autarky. This rise in the wage rate also increases the savings rate and so raises the following period’s per capita capital stock. In this way a low‐income economy may exhibit large and permanent increases in its level of GDP per capita after opening its markets to international trade.     

On the existence of subgame-perfect equilibrium in infinite-action games of perfect information

We study infinite-action games of perfect information with finitely or countably many players. It is assumed that payoff functions are continuous, strategy sets are compact, and constraint correspondences are continuous. Under these assumptions we prove the existence of subgame-perfect equilibria in pure strategies which are measurable functions. If for any date t, the subgame that is played from date t on depends on the history up to t only as this history affects some vector of “state” variables, then equilibrium strategies admit a “closed-loop” representation as measurable functions of the “state” trajectories.     

Externalities,Productivity and Sustained Growth

This paper shows that the existence of endogenous growth, in the closed‐form solution, in a single sector economy with a convex technology in an overlapping generations (OLG) framework, which attempts to fill the current gap in endogenous growth theory. It finds there is an unbounded growth when trade, in the form of knowledge spillover, affects labor productivity through the formation of human capital with self‐education that is not an independent sector but builds the human capital here. This conclusion holds even though there is the “limited income” expressed as the “non‐increasing wage/investment ratio” for each generation. Moreover, it shows the convergence of growth rates for each country, which is unique and constant, while the growth rate per capita negatively relates with each country's population growth rate. Also, there is no “poverty trap” with the introduction of externalities that is different from existing literature.     

零工经济如何改变性别工资差距*——基于家庭与市场的双重视角

中国企业生产与性别收入分配的格局正在发生深刻变化。零工就业意味着雇佣的非正式化与收入的不稳定化，女性被大量吸纳进入零工经济的同时，参与劳动力市场和家庭的方式也发生转变，性别工资差距可能随之变化。理论分析表明，在市场领域，非正式雇佣加深了劳动后备军对工资的挤压效应，女性作为劳动力“蓄水池”，收入下降效应更为明显；在家庭领域，不稳定收入加深了劳动者的自我规训，家务劳动时间分配不均使收入差距进一步扩张。在上述两种效应下，零工经济中的性别工资差距将大于非零工经济。基于微观调查数据的经验研究结果验证了上述理论推演。劳动者“灵活性”和“安全性”的综合指标表明，只有建立灵活安全的劳动力市场机制，重视弱势群体的就业保护，才能真正推动零工经济成为“稳就业、保增长”的中坚力量。     

Globalization,labor standards,and women's rights: dilemmas of collective (in)action in an interdependent world

This paper challenges the idea that a “social clause” to enforce global labor standards through international trade agreements serves the interests of women export workers in poor countries. Drawing on fieldwork in Bangladesh and empirical studies, the author argues that exploitative as these jobs appear to Western reformers, for many women workers in the South they represent genuine opportunities. Clearly, these women would wish to better their working conditions; yet having no social safety net, and knowing that jobs in the informal economy, their only alternative, offer far worse prospects, women cannot fight for better conditions. Moreover, global efforts to enforce labor standards through trade sanctions may lead to declining employment or to the transfer of jobs to the informal economy. Lacking measures that also address the conditions of workers in this informal economy, demands for “the social clause” will reinforce, and may exacerbate, social inequalities in the labor market.     

Economic growth,corruption and tax evasion

In this paper, we explore tax revenues in a regime of widespread corruption in a growth model. We develop a Ramsey model of economic growth with a rival but non-excludable public good which is financed by taxes which can be evaded via corrupt tax inspectors. We prove that the relationship between the tax rate and tax collection, in a dynamic framework, is not unique, but is different depending on the relevance of the “shame effect”. We show that in all three cases — “low, middle and high shame” countries, the growth rate increases as the tax rate increases up to a threshold value, after which the growth rate begins to decrease as the tax rate increases. But, for intermediate tax rates, the rate of growth for “low shame” countries is lower than that of “uniform shame” countries which is, in turn, lower than that of “high shame” countries. This happens because the growth rate is more sensitive to variations of t in an honest country rather than in a corrupt country.     

Financial liberalization,urban unemployment and welfare: some implications of the artificial low interest rate and the high wage rate policies in LDCs

This paper investigates how the low interest rate policy in the commercial banking sector affects the urban unemployment in a small open Harris-Todaro model. The rate of urban unemployment unambiguously declines. The volume of it shrinks if the rural-to-urban employment rate and the urban unemployment rate are sufficiently high relative to the wage elasticity of agricultural labor demand. The national income increases if agriculture is dominant in the domestic production. In such an economy, the “financial liberalization” advocated by the Mckinnon-Shaw school may aggravate the welfare even if it eliminates the “financial repression”.     

ECONOMIC PRODUCTIVITY IN ISRAEL, 1950–1965 1

Macroeconomic productivity in Israel is here conceived as comparison of output with factor inputs during given periods, and as creation of sustained capacity out of given resource increments. However, present social accounting practice prevents full implementation of this second approach. In contrast to nine European countries, only one third of the rapid growth rate of Israel in 1950–1965 is “explained” by the “Residual” because of relatively large infrastructural investments and of growth problems. One of these problems is inflationary pressures which caused productivity increases to restrain the rise of product prices by 30 per cent only below the rise of input prices. The real productivity gain accrued, in Israel and in the U.S.A. (1919–1957), nearly fully to labor because unit returns to capital remained constant whereas those to labor sharply rose. Some refinements of the statistical models are attempted by incorporating the utilization rates of labor and capital (for industry); and by measuring product from the uses, instead of from the income, side, adding the differences to the capital shares. This makes distributive factor shares nearly constant as postulated by Cobb-Douglas. In order to get a basis for appraising efficiency in creating long-term capacity, that part of product increments is measured which represents rises of p.c. final domestic uses and changes in the export surplus. This “net margin” formed in Israel one fifth and in the U.S.A. (1889–1913) much less of incremental product. Though in Israel one quarter, and in the U.S.A. over half (in 1919–1953) of the net margin went into sonsumption, large proportions of it presumably actually created human capacity. A comparison of product growth rates with population growth, and of the breakdown of the resulting p.c. product growth rates into full final uses, for Israel and two groups, of developed and less developed countries in the fifties shows, inter-alia, that in the L.D.C. only small proportions of their presumable capacity creation was financed by net capital inflows, thus imposing upon them domestic saving rates which presumably are too high to be sustainable.     

Progressive Tax and Inequality in a Unionized Economy*

In this paper, we develop a heterogeneous-agent, endogenous growth model of a unionized economy with distinct progressive tax schedules on labor and capital income. With time preference heterogeneity, the effective labor force, balanced growth, and income inequality are endogenously determined, and these interact with each other. A reduction in the degree of progressive labor tax yields a “double-dividend” in terms of reducing income inequality and boosting economic growth, while capital income progressivity displays the usual growth–inequality trade-off. Particularly, the double-dividend effect becomes more pronounced when unionization is declined or trade unions become more wage-oriented, leading to the so-called “Cheshire cat” phenomenon.     

Money in the pure consumption loan model

The purpose of this paper is to show how modern techniques of Temporary competitive equilibrium analysis can be applied to models of the “pure consumption loan model” type. One considers Samuelson's simplest model where traders live two periods and where money is the only store of value. It is proved that a temporary equilibrium exists if price expectations are sufficiently independent of current prices. A stationary market equilibrium is shown to exist if there is a set of traders (i) whose total resources are greater when they are young than when they are old, (ii) who are indifferent between present and future consumption. It is proved that this existence theorem still holds if the economy is sufficiently “close” to an economy which has this property. A stationary market equilibrium is shown to be Pareto optimal if all traders hold positive cash balances. It may be inefficient if this condition is not satisfied, for some traders may then be willing to borrow, which they cannot do in this model.