The effect of artificial intelligence on China’s labor market

ABSTRACT

Automation and artificial intelligence technology have played a pivotal role in today’s economic and social development. They represent a labor-substituted technological progress, featuring more and more jobs to be replaced by AI. Based on the adoption rate calculated in our paper and theoretical substitution probability estimated by existing studies, our research estimates the actual substitution probability by AI for various occupations in China. By using this actual substitution probability on occupation level, we also explore the substitution effects on labor force with different characteristics and find that AI has larger substitution impacts on labors of female, old age, low education and low income. We also predict the number of employed people that would be replaced by AI in each industry, and the results show that China will have 278 million labors (201 ~ 333 million under different adoption rates) replaced by AI by 2049, representing 35.8% of the current employment in China.

Abbreviation: Artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT), Council of Economic Advisers (CEA)     

Sectoral Changes in Employment: An eclectic perspective on ‘good’ jobs and ‘poor’ jobs

The linkage Keynes established between the volume of employment that business firms require to make a particular number of jobs available provides an operational perspective about the way in which labor markets work. The aggregate supply or Z function is, in fact, a job offer curve. The most significant insight to derive from this curve is that job offers are inseparable from the economy's aggregate expenditure (or demand) level. This interdependency of aggregate supply and aggregate demand is necessary to understand the functioning of labor markets in the real world. This paper argues that a disaggregated model which encapsulates the economy's price-taking and price-making sectors offers a promising analytical tool to gain perspective about ‘good jobs’ and ‘poor jobs’ in post-Fordist economies. It is maintained that the sectoral deployment of workers reflects whether employing firms, as price-makers, can capture the increasing returns inherent in modern technology.     

Do Migrants get Good Jobs in Australia? The Role of Ethnic Networks in Job Search*

We study the role of ethnic networks in migrants’ job search and the quality of jobs they find in the first years of settlement. We find that there are initial downward movements along the occupational ladder, followed by improvements. As a result of restrictions in welfare eligibility since 1997, we study whether this increases the probability that new migrants accept ‘bad jobs’ quickly and then move onto better jobs over time. Holding employability constant, our results support this view. However, accounting for their higher employability, new migrants seem to fare better up to 1.5 years after settlement.     

The Unconscious Countermovement and the Conscious Polanyian Movement: A New Vocabulary for Contemporary Polanyian Scholarship

ABSTRACT

This article aims to overcome an impasse in current Polanyian scholarship by suggesting a new vocabulary to explain Polanyi’s ‘double movement’ and ‘countermovement’ concepts – the unconscious countermovement and the conscious Polanyian movement. It argues current literature often misinterprets these core concepts, which can lead to a misunderstanding of Polanyi’s general thesis. This paper uses the Carton (2018. On the Nature of the Countermovement: A Response to Stuart et al.’s ‘Climate Change and the Polanyian Countermovement: Carbon Markets or Degrowth?’. New Political Economy)-Stuart et al. (2019. Climate Change and the Polanyian Counter-movement: Carbon Markets or Degrowth? New Political Economy, 24 (1), 89–102) debate on the countermovement to exemplify some of the current misapplications of the countermovement as explicitly ‘anti-capitalist’ (Stuart et al. 2019. Climate Change and the Polanyian Counter-movement: Carbon Markets or Degrowth? New Political Economy, 24 (1), 89–102) movements. This paper argues that in fact all countermovements, as described in The Great Transformation, are necessarily non-ideological. I argue that dialectics and consciousness are fundamental to understanding the double movement and countermovement concepts and that highlighting the conscious/unconscious dynamic within Polanyi’s work helps avoid misreadings of key concepts and provides a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of Polanyi’s general theory.     

Contribution of intangible costs to the economic burden of multiple sclerosis

Abstract

Background:

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is associated with a substantial economic burden resulting from direct medical costs associated with health and disability-related resource utilization and indirect costs relating to reduced productivity. However, reduced health-related quality of life (HR-QOL) may be associated with additional costs, often termed ‘intangible costs,’ that should be considered as part of the economic burden from the societal or patient perspectives.

Objectives:

To review the contribution of intangible costs to the overall economic burden of MS.

Methods:

Medline was searched through March 2010 for relevant articles that included the terms ‘multiple sclerosis’ in combination with ‘intangible costs,’ ‘QALY,’ ‘quality-adjusted life year,’ ‘willingness-to-pay,’ and ‘WTP.’ Other than the restriction that the articles were published in English, there were no other exclusionary criteria for the search. Identified references were hand-searched to determine if intangible costs were estimated.

Results:

Thirteen studies across ten countries were identified that estimated intangible costs based on the number of quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) lost due to a reduction in HR-QOL multiplied by accepted willingness-to-pay (WTP) thresholds. Although absolute costs varied depending on thresholds used and year of evaluation, the intangible costs accounted for 17.5–47.8% of total costs of MS. Furthermore, evidence suggested intangible costs are positively correlated with worsening disability. The largest increase in intangible costs occurred at the transition between mild and moderate disability. However, since no value has been established as being acceptable to pay for a QALY, a limitation of these studies was their dependence on the definition of the WTP threshold.

Conclusions:

Intangible costs substantially add to the economic burden of MS. There is not only a need to further characterize these costs and incorporate them into economic studies, but also to determine how these costs can be reduced through appropriate management strategies.     

Extraction in Four Dimensions: Time,Space and the Emerging Geo(-)politics of Deep-Sea Mining

ABSTRACT

Despite the truism that less is known about the deep-sea than outer space, deep-sea mining (DSM) is being promoted as the next frontier of resource extraction. In 2019, Nautilus Minerals hopes to become the world’s first company to mine the deep seabed in the waters off Papua New Guinea (PNG). DSM thus stands at the threshold of becoming a matter of politics; it has provoked a wide range of geopolitical imaginaries variously relating to ‘resource security’ and ‘progress’, on the one hand, and environmental disaster and precaution on the other. However, these accounts do little to address the specific ‘nature’ of the deep-sea, seabed and their extreme location and materialities, and are instead framed by classic geopolitical concerns with interstate relations. Against this background and illustrated by examples centred on PNG, this paper argues that future engagements with the geopolitics of DSM are more accurately conceptualised by an engagement with time as well as three dimensional space. This includes the multiple spatial and temporal registers through which both the geology and ecologies of seabed and seawater operate. By highlighting the importance of resource temporalities, it suggests that the geopolitics of both DSM and extraction in extreme places more generally is not only spatially complex, it is also a matter of time.     

A historiographical exhumation of J.A. Hobson's Over-Saving Thesis: General theory versus historiography

Abstract

The discussion of J.A. Hobson's understanding of over-saving has been largely confined within John Maynard Keynes' famous critique in the General Theory. I argue that gauging Hobson's contribution by ‘general theory’, that is, by an ahistorical, non-evolutionary yardstick, is to miss the larger part of Hobson's achievement. Hobson's conception of over-saving was contained within an evolving historiography of capital accumulation and took on various meanings depending on whether Hobson was discussing a competitive or monopolistic environment. I show that Keynes' ‘corrected’ version of over-saving was implicitly contained within Hobson's analysis of an evolving monopolistic industrial structure.     

Economic evaluation of a 100% whey-based partially hydrolyzed infant formula in the prevention of atopic dermatitis among Swiss children

Abstract

Objective:

A pharmacoeconomic analysis was undertaken to determine costs, consequences, and cost-effectiveness of a partially hydrolyzed 100% whey-based infant formula, NAN-HA®, manufactured by Nestlé S.A, Switzerland (PHF-W), branded under BEBA HA® in Switzerland, in the prevention of atopic dermatitis (AD) in ‘at risk’ Swiss children when compared to standard cow’s milk formula (SF).

Methods:

Based on a 12-month time horizon including 6 months of formula consumption, an economic model was developed synthesizing treatment pathways, resource utilization, and costs associated with the treatment of AD in healthy ‘at risk’ Swiss newborns who could not be exclusively breastfed. Model inputs were retrieved from the literature, official formularies, and expert opinion. The treatment pathways considered a medical treatment approach, supplemented in some instances by a change of formula. The final outcome was the expected cost per avoided case of AD, yielding an incremental cost effectiveness ratio (ICER) for PHF-W vs SF. Outcomes were presented from three perspectives: the Swiss public healthcare system (MOH), the subject’s family, and society (SOC). A secondary analysis compared PHF-W to whey-based extensively hydrolyzed formula (EHF) in prevention.

Results:

The model yielded 1653 avoided AD cases by selecting PHF-W over SF in a birth cohort of 22,933 ‘at risk’ infants. The base case analyses generated an expected ICER of CHF 982 from the MOH perspective as well as savings of CHF 2202 and CHF 1220 from the family and SOC perspectives, respectively. PHF-W yielded CHF 11.4M savings against EHF when the latter was assumed to be used in prevention. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses confirmed the robustness of the model.

Conclusion:

Under a range of assumptions, this analysis has established the dominance from the family and societal perspectives and cost-effectiveness from the MOH perspective of PHF-W vs SF in the prevention of AD among ‘at risk’ Swiss infants.     

Adherence,persistence, healthcare utilization,and cost benefits of guideline-recommended hepatitis B pharmacotherapy

Abstract

Objective:

To compare pharmacotherapy adherence, persistence, and healthcare utilization/costs among US patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) initiated on an oral antiviral monotherapy recommended as first-line treatment by current national (US) guidelines vs an oral antiviral not recommended as first-line monotherapy.

Research design and methods:

In this retrospective cohort study, patients aged 18–64 with medical claims for CHB who initiated an oral antiviral monotherapy for CHB between 07/01/05 and 01/31/10 were identified from a large US commercial health insurance claims database. Patients were continuously enrolled for a 6-month baseline period and ≥ 90 days follow-up. They were assigned to ‘currently recommended first-line therapy’ (RT: entecavir or tenofovir) or ‘not currently recommended first-line therapy’ (NRT: lamivudine, telbivudine, or adefovir) cohorts.

Main outcome measures:

Multivariate analyses were conducted to compare treatment adherence, persistence, healthcare utilization, and costs for RT vs NRT cohorts.

Results:

Baseline characteristics were similar between RT (n?=?825) and NRT (n?=?916) cohorts. In multivariate analyses, RT patients were twice as likely as NRT patients to be adherent (OR?=?2.09; p?<?0.01) and persistent (mean: RT?=?361 days, NRT?=?298 days; p?<?0.01) and half as likely to have an inpatient stay (OR?=?0.527; p?<?0.01). Between the two oral antivirals recommended as first-line treatment, even though pharmacy cost was higher for entecavir, mean total healthcare costs for entecavir and tenofovir were similar ($1214 and $1332 per patient per month, respectively). Similar results were also observed with regard to adherence, persistence, and healthcare use for entecavir and tenofovir.

Conclusions:

A limitation associated with analysis of administrative claims data is that coding errors can be mitigated but are typically not fully eradicated by careful study design. Nevertheless, the current findings clearly indicate the benefits of initiating CHB treatment with an oral antiviral monotherapy recommended as first-line treatment by current guidelines.     

Has the ‘franc fort’ exchange rate policy affected the inflationary dynamics? Theory and new evidence

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of the ‘franc fort’ policy implemented in France from 1983 on the inflationary dynamics by means of a square root Kalman filter approach. An interesting aspect of the analysis is the evidence that the ‘franc fort’ exchange rate policy had a significant impact on the inflationary dynamics in France through its credibility effects. These results confirm the imported credibility hypothesis according to which the French authorities accelerated the disinflation process by importing the German monetary policy credibility through the ‘hard peg’ of the franc–DM exchange rate. These findings show that inflation dynamics in France began to converge significantly to that in Germany after the implementation of the ‘franc fort’ policy, making more credible the plan for the final transition to the euro. Moreover, this analysis may also reveal much about the nature of potential success of the current initiative of the new member countries now in the process of joining the EU and looking eventually to adopt the euro.     

Burden of menstrual symptoms in Japanese women: results from a survey-based study

Abstract

Objective:

Menstrual symptoms are associated with various health problems in women and may also significantly impact their lives. This study aims to assess the current burden of menstrual symptoms in Japanese women.

Methods:

Two online surveys were conducted among women aged 15–49 years, where sampling was designed to approximate the age and geographic distribution in Japan. The first survey collected data on menstrual symptom severity based on a modified, 35-item, Japanese version of the Menstrual Distress Questionnaire (mMDQ), current treatments, and impact on work productivity. The second survey collected costs of outpatient treatment within the previous 3 months. Additional outcomes of the second survey will be presented in a separate paper.

Results:

In this study, 19,254 women had menses, with 74% suffering from menstrual symptoms. A total of 50% reported pain and 19% reported heavy bleeding. Increasing severity of menstrual symptoms and self-reported heavy bleeding were related to more outpatient visits and greater work productivity loss. Among subjects with heavy bleeding, increasing severity of symptoms was related to greater interference with daily life. The estimated annual economic burden extrapolated to the Japanese female population was 683 billion Japanese Yen (JPY) or ～8.6 billion United States Dollars (USD).

Limitations:

The study population may be biased due to the online survey method.

Conclusions:

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first large-scale research assessing outcomes by severity categories for all menstrual symptoms and women’s perception of bleeding. A large proportion of women suffer from menstrual symptoms, and symptom severity impacts women’s lives. Menstrual symptoms lead to significant economic burden, mainly due to work productivity loss. However, the majority of women do not visit a gynecologist, even when their menstrual symptoms are severe. Thus, increasing public awareness on the recently available medical treatments has the potential to improve the overall burden of menstrual problems.     

‘Anecdotal myths’: Tinbergen's influence on Harrod's growth theory

Abstract

In the history of economic theory, Harrod's transition from the explanation of business cycles in An Essay on the Trade Cycle (1936) to his well‐known growth theory in ‘An essay in dynamic theory’ (1939) has always been surrounded by some degree of speculation. One of the topics in that area of speculation concerns the (degree of) influence exerted by Tinbergen on the development of Harrod's growth theory during the 1936–9 period.

This paper argues that Tinbergen's influence on Harrod's work mainly took place on formal, mathematical, grounds, leaving methodological matters untouched. This matter is of some importance in understanding the success of what was initially considered by others as a ‘dynamic’ extension of the Keynesian research programme and later evolved, through the work of Tinbergen and Solow, into a neoclassical growth theory.     

Cost-effectiveness of partially-hydrolyzed formula for prevention of atopic dermatitis in Australia

Abstract

Objective:

To perform an economic evaluation of a specific brand of partially hydrolyzed infant formula (PHF-W) in the prevention of atopic dermatitis (AD) among Australian infants.

Methods:

A cost-effectiveness analysis was undertaken from the perspectives of the Department of Health and Aging (DHA), of the family of the affected subject and of society as a whole in Australia, based on a decision-analytic model following a hypothetical representative cohort of Australian newborns who are not exclusively breastfed and who have a familial history of allergic disease (i.e., are deemed ‘at risk’). Costs, consequences, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICER) were calculated for PHF-W vs standard cow’s milk based infant formula (SF), and, in a secondary analysis, vs extensively hydrolyzed infant formula (EHF-Whey), when the latter was used for the prevention of AD.

Results:

From a representative starting cohort of 87,724 ‘at risk’ newborns in Australia in 2009, the expected ICERs for PHF-W vs SF were AU$496 from the perspective of the DHA and savings of AUD1739 and AU$1243 from the family and societal perspectives, respectively. When compared to EHF-Whey, PHF-W was associated with savings for the cohort of AU$5,183,474 and AU$6,736,513 from the DHA and societal perspectives.

Limitations:

The generalizability and transferability of results to other settings, populations, or brands of infant formula should be made with caution. Whenever possible, a conservative approach directing bias against PHF-W rather than its comparators was applied in the base case analysis. Assumptions were verified in one-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses, which confirmed the robustness of the model.

Conclusions:

PHF-W appears to be cost-effective when compared to SF from the DHA perspective, dominant over SF from the other perspectives, and dominant over EHF-Whey from all perspectives, in the prevention of AD in ‘at risk’ infants not exclusively breastfed, in Australia.     

Gender differences in Russia's job mobility and its rewards*

This article considers age and gender differences in the probability and consequences of job mobility in Russia. Little is known about who is mobile and whether mobility impacts wages once the characteristics of movers are controlled for. Results show a gender difference in the likelihood of exit but not promotion. Results also show that promotions have a positive effect only on the wages of young women, but young men's wages are not affected. Further, young men see a significant decrease in wages following an exit, while young women are not affected by firm exit. The article shows that early mobility is particularly important for women, who earn less overall. Results help to understand processes of inequality in wages and conditions that occur due to sorting, and the importance of promotions as ‘life chances’ which lead to ‘career-track jobs’. Gender differences in securing such life chances may help to understand gaps in earnings, which emerge later.     

Material incentives and Kantian optimisation: John E. Roemer on ‘left-right’ economics

Abstract

John Roemer has argued in favour of rehabilitating Kanitanism as an antidote to the kind of utilitarian incentivisation theories associated with neoliberal economics. This article asks whether the ethical thought of Kant is in fact fit for purpose. Placing Kant in dialogue with other contemporary enlightenment thinkers, it also questions whether ‘solidarist’ social theories solve the problems Roemer associates with their ‘selfish’ competitors, and indeed whether the two approaches can be so neatly distinguished.     

Deep Routeing and the Making of ‘Maritime Motorways’: Beyond Surficial Geographies of Connection for Governing Global Shipping

ABSTRACT

Geography has turned to towards the seas and oceans with much attention being paid to ‘water worlds’ through socio-cultural, political and environmental lenses. Geo-economic analysis, in particular, has considered the role of containerisation, the port, and logistics global flows central to the contemporary shipping industry. However, where routeing enters discussion these debates remain ‘surficial’ with a focus on the rationale of lines of connection which are mapped onto the sea (rather than into the sea, as a liquid, three-dimensional, motionful space). This paper challenges considerations of ship routeing that only skim the surface. This paper adds depth to the discussion. It is argued that ship routeing is not a purely surficial exercise of charting a voyage across seas and oceans. Routes have a geo-politics predicted at times on the water’s depth, the topography of the ocean floor and seabed and marine resources. Drawing on a variety of examples, notably the traffic routeing scheme – or ‘maritime motorway’ – governing the flows of shipping in the Dover Strait, UK, this paper brings a ‘wet ontology’ and three-dimensional analysis to ship routeing. It is contended that such a recognition and discussion of deep routeing is necessary to shed light upon the often invisible processes sea that underscore the global logistics flows vital to society and the economy.     

DOES THE MISSION OF PROVIDERS MATTER ON A QUASI‐MARKET? THE CASE OF THE BELGIAN ‘SERVICE VOUCHER’ SCHEME

ABSTRACT 1 : In 2001, the Belgian government introduced a ‘service voucher’ scheme in the field of domestic (housework) services, following a quasi‐market mechanism which fosters competition between providers of different types as regards sector (for‐profit, public, third sector) and mission (seeking profits, home care provision to vulnerable groups and work integration of the unemployed). Empirical evidence suggests that third sector organizations focusing on a social mission recognized by a tutelary regulation are the best performing with regards to the quality of jobs and service organization, leading to a better ‘triangulation’ of the service relationship. On the other hand, for‐profit providers, especially temporary work agencies, seem to favour their capacity of adaptation to the desiderata of their clients and costs’ minimization to the detriment of the quality of jobs which are made as flexible as possible.