How Governments Should Support the Adjustment of Competitiveness in the Euro Area – and How They Should Not

In addition to unsustainable fiscal policies, the weak competitiveness of southern European countries is contributing to the ongoing crisis in the euro area. However, wages and productivity are only one element of competitiveness and the value of competitive wages is hard to measure. Hard‐to‐identify non‐price competitiveness such as quality, innovation and technology of goods affects overall competitiveness too. Given the lack of information, the necessary level of wage adjustment needs to be negotiated on the market. Governments can support a market based adjustment of competitiveness by liberalising labour markets and by strengthening the business environment.     

Analyzing the gender pay gap

Empirical research on gender pay gaps has traditionally focused on the role of gender-specific factors, particularly gender differences in qualifications and differences in the treatment of otherwise equally qualified male and female workers (i.e., labor market discrimination). This paper explores the determinants of the gender pay gap and argues for the importance of an additional factor, wage structure, the array of prices set for labor market skills and the rewards received for employment in favored sectors. Drawing on our previous work we illustrate the impact of wage structure by presenting empirical results analyzing its effect on international differences in the gender gap and trends over time in the gender differential in the U.S.     

学会公共管理这门科学

介绍了公共管理的基本理论和主张.指出,公共管理的理论和在西方的实践对我国的社会公共事务的管理工作有十分重要的借鉴和指导意义.     

Does politics make a difference?

Abstract

The concern of this article is the nature of the politics of public expenditure and whether changes in government between the Conservative Governments of Mrs Thatcher and the Blair Governments did reflect differences in policy priorities? The Thatcher Government in 1979 had announced that public expenditure was at the heart of Britain's economic problems. The Blair Governments did not seek to change the expenditure plans outlined by the outgoing Chancellor Kenneth Clarke. This study seeks to show that the analysis of data using long term trends for the post war period that the during the years of the Thatcher Government they government did manage to hold expenditure below its long term grwoth trends which in turn meant reductions in health and education spending while there were additional spending in law and order and defence. By contrast the Blair Government has managed to reverse this trend so that during the years of the Balir Government expenditure on socal provision has been expanding above the trend.     

People consultation to construct the future: A Delphi application

This work presents the Delphi method, in its Policy Delphi variant, as an efficient mechanism for carrying out consultations regarding regulatory actions that affect professional bureaucracies, and also, in the last analysis, for forecasting and constructing their future. The Delphi application presented here incorporates some specific characteristics which are aimed at making the plurality of opinions in the organisation under analysis visible, facilitating reasoned debate, minimising the risk of manipulation by study leaders, and maximising the generalised acceptance of the results by the whole collective.This study was performed on the university community of the Basque Country, prior to the enactment of the Act which was to organise the Basque university system. Its results, which were accepted as being representative of the real dissensus existing in the community, constituted a valuable input for the final drawing up of the Act, and for its acceptance without conflict.This Delphi application cannot be classified within its traditional field of exploratory forecasting, but it can be situated within the normative sphere, geared towards the construction of a desired future.     

公共投资就业效应的一个解释——基于CES生产函数的分析及其检验

本文在分析CES生产函数过程中引入劳动力市场,探讨了公共投资与就业的联系.本文认为,公共投资是通过劳动工资弹性来影响就业的.公共投资增加会引起劳动需求的工资弹性提高,而公共投资的溢出效应则会导致企业实际工资支出水平降低,两方面原因的共同作用引起就业的增长.在此分析基础上,本文用ARDL方法构建了一个多方程模型,并用中国的数据进行了检验.为提高分析的有效性,我们用SUR方法对模型做了系统估计,并进一步通过方程转化对变量的短期波动和长期均衡关系进行了探讨.实证研究发现,中国的公共投资增长在短期减少就业,但长期内对就业有显著的正效应.     

STABILIZATION WITH WAGE INDEXATION AND EXCHANGE RATE FLEXIBILITY

Abstract. This survey examines the role of wage indexation and exchange rate policy in dampening fluctuations in output around its target level. It is demonstrated that the appropriate choice for wage indexation and exchange rate flexibility is highly sensitive to the nature and the relative importance of the shocks impinging upon the economy, as well as to the relevant parameters in the economy. Moreover, the question of the desired flexibility of the exchange rate should be studied in the context of wage indexation, and vice versa. This interdependence raises the possibility of both policies being complements or substitutes to each other depending on the number of shocks that perturb the economy.     

LABOUR SUPPLY ESTIMATION AND PUBLIC POLICY

Abstract. Economists devote considerable energies towards refining their econometric techniques to overcome difficulties connected with conducting empirical research. Despite advances in technique. it is not clear whether further refinement in this direction is worthwhile for policy purposes. It may be that no further amount of statistical adjustment of inadequate data will increase understanding, and that better data is simply necessary to add to our knowledge. But rarely is sufficient credit paid to new forms of data. In short, econometric technique is emphasized to the neglect of data innovation, as if new data were merely lying about waiting for an ingenious suggestion for use. This paper surveys advances of the last twenty five years in estimating labour supply for policy purposes with a view towards appreciating the relative contribution of both improvements in econometric technique as well as developments of new data.
After briefly detailing the key parameters which economists have sought to estimate, we describe the early 'first generation' research (circa 1970), which is plagued by problems of unobservable variables, measurement errors, truncation and selectivity bias, and non linear budget constraints. 'Second generation' research constitute attempts to resolve one or more of these difficulties, and the respective contribution of econometric technique and new data is acknowledged and assessed, including the contribution of data generated by large scale social experiments in which participants are randomly assigned to different guaranteed income plans and their labour supply behaviour measured.