从分工视角解读城市产业空间结构的演变机理

城市产业空间结构是城市经济结构的表现形式,是城市空间结构最为核心的内容,它的演变历程是城市成长变迁的历程,其演变机理也折射出城市发展的内在动力。以分工为切入点,对产业成长和生产组织结构的演变以及其在空间上的表现———城市经济结构的变迁进行研究。撇开各行业的特殊性,将各个产业的区位选择联系起来,在一个统一的框架内研究城市各产业的区位选择及变迁,揭示城市产业空间结构演变的本质和机理,并分析其所体现出的普遍性规律。认为在分工深化的过程中,随着企业功能的不断分化,不同功能之间的联系成本决定了功能空间的结合或分离,联系成本和区位成本共同构成了企业的空间成本,而企业的区位决策即是要寻求空间成本的最小化。     

Dynamic control of rural–urban migration

This study investigates the optimal urbanization control of an underdeveloped economy by specifying a simple dynamic rural–urban model in which the urban sector bears both an intertemporal positive externality and a simultaneous negative externality. The dynamic optimization problem is solved for the political intervention of the central government in an intersectoral population distribution with taxes and subsidies. Our analysis provides the following results: (i) a big-push policy that leads an economy to a higher-income steady state with urbanization is not necessarily desirable if the government cannot borrow money at a sufficiently low interest rate; (ii) in order to sustain an appropriate urbanization speed, urbanization control policy should have a switch: the urban sector should be subsidized in order to accelerate rural–urban migration in early stages of development, and taxed to decelerate and eventually cease the migration in later stages.     

Willingness to compete: Between‐ and within‐gender comparisons

This paper introduces a new instrument to elicit individual willingness to compete (WTC). Experimental data corroborate the standard result according to which the average WTC of men is higher than the average WTC of women. However, our WTC measure reveals significant within‐gender heterogeneity: 10% of women are extremely competitive, and 13% of men are extremely averse to competition. Gender differences in WTC persist after controlling for ability, self‐confidence, tolerance for risk, and the gender of the partner.     

The early inception of labor market gender differences

This paper analyzes gender differences in jobs while in school using school-class-based samples, a setting in which education differences, “glass ceilings”, and career interruptions due to parenthood are irrelevant. I find that in this early stage of life boys already earn substantially more than girls. The earnings gap cannot be explained by differences in participation rates and hours of work, nor by gender wage gaps within job types. It is entirely due to the fact that girls work more in job types with relatively low wages, in particular babysitting. During the period considered, 1984–2001, the gender patterns of jobs while in school largely remained unchanged.     

City size and urban labor productivity in China: New evidence from spatial city-level panel data analysis

The previous literature has generally found that most Chinese cities were undersized in the 1990s. However, little is known about how urban agglomeration in China has evolved since the country began to experience much faster urbanization and deep marketization after 2000. Based on panel data of 281 cities between 2000 and 2013, our spatial panel data regression results show that the scale impact of city size on urban productivity appears to have an inverted U shape, and its effect will grow when the cities’ industrial structure becomes more dominated by the service sector. There are also significant spatial interactions and spatial heterogeneity of urban agglomeration among Chinese cities. Furthermore, we compute the optimal size for each city and find that most Chinese cities are still undersized in recent years. Based on our findings, we argue that the Chinese government should focus on promoting sufficient growth of medium sized cities in its new urbanization strategy.     

Measurement equivalence of executives' performance ratings for same‐ and opposite‐gender dyads

The measurement equivalence of performance ratings from different raters is important to establish if researchers and practitioners want to have confidence that raters are using the performance measurement system in the same way. The purpose of the present study was to examine the measurement equivalence of performance ratings from male and female direct reports. Women and men executives from various organizations participated in a multisource assessment process for feedback and development purposes and were rated by both women and men direct reports. The results indicated gender equivalence for direct reports' ratings of men and women executives, meaning that regardless of gender, raters provided ratings using the same psychological metric. The implications and limitations of the study are discussed.     

Decision rules to specify the extent of division of labor

At least since Adam Smith, it has been generally accepted in economics and organization theory that for large volumes of production, division of labor reduces unit costs. Despite this, there does not seem to be any clear statement of why the division of labor produces the results attributed to it. Attempts to explain these results with the gains in productivity due to specialization do not seem to have much analytical proof or empirical verification, in particular because specialization is just a counterpart of division of labor. Operational rules to specify how large the division of labor should be in order to be beneficial do not seem to be available, either. The object of this paper is to analyse these questions in a way that could help in the solution of real problems.     

Specification of wage determination mechanisms in urban labor markets

Research into wage determination and inflation at the level of the urban labor market has generally followed a Phillips curve adaptive expectations framework. This paper explores the accuracy of such specifications when national and intermarket linkages are ignored, and extends such specifications to incorporate these linkages. The present research also addresses the impact of serial correlation problems and time series aggregation bias on the ability to identify the local wage determination and inflation mechanism. The estimation results for both annual and quarterly specifications indicate that there is virtually no support for a Phillips curve adaptive expectations hypothesis when external linkages are included in the equations. It is demonstrated that specification errors and serial correlation problems are probably responsible for many of the contradictory and inconclusive results obtained in previous studies.     

Externality,migration, and urban crises

The author analyzes a special aspect of the short-run dynamics of an urban area which arises when there is a contrast between different types of households. The possibility of cumulative or catastrophic processes because of migration by poor families and then by rich families in or out of an urban area is discussed     

More than ‘Mutual Information’: Educational and sectoral gender segregation and their interaction on the Flemish labor market

We build on the Information Theory foundations of the Mutual Information Index of Segregation [Mora and Ruiz-Castillo, 2003; Frankel and Volij, 2011] to analyze two horizontal dimensions of gender segregation on the labor market. We provide a novel, three-way additive decomposition of their effects on overall segregation. Using survey data from 41,712 Flemish employees, we find that choice of study field has a larger effect on overall segregation than sectoral choice. Their mutual interaction is negative, indicating that sectoral segregation, although low, is still partly explained by educational choices.     

改革开放以来中国城市行政区划变更特征及趋势

根据变革的特征和对城市发展的影响,将中国改革开放以来的城市行政区划变更归纳为三种:撤县设(县级)市;县、市升格或地区改(地级)市;撤县(市)设区。基于时间和空间两个维度的分析,进一步揭示三种行政区划变更的主要阶段及其特征与趋势,并认为行政区划变更是市场化分权改革在城市层面的反映。     

Small‐sample bias in synthetic cohort models of labor supply

This paper investigates small‐sample biases in synthetic cohort models (repeated cross‐sectional data grouped at the cohort and year level) in the context of a female labor supply model. I use the Current Population Survey to compare estimates when group sizes are extremely large to those that arise from randomly drawing subsamples of observations from the large groups. I augment this approach with Monte Carlo analysis so as to precisely quantify biases and coverage rates. In this particular application, thousands of observations per group are required before small‐sample issues can be ignored in estimation and sampling error leads to large downward biases in the estimated income elasticity. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wage determination in urban Russia: Underpayment and the gender differential

A stochastic frontier wage equation is employed to examine labor-market efficiency and estimate workers’ potential wages in Russia after a decade of economic reforms using a nationally representative household survey. Dynamic monopsony underpayment, defined as the differences between the highest wage a worker with given characteristics could earn and the worker's actual wage, is a significant factor lowering real wages. The estimated degree of underpayment differs significantly depending on gender and substantially exceeds the estimates for Western economies. Workers’ potential wages are elastic with respect to the local cost of living. Women's mean potential wage is only 58% of men's.     

Property Rights Reform to Support China's Rural–Urban Integration: Village‐Level Evidence from the Chengdu Experiment

As part of a national experiment, in 2008, Chengdu prefecture launched a series of property rights reforms, among them complete registration of all land and measures to ease transferability and eliminate labour market restrictions. A comparison of villages inside and outside the prefecture's border using a difference‐in‐difference approach suggests that the reforms have reduced administrative reallocations; aligned land use closer to economic incentives, mainly through market transfers; and stimulated enterprise startups. These results, most of which are more pronounced for villages closer to Chengdu city, illuminate the potential gains from factor market reform.     

Prejudice and gender differentials in the US labor market in the last twenty years

Earnings differentials between men and women have experienced a stable convergence during the 1980s, following a process started in the late 1970s. However, in the 1990s the convergence has almost stopped. The first objective of the paper is to evaluate if discrimination, defined as explicit prejudice, may have a role in explaining this slowdown in the convergence. The second objective is to assess whether the prediction of a decrease in the proportion of prejudiced employers implied by the Becker’s model of taste discrimination is taking place and if so at what speed. These objectives are achieved by developing and estimating a search model of the labor market with matching, bargaining, employer’s prejudice and worker’s participation decisions. The results show that the proportion of prejudiced employers is estimated to be decreasing at an increasing speed, going from about 69% in 1985 to about 32% in 2005. Therefore prejudice is not estimated to be a relevant factor in explaining the slower convergence between male and female earnings in the 1990s. The results are consistent with the Becker’s model of taste discrimination if one is willing to assume a very slow adjustment process.     

Language and urban labor market segmentation: Theory and evidence

I propose a language theory of labor market segmentation. People of different language origins form separate urban labor submarkets and can switch between submarkets. Two types of wage differentials emerge, namely the Within-Labor-Market Wage Gap and the Within-Language-Group Wage Gap. The average wage in each market and a worker’s choice of the labor market depend on the population sizes of the relevant groups. These implications are tested using the 2001 Census of Canada Public Use Microdata. A unique feature of these data is the reported work language, which helps me to identify labor market segments. The empirical evidence supports my theory.     

A simultaneous model for regional labor supply, incorporating labor force participation, commuting and migration

Simultaneous relations between various components of the regional supply of labor and the situation on the regional labor market are developed. There is a distinction between migration, participation and commuting. Conventional research only devotes attention towards the partial relation between one of these components and the regional labor market situation. However, many decisions people make, involve a simultaneous approach towards participation, commuting and migration. This approach is operationalized at a macro-level by constructing a simultaneous supply model. For the specifications we go back to standard literature. In each of the equations, apart from variables that are specific for the particular function, special attention is given to the interrelation between the three supply variables. An overall simultaneity is described by a fourth endogenous variable: unemployment; this variable is explained by employment, participation, netmigration and netcommuting. A combined time-series/cross-section-analysis is used to estimate the model.

Surprisingly it appears that in comparison with OLS parameter- and t-values of the supply-equations are not affected by the use of simultaneous estimation techniques. Only for the unemployment-equation there are significant changes.     

Municipal middle managers: psychosocial work environment in a gender-based division of labor

The purpose of the reported study was to explore how 245 municipal middle managers perceived their psychosocial and physical work environments, and to examine psychosomatic reactions and job satisfaction in departments engaged in different types of activity, also to compare male and female managers in these respects. The way in which psychosomatic reactions and job satisfaction were related to the psychosocial and physical work environments was also investigated. The results indicated a difference between departments depending on the type of activity. Departments concerned with care and education, i.e. care of the elderly, child care and schools showed a tendency to lower values for psychosocial work environment factors and more psychosomatic reactions than the departments geared more towards maintenance and production, i.e. street maintenance, the power plant department and the recreation office. In the departments concerned with children female managers were in a majority. In the street maintenance department, the recreation office and the power plant department, male managers predominated. Compared to the men, the women had a higher level of education, lower salaries, more reactions of a psychosomatic nature, lower job satisfaction and a less satisfying psychosocial work environment. The only department with an equal number of male and female managers was the schools department. Here there were no differences between men and women in the factors studied. Two partial correlations were computed in order to separate the importance of type of activity and sex to the work environment factors and outcome variables. This indicated that the type of activity was more important than biological sex. The gendering of work activities is therefore also discussed and further investigations are suggested.     

A note on urban migration in New Zealand

The purpose of this study is to develop a simple simultaneous equations model of urban migration in New Zealand. The model comprises equations explaining in-migration and out-migration, the significant explanatory variables being determined by a “backward-elimination” procedure. The results isolate the important influence of one large growth center on in-migration and out-migration rates, the significance of incomes for in-migration rates, and the effect of a geographical barrier on out-migration rates.     

Financial factors and company investment decisions in transitional China

We investigate the propensity of Chinese publicly listed firms to invest in response to financial factors, according to the a priori degree of a firm's information problems: industry sector, ownership structure and firm size. The firms in primary and tertiary industries are found to be liquidity‐constrained in their investment decisions. The investment‐cash flow sensitivity of the firms in secondary industry indicates that they lost privileged access to credit in the course of China's market transition. However, we find no evidence that financial liberalization resulted in an easing of financing constraints for small‐ and medium‐sized firms. Our result indicates that agency problems, stemming from a state‐controlling pyramidal ownership structure, are responsible for the misallocation of internal funds. The importance of bankruptcy and agency costs in relation to debt finance for certain types of borrowers reflects the transitional nature of the financial environment facing Chinese firms. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.