A Schumpeterian model of investment and innovation with labor market regulation

Theoretical and empirical models provide ambiguous responses on the relationship between labor market regulation, innovation and investment. On the one hand, labor market regulation increases firms' adjustment costs and, ceteris paribus, decreases investment. But, on the other, it also stimulates firms to invest, innovate, increase productivity and profit in the long run. In this paper we present an endogenous growth model that describes the role of these opposite forces, and why a stricter labor market regulation may positively affect innovation and investment in the long run. Most of the theoretical and empirical results hold for Italy, Germany, France, and Spain.     

Inflation-unemployment tradeoff and regional labor market data

We estimate a linear and a piecewise linear Phillips curve model with regional labor market data for West German and Neue L?nder. Employing regional observations allows us to country difference the data. This eliminates, under the assumption of homogeneous L?nder, supply shocks and changes in the formation of expectations as possible identification failures. With seemingly unrelated regressions we find a flat Phillips curve in the Neue L?nder. For the West German L?nder a piecewise linear model with a higher inflation-unemployment tradeoff for the regime of low unemployment rates fits the data very well. The results hold true if we control for endogeneity of the unemployment rate. With a kinked but upward sloping aggregate supply curve there seems to be room for stabilization policies, at least in the range of aggregate demand shifts that our data covers. First version received: December 2000/Final version accepted: Jan. 2002 RID="*" ID="*"  An earlier version of this paper was written while the second author was at Universidad Carlos III in Madrid. He thanks Juan Dolado and is grateful for financial support by the TMR Program on New Approaches for the Study of Economic Fluctuations. He would also like to thank Bertrand Koebel for his critique on that earlier version. Both authors are grateful to an editor and three anonymous referees for very helpful comments. Moreover, we wish to thank participants of the seminar on Quantitative Wirtschaftsforschung by Jürgen Wolters and Peter Kuhbier, Freie Universit?t Berlin. Finally we profited from discussions with participants at the conferences of the European Economic Association in Lausanne and the Verein für Socialpolitik in Magdeburg where the paper was presented. Of course, all errors are to our sole responsibility.     

Recycling of carbon/energy taxes and the labor market

This paper provides a quantitative assessmet of a cost shift from labor to energy by means of a carbon/energy tax. The analysis utilizes a general equilibrium model for the European Community, placing the emphasis on the modeling of labor supply. The paper highlights the importance of the feedback from an induced increase in labor demand to wage formation. It shows that the goals of CO₂ reduction and improved employment are complementary, provided the reduction in labor costs financed by the carbon/energy tax is not offset by increased wage claims. Under this condition, reduced CO₂ is consistent with an increase in GDP.     

The division of labor and the extent of the market

Summary. A firms degree of specialization is modeled as the number of different goods it produces. When a firm chooses its degree of specialization, it faces a tradeoff between the fixed cost and the marginal cost of production. A firms degree of specialization is shown to increase with the extent of the market. Meanwhile, the real wage rate, as a measure of the extent of the market, is endogenously determined in the model and is shown to increase with the division of labor.Received: 29 April 2002, Revised: 18 June 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: A10.The author thanks an anonymous referee and Antonio Ciccone for their very valuable and constructive suggestions. I thank Deborah Minehart, Robert Schwab, and Daniel Vincent for their valuable guidance and advice. I also thank Mingchao Chen, David Selover, and Xiaokai Yang for their helpful advice.     

Long-run matching relationship in the Japanese labor market

This paper investigates the long-run relationship among new hiring, unemployment (job seekers), and unfilled vacancies in Japan, using an annual panel data on 47 prefectures for 1972-1999. We find that these three variables are I(1) processes, and are cointegrated in our panel data. Further, we estimate the panel cointegration equation derived from a Cobb-Douglas matching function by the heterogeneous fully modified OLS and heterogeneous dynamic OLS. The estimation results reveal that conventional within estimates could have non-negligible biases.First version received: November 2002/Final version received: October 2003All correspondence to Shigeki Kano. The authors are grateful to the associate editor and two anonymous referees of this journal for helpful comments. Doctor Stephen J. Turnbull (University of Tsukuba) is also acknowledged for correcting English errors in this paper. Remaining errors are due to the authors. The data set and GAUSS programming code used in this paperare available upon request.     

A model of local labor market reguiation of Chin in the transition period

With the establishment of labor market of China,market is playing a more and more important role in allocation of human resources.However,with the transition of economy in China and industrial upgrading in recent years,many labor problems have occurred which do harm to the sustainable development of local economy.The paper researches on the labor market issues of China from the perspective of local labor market regulation,Firstly,reviews the theories of local labor market regulation.And then the main components of local labor market regulation of China are identified and the evaluation index system is established,The results of analysis of the calculated output show that (1) the local labor market regulation of China has an obvious character of gradient distribution geographically and decreases gradually from east to west;(2) of all the regulations,the regulation of the development of human capital has the most significant impact on local economy currently which is followed by the regulation of laborrelation and the regulation of market participation.As to the regulation of social security,it has no significant impact on the development of local economy.     

A model of local labor market regulation of China in the transition period

With the establishment of labor market of China, market is playing a more and mare important role in allocation of human resources. However, with the transition of economy in China and industrial upgrading in recent years, many labor problems have occurred which do harm to the sustainable development of local economy. The paper researches on the labor market issues of China from the perspective of local labor market regulation. Firstly, it reviews the theories of local labor market regulation. And then the main components of local labor market regulation of China are identified and the evaluation index system is established. The results of analysis of the calculated output show that （1） the local labor market regulation of China has an obvious character of gradient distribution geographically and decreases gradually from east to west; （2） of all the regulations, the regulation of the development of human capital has the most significant impact on local economy currently which is followed by the regulation of labor relation and the regulation of market participation. As to the regulation of social security, it has no Significant impact on the development of local economy.     

独立董事声誉与独立董事劳动力市场有效性

一般来说,独立董事能够对管理层起到监督作用从而提高公司治理水平,然而在我国上市公司特殊的制度背景下,独立董事制度实施的效果究竟如何,一直是理论界和实务界争论的热点问题。本文引入独立董事声誉这一长期被忽视的独立董事制度设计的核心理念,构建了引入声誉机制的独立董事激励模型,并采用2004年至2005年沪市A股独立董事作为研究样本进行追踪,实证检验了我国上市公司独立董事所受到的声誉激励水平。研究发现我国独立董事的劳动力市场缺乏有效性,声誉激励只能够促使独立董事避开公开违规事件,却不能激励独立董事更好地履行监管职责。这很可能是影响我国独立董事制度发挥作用最重要的原因。     

Informality and productivity in the labor market in Peru

This article analyzes the evolution of informal employment in Peru from 1986 to 2001.

Contrary to what one would expect, the informality rates increased steadily during the 1990s despite the introduction of flexible contracting mechanisms, a healthy macroeconomic recovery, and tighter tax codes and regulation. We explore different factors that may explain this upward trend including the role of labor legislation and labor allocation between/within sectors of economic activity. Finally, we illustrate the negative correlation between productivity and informality by evaluating the impacts of the Youth Training PROJOVEN Program that offers vocational training to disadvantaged young individuals. We find significant training impacts on the probability of formal employment for both males and females.     

A gender analysis of U.S. labor market policies for the working poor

Current anti-poverty policy proposals focus on welfare reform to the exclusion of reforming the low-wage labor market. In contrast, we compare two policy proposals aimed at low-wage labor markets: a national comparable worth policy and an increase in the minimum wage. With both policies we pay specific attention to their impact by gender. Our findings suggest that while both would reduce poverty among working women, the impact of a comparable worth policy on female poverty would be greater under most scenarios presented. It is estimated that an increase of 96 cents per hour in the national minimum wage would be necessary to equal the poverty reduction effect for women workers of a comparable worth policy which excludes small employers. Both policies decrease the incidence of povertylevel wages less among men, since roughly 60 percent of minimum wage workers are women. Additionally, not only would a national comparable worth policy improve the economic status of low-waged women workers, it would also narrow the gap between male and female poverty. While an increase in the minimum wage would also reduce this gap, comparable worth would virtually eliminate it.     

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.     

A model of working time under utility competition in the labor market

The text develops a model of wage and working-time setting by profit-maximizing firms in a competitive labor market with homogeneous workers. Emphasis is placed on the role played by fixed costs of labor and of workers' varying effectiveness in time. Competition among firms implies a constraint on the utility level associated to the labor contract. The model contributes to explain insiders' rationing and other contemporary stylized facts, and lends itself to a particular approach to the problem of evaluating the consequences of mandatory working-time reductions.     

我国创业板市场与中小板市场间的波动溢出效应研究

基于MVGARCH-BEKK模型对创业板市场与中小板市场间的波动溢出效应进行研究,研究结果表明：创业板市场存在波动的集聚性和持久性,中小板市场不存在波动的集聚性,但存在波动的持久性;创业板市场与中小板市场间存在波动溢出效应,但创业板市场对中小板市场的波动持久性影响显著,中小板市场对创业板市场的波动集聚性影响显著;创业板市场与中小板市场间的波动溢出效应程度均不大,但中小板市场对创业板市场的波动溢出效应程度要大于创业板市场对中小板市场的波动溢出效应程度,表明老市场向新兴市场的信息流动量较大。     

Regulation of entry, labor market institutions and the informal sector

This paper develops a two-sector matching model that incorporates the main features of Latin American labor markets. It has an innovation in its matching structure that makes it more consistent with some key stylized facts of the informal sector in these countries. The model is numerically solved using Brazilian data and several policy simulations are performed. Reducing formal sector's entry cost significantly reduces the size of the informal sector and improves overall labor market performance. Increasing enforcement significantly reduces informality but has strong adverse effects on unemployment and welfare. Thus, the results indicate that the tradeoff between lower informal employment and higher unemployment rates is not present when one looks at policies that aim at reducing the costs of being formal, as opposed to policies that simply increase the costs of being informal.     

The labor market impact of immigration in Western Germany in the 1990s

In this article we estimate the wage and employment effects of recent immigration in Western Germany. Using administrative data for the period 1987-2001 and a labor-market equilibrium model, we find that the substantial immigration of the 1990s had very little adverse effects on native wages and on their employment levels. Instead, it had a sizeable adverse employment effect on previous immigrants as well as a small adverse effect on their wages. These asymmetric results are partly driven by a higher degree of substitution between old and new immigrants in the labor market and in part by the rigidity of wages in less than flexible labor markets. In a simple counter-factual experiment we show that in a world of perfect wage flexibility and no unemployment insurance the wage-bill loss of old immigrants would be much smaller.     

中国股票市场发展与经济增长的实证研究

本文运用Johansen协整检验、格兰杰因果检验等计量经济学方法,通过分析我国近年来宏观数据及股市规模、流动性和波动性的季度数据,对中国股票市场发展与经济增长的关系进行了计量学检验。得出的结论是：总体上,中国股票市场和经济增长之间存在长期的均衡关系,经济增长对股市的发展具有一定促进作用,但股票市场对经济增长的作用十分有限。     

Forecasting realized volatility of crude oil futures with equity market uncertainty

This paper examines whether the equity market uncertainty (EMU) index contains incremental information for forecasting the realized volatility of crude oil futures. We use 5-min high-frequency transaction data for WTI crude oil futures and develop six heterogeneous autoregressive (HAR) models based on classical HAR-type models. The empirical results suggest that EMU contains more incremental information than the economic policy uncertainty (EPU) for forecasting the realized volatility of crude oil futures. More importantly, we argue that EMU is a non negligible additional predictive variable that can significantly improve the 1-day ahead predictive accuracy of all six HAR-type models, and improve the 1-week ahead forecasting performance of the HAR-RV, HAR-RV-J, HAR-RSV, HAR-RV-SJ models. These findings highlight a strong short-term and a weak mid-term predictive ability of EMU in the crude oil futures market.     

Cross-sectional and time-series momentum returns and market dynamics: evidence from Japan

We test the behavioural theories of overconfidence and underreaction on cross-sectional (CS) and time-series (TS) momentum returns in the Japanese stock markets. Both CS and TS momentum returns are large and significant when the market continues in the same state and turns into losses when the market transitions to another state, consistent with the overconfidence but not the underreaction model. We find that TS conditional momentum returns exceed conditional CS momentum returns because of its active position since TS takes a net long (short) position following UP (DN) markets while CS is a zero-cost strategy irrespective of the market state. Finally, we find no relation between idiosyncratic volatility (IV) and momentum returns which is not supportive of either the overconfidence or underreaction model but implies that IV is not a significant limit to arbitrage in Japan.