Are Chinese Cities Too Small?

This paper models and estimates net urban agglomeration economies for cities. Economic models of cities postulate an inverted U shape of real income per worker against city employment, where the inverted U shifts with industrial composition across the urban hierarchy of cities. This relationship has never been estimated, in part because of data requirements. China has the necessary data and context. We find that urban agglomeration benefits are high—real incomes per worker rise sharply with increases in city size from a low level. They level out nearer the peak and then decline very slowly past the peak. We find that a large fraction of cities in China are undersized due to nationally imposed, strong migration restrictions, resulting in large income losses.     

长三角城市群高技术产业集聚空间溢出效应研究

以长三角城市群为研究对象,利用2010-2018年26个城市面板数据,对城市群内各城市高技术产业集聚水平进行测度,进一步运用空间计量模型,实证探究长三角城市群高技术产业集聚对城市创新的直接效应与空间溢出效应,并考察城市经济发展水平与外商直接投资两个环境变量如何通过长三角城市群高技术产业集聚对城市创新产出产生直接影响,以及在空间溢出过程中如何发挥调节效应。结果发现：各城市创新活动存在明显正向关联;城市高技术产业集聚对本城市创新产出具有显著直接促进作用,而对邻近城市的空间溢出效应显著为负;城市经济发展水平与外商直接投资在长三角城市群高技术产业集聚对城市创新的直接效应与空间溢出效应中均发挥显著调节作用。     

Convergence of labor productivity across the US states

Most studies of labor productivity convergence among US states base their analyses on state-level GDP per worker. Such aggregated analysis may hide important information about the role of sectors, and changes in the sectoral composition of these economies, in explaining economy-wide convergence results. Using highly disaggregated data for the period 1987–2015 from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, we examine sectoral unconditional convergence in labor productivity in the US states. Our results demonstrate a general slowing down in the rate of convergence of labor productivity in the latter years of this period. The sectoral analysis also indicates that manufacturing was the primary driver of convergence during the 1987–1997 period, which had the highest rate of convergence; the role of this sector, however, has diminished in recent years. Several factors—such as the decline in interstate migration, rising housing costs in major cities, agglomeration, and structural changes in the US economy that have reduced the role of manufacturing—may have contributed to the rise in the labor productivity differential among US states.     

Growth,economic structure,and residential distribution of a small city

This article presents a growth model of a small open city with economic structure and geography. The city which is located along a line segment has three, industrial, services and housing, sectors. The spatial growth model of a small city synthesizes the main ideas in some important models in the neoclassical growth theory, urban economics, and the literature of economic growth of small open economies. We show that the dynamic system has a unique equilibrium. We also simulate the motion of the urban economy over time and space. The unique feature of our approach is to treat production activities, economic structure, residential distribution, capital accumulation, and consumption on the basis of microeconomic mechanism as an integrated whole. Our simulation provides some important insights into the processes of the urban economic growth. For instance, under certain conditions, when the industrial sector’s productivity is increased, the wage rate, price of services, capital intensities of the services and industrial sectors, and per-worker output levels of the two sectors are increased. The total labor supply, the capital stocks employed by the three sectors and the labor forces by the service and industrial sectors are all increased. The shares of the three sectors are not affected by the technological change in the long term, even though the shares are initially affected. The per capita consumption level of the industrial goods rises and the consumption level of services falls. The land and housing rents are increased and the consumption of housing per household falls. Moreover, the current account balance tends to be more in surplus and the growth rate is increased.     

External Scale Economies in Turkish Manufacturing Industries

In this study, the relationship between external scale economies (agglomeration economies) and productivity is measured by using Turkish data. The productivity increase can be due to economies from locating closer to other firms in either the same industry (localisation economies) or different industries (urbanisation economies). Localisation economies are proxied by own industry size and urbanisation economies by city population. Productivity (output per worker) is regressed on industry size, city population, and other related variables. A measure of concentration of state enterprises is included in the regressions to control for the possible inefficiencies in public sector firms. The functional form of the estimating equations is derived from the translog production function. As a check, a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) form is also experimented with. Data are cross-section data and come from industrial and production surveys conducted by the State Institute of Statistics of Turkey in 1985. The study finds that agglomeration economies that are robust across different specifications of the agglomeration economy function and production function exist in food products, textiles, and wood products. Urbanisation economies are detected in food products and textiles. In wood products there are localisation economies.     

工业集聚与劳动生产率的空间计量经济分析——来自我国东北34个城市的经验证据

本文以产业集聚与劳动生产率之间的关系为理论基础,将城市工业劳动生产率的空间相关性和异质性纳入分析框架,分别建立全域和局域空间计量模型,对我国东北地区城市工业集聚与劳动生产率之间的关系进行研究。研究发现,东北34个城市的工业劳动生产率总体上存在明显的空间溢出效应;工业物质资本和人力资本对工业劳动生产率具有积极的促进作用;工业劳动生产率对工业集聚规模的依赖性较大;工业的集聚发展产生了一定程度的拥挤效应。     

服务业集聚的动态溢出效应研究 ——来自中国261个地级及以上城市的经验证据

本文基于中国2000-2011年261个地级及以上城市的面板数据,利用两步系统GMM方法,实证分析了服务业集聚的动态溢出效应。研究结果表明：第一,服务业集聚显著促进服务业劳动生产率增长,而滞后一期的服务业集聚与服务业生产率之间存在负相关关系,服务业集聚的“拥塞效应”和“集聚效应”会在不同时期达到不同均衡状态。第二,服务业集聚与人均GDP之间交叉相乘项不利于服务业劳动生产率的提升。该结果表明,服务业集聚对生产率影响的积极效应受到经济发展水平的影响。第三,制造业集聚、物质资本、人力资本均有利于服务业劳动生产率提升。另外,本文分区域研究了东、中、西部城市服务业集聚的动态效应,提出了相应的政策措施。     

TFP growth in Chinese cities: The role of factor-intensity and industrial agglomeration

This article estimates agglomeration effects via calculating EG (Elilsion & Glaeser) and TFP growth (Total Factor Production) by considering the undesired output of the industrial enterprise database and the entropy weight method. Using panel data of 207 county-level cities in China and 28 two-digit manufacturing industries from 2003 to 2013 based on SIC codes, this paper analyzes the relationship between agglomeration and TFP growth through the smooth transition model under different regions and factor-intensity. The results are as follows. (1) A negative relationship appears in manufacturing productivity. The agglomeration effect changes to the crowded effect. Environmental pollution is also generated by transportation and inadequate pollution treatment technology. (2) The excessive agglomeration phenomenon of developed areas (eastern region) is less than the less developed areas (central and western regions). (3) Resource-intensity industries present two thresholds that indicate complex regional features. For various intensive industries in different regions, the relationship between GML and agglomeration is different. High agglomeration does not always promote TFP growth. (4) At different levels of urban industrial agglomeration, the influences of efficiency change and technical change on GML are different. Overall, moderate agglomeration in all regions helps promote economic development.     

Diminished Returns? Growth and Investment in East Asia

This paper investigates the investment-led growth hypothesis for the newly industrialized economies of East Asia. Using numerical simulations and a neoclassical model, it is shown that the revolution in investment rates only explains about 30 per cent of the growth of GDP per worker. In contrast, productivity growth and improvements in labour quality, explain around half the growth of GDP per -worker. This reflects the effects of productivity growth on capital accumulation. Contrary to recent growth-accounting studies, the results suggest that understanding the sources of productivity growth in East Asia will provide the most useful lessons for other developing economies.     

Business cycle and level accounting: the case of Portugal

This paper studies what accounts for the recent business cycles phenomena in Portugal and why it is depressed relatively to the United States. The business accounting procedure applied here suggests that most of the changes in output per worker in Portugal over the period (mainly, from 1979 to 1991) can be attributed to changes in economic efficiency. For instance, the strong economic recovery in output per worker just after Portugal joined the European Union until the first years of the 1990s can be essentially attributed to improvements in economic efficiency. From 1979 to 2000, Portugal caught up with the industrial leader. Its output per worker is currently depressed by about 46% relative to the United States level (it was depressed by 57% in 1979). In the 1980s all of this depression in output per worker relative to the United States was due to the productivity factor. By 2000 Portugal depression relative to the United States was a mix of the French and Japanese depression. The labor factor accounted for roughly 24% of this depression, while the economic efficiency accounted by about 89%.      

Comparisons of real output and productivity of Chinese and Indian manufacturing, 1980–2002

The principal objective of this paper is to compare the real output and labour productivity of Chinese and Indian manufacturing from 1980 to 2002. Using an industry-of-origin approach, purchasing power parities (PPPs) for the benchmark year 1985 are derived from the Chinese and Indian industrial censuses. In turn, the PPPs are used to convert Indian manufacturing GDP into Chinese yuan for direct comparisons. Secondary objectives are twofold: first, to set this direct comparison within the general context of the economic policy reform process followed in each country, and second, to compare and contrast the organisation and structure of both countries' manufacturing sectors. The analysis shows that since 1980, real value added and labour productivity growth for Chinese manufacturing has been well above Indian levels.     

Rural-to-urban migration, human capital, and agglomeration

A new general-equilibrium model that links together rural-to-urban migration, the externality effect of the average level of human capital, and agglomeration economies shows that in developing countries, unrestricted rural-to-urban migration reduces the average income of both rural and urban dwellers in equilibrium. Various measures aimed at curtailing rural-to-urban migration by unskilled workers can lead to a Pareto improvement for both the urban and rural dwellers. In addition, the government can raise social welfare by reducing the migration of skilled workers to the city. Moreover, without a restriction on rural-to-urban migration, a government's efforts to increase educational expenditure and thereby the number of skilled workers may not increase wage rates in the rural or urban areas.     

Reconciling Kuznets and Habbakuk in a unified growth theory

Economic historians have debated the relative labor productivity of the United States agricultural and nonagricultural sectors during the nineteenth century. David (Discussion papers in economic and social history, University of Oxford, 1996) offers a reconciliation of the opposing views by suggesting that while productivity per hour worked in agriculture was comparable to productivity in other sectors, the number of hours worked per year was relatively low, creating a large gap in annual output per worker across sectors. We model and extend a version of Davis’s reconciliation within a unified growth theory that makes connections between the decline in traditional agriculture and several other features of United States development. The dynamic general equilibrium model is consistent with the structural transformation having minor direct and indirect effects on aggregate labor productivity per hour, but substantial effects on aggregate labor productivity per worker. The model also provides a close match to the trends in schooling, fertility, rates of return to physical capital, and labor productivity growth in the nineteenth century.      

OUTPUT,PRODUCTIVITY AND WAGES IN THE BRITISH COAL INDUSTRY BEFORE 1914: A MODEL WITH EVIDENCE FROM THE DURHAM REGION*

This paper proposes a model of productivity and wages in the Durham coal industry during 1882–1914. The model predicts a negative relationship between wages and productivity which derives from the industrys production function and wage-setting arrange- ments and does not require or imply a ‘leisure preference’ by miners. It is also suggested that predicted effects of some variables on productivity are different from those proposed by previous investigators. Using modern time-series methods on data for output per worker and per shift, it is shown that the two measures essentially reflect predicted effects on output and productivity respectively.     

长沙城市化动力机制研究

利用灰色关联分析法对长沙城市化的动力机制进行分析,表明人均GDP、人均社会固定投资、人均城乡储蓄存款余额、第二产业就业比重、第三产业就业比重、人均外贸进口总额、人均利用外资是促进长沙城市化的重要因子,进而认为长沙市城市化的主要动力是经济发展水平、产业结构演变、对外开放中外资的充分利用和教育科技四个指标。最后,提出了推动长沙城市更好更快发展的措施。     

Entry costs and cross-country differences in productivity and output

This paper contributes to the literature on cross-country income differences by studying the effect of entry barriers on productivity and output. Using instrumental variable regressions I show that higher entry costs significantly reduce output per worker and that they do so by lowering total factor productivity. In particular, an increase in entry costs by 80% of income per capita, which is one half of their standard deviation in my sample, is estimated to decrease total factor productivity and output per worker by 22% and 29%, respectively.      

Public and private inputs in aggregate production and growth: a cross-country efficiency approach

In a cross section of OECD countries, we replace the macroeconomic production function by a production possibility frontier, total factor productivity being the composite effect of efficiency scores and possibility frontier changes. We consider, for the periods 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000 one output – GDP per worker – and three inputs – human capital, public physical capital per worker and private physical capital per worker. We use a semi-parametric analysis, computing Malmquist productivity indexes, and we also resort to stochastic frontier analysis. Results show that private capital is important for growth, although public and human capital also contribute positively. A governance indicator, a nondiscretionary input, explains inefficiency. Better governance helps countries to achieve a better performance. Nonparametric and parametric results coincide rather closely on the movements of the countries vis-à-vis the possibility frontier and on their relative distances to the frontier.     

二元经济下的集聚效应分析

本文基于农村工业化过程中存在严重的集聚不足之现实，以城市集聚经济的相关理论为基础引入城乡分割的约束条件实证分析了城市与农村工业活动的集聚效应。结果显示，城乡分割导致工业活动在农村与城市的“集聚二元性”，而集聚程度及其效应存在明显的地区和城乡差异。提高外国地区集聚程度能改善生产效率，这预示不仅要关注整体经济发展水平，也要重视促进城乡经济的一体化，提高经济活动集聚程度，以缩小地区和城乡差距。     

经济集聚、产业结构与城市土地产出率——基于我国234个地级城市1999-2006年面板数据的实证研究

文章运用面板数据,实证分析了经济集聚和产业结构等因素对城市土地产出率的影响。研究结果表明,资本密度是影响城市土地产出率最重要的因素,资本对劳动的替代性造成就业密度对城市土地产出率的贡献很小,甚至为负;城市净集聚效应为负和资本劳动比不断攀升,说明城市资本投入是低效率的;扩大城市人口规模、控制城市用地面积、发展先进制造业有利于提高城市土地产出率,经济集聚和产业结构因素对不同规模和不同地区城市土地产出率的影响程度和作用方向具有显著差异。     

Migration,social security,and economic growth

This paper studies the effect of population aging and international migration on economic performance. Fertility is endogenized so that immigrants and natives can have different fertility rates, which provides a more realistic view of policy effects. Fertility is an important determinant to the tax burden of social security since it affects the quantity and quality of future tax payers. We find that introducing immigrants into the economy can reduce the tax burden of social security. If the survival probability of young agents to old age (or the replacement ratio) is high enough, the growth rate of GDP per worker for an economy with international migration will be higher than for a closed economy. Regarding migration policies, our numerical results indicate that economic growth rate of GDP per worker will first decrease then increase as the flow of immigrants increases. Attracting more skilled immigrants will enhance economic growth.