International Trade Union Organizations

An attempt is made in this article to demonstrate that Alfred Marshall and John Maynard Keynes erected a number of signposts that point in the direction of a normative, institutional and policy-oriented social economics of labor. They opined that dysfunctioning institutions had thrown most members of the working class into an abyss of poverty. According to Marshall, poverty was caused by institutional neglect of education for the masses. Hence he recommended a drastic overhaul of those institutions that impinged on education. Keynes argued that the rentiers were the villains because they had intentionally reduced their funding of entrepreneurial investments. Consequently, investments dwindled and unemployment caused working-class poverty to rise above its customary levels. Keynes's solution was public investment in private enterprises, which he called socialization of investment. This would cause euthanasia of the anti-social rentiers. Because of their recommendations, Marshall and Keynes called themselves socialists.     

Time-Series Wage Differential in Taiwan: The Role of International Trade

Rising relative wages between skilled and unskilled workers in developed countries has been a popular subject of recent studies. This paper analyzes Taiwan, a semi-developed economy, where the relative wage reveals a declining trend since the mid-1980s. The authors study the role of international trade. A major point of departure is to distinguish the effects of net exports to OECD countries from those to non-OECD countries. The paper also differentiates the effects of net exports to China from those to non-OECD countries except China. It is found that net exports to the OECD countries raise the relative wage of skilled workers, whereas net exports to non-OECD countries and China diminish the relative wage. Moreover, the impacts of net exports to China are much larger than those to OECD and other non-OECD countries. The documented wage effects of international trade in this work diverge from what existing works have argued based on Heckscher–Ohlin theory.     

Union Wage Effects and the Probability of Union Membership*

This paper uses Lee's (1978) model to determine the wage gains associated with trade union membership and the reasons individuals join trade unions in Australia The data are derived from the 1984 Australian National Social Science Survey. A major conclusion is that unions secure a 17.22 per cent wage gain for their members, other things the same. This expected wage premium is shown to have an important positive impact upon the union membership decision. The welfare loss associated with the union wage premium is argued to be relatively minor about one half of one per cent of gross domestic product     

A Theoretical Analysis of Trade Union Membership Fees, Bargaining Power, Wage Rate and Unemployment

The positive effect of membership fees on trade unions' cohesion and commitment and the adverse effect of these fees on trade unions' density imply that the effects of membership fees on trade unions' bargaining power, wage rate and unemployment can be depicted by inverted U-shaped curves whose upper bounds are reached when membership fees are set at half the ratio of the upper-bound on members' level of satisfaction from the trade union services to their disposable income rate. The implications of these effects for membership fees are analysed for a trade union that sets its membership fee so as to minimise the loss stemming from missing wage rate and unemployment targets.     

Wage Bargaining, Inventories, and Union Legislation

This paper analyses a strategic bargaining game where the firm may or maynot be able to sell out of its inventory of finished goods during astrike. Firms and the union are both risk neutral and have the same discountrate. It is shown that the wage equilibrium corresponds to the axiomaticNash bargaining solution where the threatpoints are the agents' payoffsshould bargaining continue indefinitely. We use the 1980 and 1982 EmploymentActs to test this theory, interpreting that legislation change as changingthe firm's threatpoint but not its bargaining power. This allows us toidentify the value of the firm's threatpoint post-1982. Formal testssupport the theory. Also consistent with the theory, it is found that unionwages decrease with inventories after 1982, but not before, and that theunion wage gap is smaller after 1982.     

Trade, Technology and UK Wage Inequality

This paper examines the impact of international trade and technical change on changes in the UK skill premium. We first measure trade as changes in product prices and technical change as TFP growth. Then we relate price and TFP changes to a set of underlying forces. Among our results are (a) changes in prices, not TFP, were the major force behind the rise in inequality in the 1980s; (b) changes in OECD prices and UK tariffs significantly raised 1980s skill premia through their effects on prices, and that industry concentration significantly raised 1980s skill premia through its effect on TFP.     

Employment and Wage Bargaining in an Open Monetary Union

This paper studies alternative patterns of wage bargaining in an open two-country monetary union. Wages are fixed by trade unions for two periods, either at the national or at the monetary union level. It is shown that the best solution with regard to unemployment depends on the nature of externalities and dynamic strategic interactions between the monetary union's countries; namely on the degree of openness of the monetary union, and the differentiation index between national goods.     

浅议顺应国际服务贸易发展趋势的策略和措施

从二十世纪中期以来世界服务贸易加速发展的趋势来看 ,中国应该从服务贸易的制度建设、行业管理、强化信任机制等方面入手 ,力争加快发展服务贸易 ,促进经济持续发展     

数字贸易进口与企业间工资均等化

基于企业-产品层面数据,采用双边连续差分法,间接评估了数字贸易进口对企业间工资分配的影响.研究发现,与传统进口贸易相比,数字贸易进口会促进企业间工资趋于均等化,这种促进效应主要源自行业内企业工资差距的缩小和工资水平中等偏上的企业的工资趋向行业内中位数工资.数字贸易进口可以通过减少距离成本、提升出口技术复杂度和提高进口贸易速度推动企业间工资均等化发展,但也会因价格差距的拉大而削弱其促进效应.进一步分析发现,企业开展数字贸易进口容易引致就业"替代效应"和进口"鲇鱼效应",这两种效应均会扩大企业间工资差距.     

外商直接投资、国际贸易与工资溢出——基于微观企业层面的实证分析

本文基于12180家企业面板数据估计了内资非出口企业与内资出口企业、外资出口企业、外资非出口企业之间的工资差距。研究结果表明,内资非出口企业与内资出口企业、外资非出口企业、外资出口企业之间存在显著的平均工资差距。进一步的分析发现,邻省外商直接投资对本省内资企业工资具有显著负效应;由于交易费用的存在,非相邻省份的外商直接投资对省内内资企业工资有显著正效应。同时,省内国际贸易对内资企业工资影响显著为正;由于区域间产业趋同现象的存在,相邻省份的贸易对省内内资企业的工资影响显著为负。因此,为缩小收入差距,要求我国消除区域壁垒,建立统一市场。     

技能型技术进步、南北贸易与工资不平衡

本文试图将技能型技术进步与产业内贸易置于一个框架中对工资不平衡现象进行理论解释。自由贸易通过促使发达国家产品质量阶梯提升型的技术进步而加剧了该国的工资不平衡程度;同时,自由贸易通过促使发展中国家产品种类数增加型的技术进步而加剧了该国的工资不平衡程度。南北贸易在拉大相对工资差距的同时促进了技能型技术进步。     

Union Wage Setting and Capital Income Taxation in Dynamic General Equilibrium

This paper concerns the effects of capital income taxation in a dynamic general equilibrium framework with union wage setting, when households face taxes related to both labor and capital. One purpose is to characterize the general equilibrium solution. Another is to study the effects of increased capital income taxation – in terms of the responses in real wages, employment, capital stock, output and consumption – and relate these behavioral responses to the overall tax structure. We also derive a cost–benefit rule for the purpose of analyzing the welfare effects of a small shift from labor income taxation to capital income taxation.     

Trade Union Activity and Post-War Inflation In Australia

This article was prepared by L. J. Perry, School of Economics, University of New South Wales. The author is especially grateful to Dr R. Horn, Professor J. Nevile, Bill Rao and anonymous referees for their constructive criticisms. Other people who have helped in various ways are Ron Bewley, Judy Francis, Professor Kakwani, Kevin Forde, and Dr K. Rivett, None of these people necessarily agree with the contents and any errors are the responsibility of the author     

The Level of Wage Bargaining as a Firm–Union Choice

There is a trade-off between central bargaining which allows local externalities to be internalized and local bargaining which gives firms and unions the scope to determine both wages and employment simultaneously and efficiently in the sense of McDonald and Solow (1981). A model of strong unions is presented where workers are also concerned with relative wages. The trade-off is resolved by the individual firm and union on the basis of choice, using the Pareto-criterion. In the presence of a small extra contract cost under local bargaining, the main findings are: (i) central bargaining is Pareto-optimal only for extreme values of the reservation income level—a change in unemployment remuneration may cause centralization to breakdown; and (ii) centralization may also be sustained as a suboptimal Nash-equilibrium through workers' concern with relative wages—the familiar Keynesian coordination failure.     

国际经济与贸易针对外汇风险的防范策略探究

经济全球化带动各国深入交流与发展,国家间国际经济与贸易往来频繁。国际经济市场中我国多数涉外企业发展较好,但也面临着巨大的压力,主要由于国际经济与贸易中存在较大外汇风险。那么企业要提早做好外汇风险防范措施,针对风险成因进行分析,在防范策略下加强风险判断力,帮助涉外企业在国际市场中长远发展。本文在分析国际经济与贸易中外汇风险的定义与风险成因,依据风险带来的影响,做出相关防范策略,以供参考。     

技术性壁垒与我国的对外贸易

随着关税壁垒作用日益削弱,技术性贸易壁垒(TBT)作为更隐蔽而且作用更强大的壁垒,已在客观上成为我国出口贸易的巨大障碍。目前技术性壁垒已经取代反倾销措施,成为阻碍我国出口贸易发展的第一大非关税壁垒。加入WTO后,我国的出口贸易将面临发达国家技术性壁垒的严峻挑战。     

International Trade and Currency Exchange

On the international scene, away from national legal rules, the use of different currencies is largely due to the operation of the "Invisible Hand". The paper develops a three-country model of the world economy. This links real trade patterns with currency exchange structures in a general equilibrium framework which includes transaction costs on foreign exchange markets. In the presence of strategic complementarities, there are multiple equilibrium structures of currency exchange for a given underlying real trade pattern. The existence conditions of these different equilibria are characterized, using the trade links between countries as the key parameters. Finally, repercussions on world output of the choice of a currency exchange structure are analysed.
"So much of barbarism, however, still remains in the transactions of most civilized nations, that almost all independent countries choose to assert their nationality by having, to their own inconvenience and that of their neighbours, a peculiar currency of their own."
John Stuart Mill, 1848.     

Institutional Quality and International Trade

Institutions—quality of contract enforcement, property rights, shareholder protection, and the like—have received a great deal of attention in recent years. Yet trade theory has not considered the implications of institutional differences, beyond treating them simply as different technologies or taxes. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we propose a simple model of international trade in which institutional differences are modelled within the framework of incomplete contracts. We show that doing so reverses many of the conclusions obtained by equating institutions with productivity. Institutional differences as a source of comparative advantage imply, among other things, that the less developed country may not gain from trade and factor prices may actually diverge as a result of trade. Second, we test empirically whether institutions act as a source of trade, using data on U.S. imports disaggregated by country and industry. The empirical results provide evidence of "institutional content of trade": institutional differences are an important determinant of trade flows.