Women's Economic Status in Rural China: Household Contributions to Male–Female Disparities in the Wage–Labor Market

Rapid industrial growth in China coupled with economic reforms in the rural areas has created a growing demand for rural women's labor, though often at substantially lower wages than those earned by men employed in the same sector. An analysis of data collected in rural Guangdong province suggests that households may contribute to the observed male–female market wage differential through their influence in the formation of individuals' reservation wages. Under these circumstances, external employment opportunities, while no doubt serving to increase the household's overall level of income, may, on their own, be a less effective mechanism for raising the economic status of women. On the contrary, market wage signals may serve to reinforce, rather than to ameliorate, sex-based differences that arise within the household.     

The Determinants of the Secondary Market Price of Less Developed Countries’ Debt

A present-value model of less developed countries’ (LDC) debt is developed to understand the factors that affect the discount on the secondary market. LDC debt trades at a substantial discount on the secondary market. This paper investigates the determinants of the discount for a sample of 13 countries over a 9 year period. The findings show that debt–exports, foreign currency reserves–imports and total debt service to exports ratios are significant determinants of the secondary market prices of LDC debt. The discount is higher in countries where debt–exports ratios are higher and is lower for those with lower foreign currency reserves–imports ratios. Concentration of debt with money center banks has a positive and significant effect on the secondary market price of debt.

Perverse Incentives? Labor Market Regulation and Performance in the Public Sector

We test the link between labor market regulations and job performance in the public sector using a novel outcome variable, namely, the number of days it takes the postal service to return letters sent to nonexistent foreign addresses, a measure that we argue is an excellent proxy for job performance. We find a positive and statistically significant link between these two variables, regardless of the labor regulation measure employed, changes in specification, and even unlikely endogeneity considerations, which suggest that this finding may be causal.     

Japanese Joint Ventures in the UK: Does Product Classification Matter?

This paper investigates the factors that determine the choice of Japanese companies between part and full ownership of their UK subsidiaries. This choice may very well depend on the product classification of the firm. This study extends a previous paper which dealt only with aggregate manufacturing. Here the sample size has been increased and manufacturing split into consumption goods and investment goods industries. Also, the service sector has been included in the analysis. The result of the analysis suggest that the choice is governed by transaction costs considerations and that product classification does matter in the ownership strategy of Japanese MNEs in the UK.     

A Note on the Labor Market Effects of Remittances in Latin American and Caribbean Countries: Do Thresholds Exist?

The labor market effects of remittances have long been examined in the empirical literature. To date, the results have been mixed: some authors observe a negative association between remittances and unemployment while others report that remittances increase unemployment. This study empirically examines the impact of remittances on unemployment using macroeconomic data for a sample of 18 Latin American and Caribbean countries. Specifically, the study tests whether there is a nonlinear relationship between the variables. Results suggest that when the remittance‐to‐GDP ratio is low, remittances have a positive and significant impact on unemployment. However, as they increase, remittances are negatively associated with unemployment. This suggests the possibility that estimations based on the assumption of a linear relationship between remittances and labor may mask the true relationship between the variables.     

Tattoos,Employment, and Labor Market Earnings: Is There a Link in the Ink?

The popularity of tattooing has increased substantially in recent years, particularly among adolescents and young adults. Moreover, tattooed images are permanent unless the individual opts for expensive, time consuming, and painful removal procedures. Given the increasing popularity of tattooing, and the permanent nature of this action, it is of interest to know whether tattooed workers are more or less likely to be employed and, conditional on employment, if they receive wages that are different from the wages of their non‐tattooed peers. To investigate these questions, we analyze two large data sets—from the United States and Australia—with measures of tattoo status, employment, earnings, and other pertinent variables. Regardless of country, gender, specific measures, or estimation technique, the results consistently show that having a tattoo is negatively and significantly related to employment and earnings in bivariate analyses, but the estimates become smaller and nonsignificant after controlling for human capital, occupation, behavioral choices, lifestyle factors, and other individual characteristics related to labor market outcomes. Various robustness checks confirm the stability of the core findings. These results suggest that, once differences in personal characteristics are taken into account, tattooed and non‐tattooed workers are treated similarly in the labor market. We offer suggestions for improving future surveys to enable a better understanding of the relationships between tattooed workers and their labor market outcomes.     

Wage growth and inequality in urban China: 1988–2013

We investigate the evolution of wage levels, wage inequality, and wage determinants among urban residents in China using China Household Income Project data from 1988, 1995, 2002, 2007, and 2013.Average wage grew impressively between each pair of years. Wage inequality had long been on the increase, but between 2007 and 2013 no clear changes occurred. In 1988, age and wages were positively related throughout working life, but more recently older workers' wages have been lower than those of middle-aged workers. The relationship between education and wages was weak in 1988 but strengthened rapidly thereafter—a process that came to a halt in 2007.During the period in which China was a planned economy the gender wage gap was small in urban China, but it widened rapidly between 1995 and 2007. We also report the existence of a premium for being employed in a foreign-owned firm or in the state sector.     

Market Power of Domestic Marketers and its Influence on the Consequences of the Korea–US and Korea–Australia FTAs on the Beef Market

Domestic, US and Australian beef, which are differentiated by country of origin, are sold in Korea. In this differentiated product market, tariff reductions through Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are expected to strengthen the competitiveness of imported beef and, therefore, to mitigate the effects arising from the market power of domestic marketers. The present study develops a simulation model that evaluates this mitigating effect by explicitly reflecting the market structure that domestic beef marketers constitute. The simulation results indicate that the farm-retail marketing margin would decrease by 10.59% or 6.79% due to the Korea–US and Korea–Australia FTAs, respectively, if domestic beef marketers formed a cartel or an oligopoly market (i.e. the degree of market power is 0.5), while the marketing margin under a competitive market scenario is simulated to have no change. The value of beef production would decrease by 1009 million dollars if the marketers form a cartel and hence exercise monopoly power. The FTAs are simulated to reduce the value of beef production by 564 million dollars under the competitive market scenario.     

The Study of the Development of Chinese Online Game Industry and Market

The development, sale and management of online game have become a whole industry chain. It is hard to imagine its economic benefits. The article analyses the forming of supply-demand relationship in online game market, profits source, the way of market exchange, business order and primary problems that online game market faces. To make the market and the industry of online game develop in a sustaining and healthy way, our society should create a favorable environment, and the authorities in economics, management and law fields ought to attach importance to the research on relevant problems,     

The Path Dependence and Target of the Innovation of Chinese Bill Market

The current social and economic background of China and the development of Chinese financial market decide that, the system innovation of bill market must choose reasonable path, perfect the system arrangement of bill market, innovate the financing instruments of bills, control the market risk, raise the efficiency of market operation, bring the market function of bills into full play, make the bill market really become the effective instrument for the financial institutions and enterprises to finance, and become the carrier for the monetary policy to conduct and promote the standardized and healthy development.     

The Innovating Capacity of Aviation Industry and Industrial Structure Adjustment of the West in China

Equipment manufacturing industry is fundamental in national economy and it is the engine for industrialization. This paper explains the important role that equipment manufacturing industry plays in the industrial structure adjustment of the west and describes that aircraft industry is a hi-tech industry which has the most advantages in the equipment manufacturing industry of the west by facts. Therefore, aviation industry should be the best initiating point to develop equipment manufacturing industry. This paper expounds the argument that strengthening autonomous innovating capacity is the key to rejuvenate the aviation industry of the west. At last, it puts forward the concrete suggestions to raise the autonomous innovating capacity of aviation industry of the west.     

The efficiency and productivity of Japanese securities firms, 1988–93

Non-parametric linear programming methods are used to construct the production technology and measure overall cost efficiency for Japanese securities firms during the period 1988–93. Overall cost efficiency is decomposed into allocative efficiency, pure technical efficiency, scale efficiency, and congestion efficiency. The Malmquist input-based productivity index is also constructed and used to compare productivity change between the Big Four Japanese securities firms and other securities firms. The effects of various keiretsu links between securities firms and banks on overall cost efficiency are also examined.     

Decomposing Gender Wage Differentials in Urban Ethiopia: Evidence from Linked Employer–Employee (LEE) Manufacturing Survey Data

Abstract

This study estimates the magnitude of gender wage differentials for a sample of workers from the Ethiopian manufacturing sector using the traditional Oaxaca–Blinder and an augmented Cotton–Neumark methodologies. In doing so, it separates part of the estimated log of gender wage differential explained by differences in human capital characteristics between men and women from that which is not explained by such differences. The latter is known in the literature as “treatment” component or “discrimination” due to differing pay structures for the two gender groups. Accordingly, it is found that in Ethiopia's manufacturing sector men on average get up to 30% more than women depending on the measure used. However, once we control for a number of individual and establishment level characteristics, the level of wage premium for men over women is close to 5% or around 12 Ethiopian cents per hour. Out of this, both decomposition procedures estimate that close to 60% of the premium is a result of discrimination (different treatment of men and women in the labour market). Using an augmented decomposition technique, it is found that out of the 60% “discrimination component” close to 13% is due to men's treatment advantage in the labour market and the remaining 47% is due to women's treatment disadvantage. Also it is found that firm level characteristics are important contributors to the total discrimination component. Without controlling for establishment level characteristics, the discrimination component would have been around 27% indicating that ignoring establishment characteristics in decomposition exercises would result into a biased estimation, and in this case it would have underestimated the level of discrimination by close to 50%.     

The relationship between the monetary regime and output volatility: a multivariate GARCH-M model of the Japanese experience, 1919–1996

In this paper we tried to determine whether or not adherence to a floating exchange rate regime helped the Japanese economy to absorb shocks which originated from domestic and foreign sources based on the Japanese experience from the interwar to the post Bretton Woods floating exchange rate period. Using a multivariate GARCH-M model, we analyzed the relation of exchange rate volatility and output volatility directly. The results imply that the floating exchange rate regime has helped the Japanese economy to insulate itself from foreign shocks. The estimated coefficient which represents the response to the foreign shocks decreases and the decrease is significant in the floating exchange rate regime.     

Impact of RMB Appreciation on Trade and Labor Markets of China and the USA： A Multi-country Comparative General Equilibrium Model

Since the recent economic crisis, the undervaluation of China's exchange rate has been a focus in the debate on the global policy mix. Using a non‐competitive input–output table, we establish a comparative‐static general equilibrium model to simulate the impact of real exchange rate changes on Sino–US trade and labor markets. The simulation shows that the impacts of a 10‐percent RMB revaluation on the trade surplus of China and the labor market of the USA are more modest than is generally perceived, and the negative impact on the output of the non‐processing industry in China is more significant than that on the processing industry. The Sino–US trade imbalance will continue to deteriorate, China's non‐processing trade surplus will decline and the processing trade will increase, with the combined effect being small. For the USA, labor‐intensive goods imported from China will shift to different Asian countries instead of transferring back to the US market. The simulation results indicate that the impacts of an RMB revaluation on both Chinese and US labor markets would be limited.     

Japanese Banks’ monitoring activities and the performance of borrower firms: 1981–1996

We construct an index measure that quantitatively describes the monitoring activities of Japanese banks. Using micro data on Japanese banks and borrower firms, we examine the effects of bank monitoring on the profitability of borrower firms. We find significant positive effects in the periods 1986–1991 and 1992–1996, although there is no significant effect in the period 1981–1985. We also examine how banks’ monitoring affects borrowers. The results show that the positive effects of banks’ monitoring on borrowers’ profitability are mostly caused by screening effects, not performance-improving effects.