Evidence on the internal labor market during a process of rapid economic growth

We examine the nature and extent of labor market segmentation in Brazil through a survey of 82 modern sector firms in São Paulo. Hiring, training and promotion patterns are found to differ significantly between occupations and a key to understanding these patterns is the nature of skill acquisition, particularly ‘learning on the job’. Furthermore the presence of skill- specificity and internal labor markets for supervisory personnel provide a possible explanation for why relative wages have widened during Brazil's period of rapid economic growth.     

Skilled labor, unskilled labor, and economic growth

We study a growth model in which workers with different skill levels are imperfect substitutes. We show that economies with high substitutability between skilled and unskilled workers have high levels of capital, output, and a high proportion of skilled workers.     

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)     

Monopsony and discriminating monopsony in the nursing market

Theory suggests that equities are a good hedge against inflation. However, most of the empirical evidence for industrialized economies suggests that the relationship between stock returns and inflation is negative. One explanation is the negative correlation between inflation and real output growth. This paper examines the relationship between inflation and stock returns for ten important Emerging Stock Market (ESM) markets, namely, Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, S. Korea, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Philippines and Turkey, during the 1990s. To anticipate the results, the relationship between stock returns and inflation, for the whole sample period, is positive and statistically significant for three of the sample ESMs, while it is positive (but statistically insignificant) for a further three. Only for one ESM is the relationship negative and statistically significant. This result may be due to the role of money and the positive relationship between consumer prices and output.     

Estimating the effect of monopsony power on elasticity estimates

Love and Shumway (1994) developed a nonparametric deterministic test for monopsony market power using a normalized quadratic restricted cost function with one input for which the firm has potential market power. This research examines monopsony power using Lau’s Hessian identity relationships based on the empirical properties of duality theory. Lau’s Hessian identity shows the Hessian matrices are equal under pure competition using an unrestricted profit function, restricted profit function and production function approach. We examine how market power changes in the monopsony case using Lau’s Hessian identity relationships. Results show that there is a difference between the unrestricted and restricted profit function results under monopsony power. The important implication is that if an input or output is potentially in a market subject to market power, that input or output should be modelled as a fixed input or output to correctly recover the underlying technology.     

Economic growth, labor market and demographic patterns

This study addresses the dynamic interaction between income growth, patterns of demographic variables, and characteristics of the labor market. We attempt to provide an endogenous explanation for the origin and nature of long-run sustained oscillations in the population and in economic variables. First, we develop an economic growth model containing unemployment. The resulting dynamics reveal that the emergence of irregular sustained oscillations is related to the lack of sensitivity in wage growth to changes in the employment rate. Next, labor force growth is endogenized in the basic model through micro-founded fertility choices of individuals. By introducing the endogenous fertility rate into the basic model, we generate a demographic transition. Next, consistent with Malthusian cycle literature, the inevitable time lag between individual reproductive decisions and subsequent market needs, in conjunction with a highly specialized labor force, appear to be the primary source of such long-run oscillations. Finally, the model predicts that raising the age of entry into the labor force increases economic growth.     

Foreign aid and economic growth: The role of flexible labor supply

This paper examines the link between foreign aid, economic growth, and welfare in a small open economy. External transfers impinge on the recipient's macroeconomic performance by affecting resource allocation decisions and relative prices. The endogeneity of the labor–leisure choice plays a crucial role in the propagation of foreign aid shocks. The efficacy of foreign aid also depends on externalities associated with the public good that it helps finance. The impact of tied and untied aid on the recipient government's intertemporal fiscal balance is examined. Finally, the transitional adjustment to a foreign aid shock is shown to be sensitive to the elasticity of substitution in production and the relative importance of the labor–leisure choice in utility.     

The effect of political regimes and technology on economic growth

This study analyses the role of financial constraints on the investment decisions of 497 Brazilian firms. We use panel data, with firm-specific information for different years, allowing for the abandonment of the representative firm model. Information on capital intensity at the firm level is used to group firms. We estimate different models and the results suggest the presence of financial restrictions, especially for capital-intensive firms.     

The labor market and corporate structure

We analyze the impact of labor demand and labor market regulations on the corporate structure of firms. Higher wages are associated with lower monitoring, irrespective of whether these high wages are caused by labor market regulations, unions or higher labor demand. We also find that the organization of firms has important macroeconomic implications. In particular, monitoring is a type of “rent-seeking” activity and the decentralized equilibrium spends excessive resources on monitoring. Labor market regulations that reduce monitoring by pushing wages up may increase net output or reduce it only by a small amount even though they reduce employment.     

The effect of financial development on economic growth: a meta-analysis

In this article, we contribute to the current debate on the sign and size of the finance–growth relation. To this purpose, we use a meta-analysis with 551 estimates from 68 empirical studies that take private credit to GDP as a measure for financial development. We distinguish between linear and logarithmic specifications. First, we find evidence of significantly positive publication bias in both the linear and log-linear specifications. It suggests the literature has exaggerated the size of the finance–growth effect in the past. Second, we find suggestive evidence that the logarithmic specification is superior to the linear specification. In the logarithmic specification when accounting for publication bias, a 10% increase in credit to the private sector increases economic growth with 0.09 percentage points. For the linear estimates, no significant effect of credit to the private sector on economic growth is found on average. Overall, the evidence points to a positive but decreasing effect of financial development on growth and supports the ‘too much’ finance hypothesis.     

Fiscal policies,frictional labor market,and endogenous growth

This paper considers the spillover effects from public spending, and studies optimal fiscal policies in frictional labor markets. We obtain that the optimal shares of government spending in production and consumption are the same as those in a frictionless labor market under the Hosios condition. However, as higher capital accumulation increases the cost of job creation and maintenance, the optimal tax rate of capital income is positive. In addition, when the labor market is frictional, the marginal benefit of labor is larger than the marginal utility of leisure. Thus, consumption and labor should not be taxed uniformly any more. Our calibration suggests that all of the three tax rates should be positive. Moreover, in the situation in which the Hosios condition does not hold, the shares of public productive spending and public consumption both increase when the worker’s bargaining power is greater than the elasticity of search in the matching function.     

股票市场发展与经济增长——从流动性的视角

基于前人的重要结论,从流动性的角度,将流动性分为成交量、换手率两个方面。通过向量自回归（VAR）建立模型进行进一步的研究,得出股票交易成交量与经济增长的长期均衡关系,并通过VECM模型与Granger因果关系检验对所建立的模型进行进一步验证。研究结果显示,股票市场的流动性与经济增长存在显著的关系。进一步研究换手率对股票流动性的影响可得出的结论是,股票市场的流动性与经济增长存在长期的均衡关系,并且流动性中,成交额与经济增长存在正向关系,而换手率与经济增长存在负向关系,两者都是通过影响股票市场的总市值来进一步影响经济增长的。     

A welfare economic analysis of labor market policies in the Harris–Todaro model

This paper presents a welfare economic analysis of the benefits of various labor market policies in the Harris–Todaro labor market model. The policies considered are a policy of modern sector job creation, which I call modern sector enlargement (MSENL); a policy of rural development, which I call traditional sector enrichment (TSENR); and a policy of wage limitation in the urban economy, which I call modern sector wage restraint (MSWR). First, I analyze the inequality effects of these policies. I then perform two welfare economic analyses, the first based on summary measures of labor market conditions (total labor earnings, unemployment, inequality of labor incomes, and poverty rates) and the second based on dominance analysis in the labor market, in both cases assuming that the costs are borne elsewhere. The results of the welfare analyses are compared, and it is shown that TSENR unambiguously increases welfare in the labor market using both approaches, the other policies yield ambiguous results, and no policy is unambiguously welfare-decreasing.     

The labor market return to academic fraud

Academic fraud by undergraduate students is pervasive, but should it be taken seriously as an economic problem? Our research suggests so. Using a unique data set from the Caucasus, we estimate a large positive effect of academic fraud on the probability of employment. Econometrically, we deal with endogenous selection into academic fraud and possible measurement error in the reporting of academic fraud using partial identification techniques. The findings demonstrate that incentives to commit academic fraud are strong and point towards the potentially damaging consequences of academic fraud in broader settings.     

The labor market effects of employer recruitment choice

I analyze employer recruitment decisions using a dynamic, discrete-choice structural model that I estimate on a sample of clerical workers from the MCSUI, a large cross section of establishments in four metropolitan areas of the US. In the model, employers choose either informal recruitment methods (which generate a small but select applicant pool from which the employer can hire quickly) or formal methods (which create a large but less select applicant pool which the employer must screen intensively, delaying hiring times). I study the effects of three counterfactual simulations on recruitment strategies, starting wages, and vacancy durations: A wage subsidy, a policy designed to improve information about prospective matches, and an increase in the heterogeneity of prospective matches. I show that the effects of exogenous policy or environmental changes can be decomposed into “pure wage effects” that affect the wage offers employers post, holding constant their recruitment strategies, and “recruitment-wage effects” that involve changes in recruitment methods. The results show that changes in recruitment strategies represent an important channel through which changes in the economic environment affect the starting wages and vacancy duration for new hires.     

The labor market effects of trade union heterogeneity

Empirical evidence suggests that the bargaining power of trade unions differs across firms and sectors. Standard models of unionization ignore this pattern by assuming a uniform bargaining strength. In this paper, we incorporate union heterogeneity into a Melitz (2003) type model. Union bargaining power is assumed to be firm-specific and varies with firm productivity. This framework allows us to re-analyze the labor market effects of (i) a symmetric increase in the bargaining power of all unions and (ii) trade liberalization. We show that union heterogeneity unambiguously reduces the negative employment effects of stronger unions. Firm-specific bargaining power creates a link between unionization and the entry and exit of firms, implying a reduction of the unions' expected bargaining power. Moreover, union heterogeneity constitutes an (un)employment effect of trade liberalization. If unions are most powerful in the high-productivity (low-productivity) firms, trade liberalization will increase (decrease) unemployment.     

A permanent effect of temporary immigration on economic growth

Immigration can help to lessen the burden of ageing for the welfare states of most Western economies. To show this, we develop a decomposition framework for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita which deals with the impact of both ageing and immigration on economic growth. Using a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) for the Netherlands during 1973 to 2009, we demonstrate the empirical relevance of some crucial interactions between elements of that decomposition. The conclusion is that even temporary immigration may help to alleviate the ageing problem through a positive long-term contribution to employment, wages and GDP per capita, as long as the immigrants are able to participate in the labour force in tandem with the native population. Unfavourable short-term effects should be avoided through a gradual phasing in of immigration policies.     

对外开放与中国经济增长关系的实证研究

Based on an adjusted Solow economic growth model, using econometric tools such as cointegration test and Granger causality test, taking the economic factors such as foreign trade and foreign investment into account, this paper makes regression analysis on the effect of economic opening on China’s economic growth by using the data from 1985 to 2004. The analysis indicates that the domestic capital input is still the primary element that promotes China’s economic growth, by contrast, the effect of foreign trade and foreign investment is faint. It is a bidirectional causality between foreign trade and economic growth, and the adjusting velocity of trade is larger than the foreign direct investment on the balance of the China’s long-time economic growth.