The Welfare and Employment Effects of Centralized Public Sector Wage Bargaining

In many countries, the government pays almost identical nominal wages to workers living in regions with notable economic disparities. By developing a two‐region general equilibrium model with endogenous migration and search frictions in the labor market, I study the differences in terms of unemployment, real wages, and welfare between a regional wage bargaining process and a national one in the public sector. Adopting the latter makes residents in the poorer region better off and residents of the richer region worse off. Private sector employment decreases in the poorer region and it increases in the richer one. Under some conditions, the unemployment rate in the poorer region soars.     

扩大就业 构建和谐社会

构建社会主义和谐社会,必须解决好就业问题。在我国现阶段,就业压力大,就业矛盾十分突出,解决好就业问题的关键是发展多种所有制经济,扩大就业的渠道。     

最低工资对中国就业和工资水平的影响

本文以1998—2007年全国各市(地区、自治州、盟)最低工资标准随时间变化的外生差异来识别最低工资上涨与企业平均工资、企业雇佣人数的关系。利用1998—2007年规模以上制造业企业报表数据进行的分析显示,最低工资每上涨10%,制造业企业平均工资将整体上涨0.4%—0.5%。借助2006—2007年福建省最低工资上涨的"准自然实验"本文也证实了该结论。对于不同行业、不同人均资本水平的企业,最低工资上涨的影响也存在异质性。最低工资将更多地增加劳动密集型或人均资本较低企业的平均工资。研究还发现,最低工资每增加10%,制造业企业雇佣人数将显著减少0.6%左右。政府在制定最低工资时应权衡其在收入分配上的积极效果以及其对就业的负面影响。     

Public Sector Employment,Wage Inequality and the Gender Pay Ratio in the UK

This paper assesses the relative contributions of the different systems of pay determination in the private sector and the public sector toward the changing level of wage inequality and the gender pay ratio in the UK. The greater centralisation of pay arrangements in the public sector compared with the private sector in the UK suggests that public sector employment may have acted to offset the widening wage inequality seen in recent years, as well as making an important contribution to the increase in women's relative average earnings compared to men. This issue is addressed by drawing on unpublished occupational hourly earnings data from the New Earnings Survey and applying decomposition of the Theil index of wage inequality to analyse both static and dynamic trends. The change in wage inequality for the period 1986 to 1995 primarily reflected the change in wage dispersion within the private sector, and the narrowing of the gender pay gap among the public sector workforce was an important factor in explaining the overall improvement in women's relative earnings. The paper argues that the relatively centralised pay arrangements in the public sector, compared with the private sector, played an important role in slowing the increase in wage inequality and narrowing the gender pay gap. As such, future policies to decentralise pay determination in the UK public sector may exacerbate the increasing level of wage inequality and reverse women's recent relative pay improvements.     

Wage Indexation, Employment and Inflation

Price versus productivity-indexing is considered in a model of monetary policy with incomplete information and wage bargaining. In a perfectly price-indexed economy, the inflationary bias due to lack of credibility is eliminated. However, productivity-indexing is more appropriate to dampen macroeconomic fluctuations that are caused by real disturbances. We show that productivity-indexing alone guarantees both price and employment stability, provided the government's reputation is good enough and the union's bargaining power is not too strong. This reduces the degree of price indexation as the union becomes weaker and the government's reputation improves. Productivity-indexing is desirable with volatile productivity processes and weak unions.
JEL classification : E 24; E 52     

最低工资、就业弹性及就业效应研究

最低工资标准的提升对于就业的效应究竟是正是负,目前理论界并没有一致的论证结果。本文首先从市场结构和企业应对措施两个角度,梳理了西方学界关于最低工资对就业影响的作用机理,然后建立一个涉及农民工、企业和政府三方的博弈模型,推导出行业就业弹性对劳动参与的关键作用,并利用全国各省市六个行业的面板数据进行了实证分析。本文的主要结论是,最低工资的实施标准按行业设置比目前按地区＂一刀切＂的模式更具科学性。     

Allocating Jobs under a Minimum Wage: Queues vs. Lotteries*

In this paper we provide a simple diagrammatic technique for incorporating variable labour supply into the specific factors model We then use the framework to analyze the positive and normative effects of a minimum wage both with a broadly based employment lottery (on-the-job search) and with an employment queue (the Harris-Todaro case). We discover that with a given minimum wage replacing the queue with a lottery may be welfare reducing.     

Non-Standard Employment and Wage Growth in Australia

Using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, and after restricting attention to employees, we observe an increase over time in the non-standard employment share, all of which is concentrated in the period since 2009. Further, we find clear evidence that employees in non-standard forms of employment have experienced relatively low rates of growth in hourly wages when compared with permanent full-time employees. Nevertheless, decomposition analysis suggests that changes in workforce composition by employment type have had a very small (and insignificant) impact on the overall rate of wage growth in recent years.     

开创我国就业的新增长点

我国经济增长方式和经济结构正处在转型过程中，与此相联系的结构性失业问题，将会越来越尖锐。这就必须认真探索我国就业的新增长点。非正规就业以及与此相联系的社区就业，便因此被提到议事日程上来。     

Recombinant Slave Equilibria and Their Cure: Living Wage Full Employment

Scapegoating and slavery are effects of ordinary necessitous interpersonal relations that are naturally selected, extant in all familial and societal hierarchal equilibria, and evolved from primordial parasitism through our primate cousins in order to manage uncertainty. As such, slavery predates and survives all legal strictures. Although social equilibria have progressed equitably in the developed world, it is suggested that slavery's modern cure will only be found by precluding the genetic proclivity to exclude with an actual living-wage, full-employment economy.     

Employment and Wage Bargaining in an Open Monetary Union

This paper studies alternative patterns of wage bargaining in an open two-country monetary union. Wages are fixed by trade unions for two periods, either at the national or at the monetary union level. It is shown that the best solution with regard to unemployment depends on the nature of externalities and dynamic strategic interactions between the monetary union's countries; namely on the degree of openness of the monetary union, and the differentiation index between national goods.     

Creating Legitimacy,Reciprocity, and Transfer Programs

Sustainable development prospects are not substantially visible in the comparative analysis of models of capitalism. The concept of sustainable development does not appear in the initial theoretical framework of the “variety of capitalism” approach or in the “diversity of capitalism” approach. This article aims to contribute to current thinking about the interaction between the diversity of capitalism and sustainable development, based on the concepts of institutional complementarity and hierarchy, and to question the dynamics of various forms of capitalism in this perspective. The example of economic policies aimed at tackling global warming shows how each form of capitalism adopts measures that are compatible with its own unique configuration of complementary institutions, helping to make it “greener.” However, this trend fits into a dynamic of “limited sustainability” that does not challenge the finance-dominated institutional hierarchy or the current growth regime. The non-viability of our production/consumption model on a global scale calls for a more radical change in capitalism, combined with a shift in the institutional hierarchy.     

养老保险企业缴费对员工工资、就业的影响分析

本文通过全国名地/市养老保险企业缴费比率随时间的外生变动趋势来识别养老保险缴费对企业的影响。研究得出,在控制样本选择后养老保险企业缴费比例每增加1个百分点,企业将挤出员工工资的0.6%,减少员工福利的0.6%,社会养老保险未使得企业在职工工资与福利之间转换。对员工工资与福利的加总量,养老保险企业缴费比例每增加1个百分点,将使其减少0.7%。对企业雇用人数,养老保险企业缴费比例每增加1个百分点,企业雇用人数将减少0.8%。对不同类型的企业,养老保险的影响存在差异。对低技术水平企业,养老保险企业缴费比例上涨的挤出效应较弱。     

政府补贴对企业就业波动的影响研究

企业就业波动反映企业就业增长的稳定性。面对外部冲击如何"减震"保障就业稳定成为政府就业工作的重点,而政府补贴能否促进企业就业规模的稳定增长仍然有待深入探究。文章利用工业企业数据实证分析了政府补贴对企业就业波动的影响以及其作用机制。研究发现:政府补贴对企业就业波动存在显著负向作用,政府补贴强度增加有利于降低企业就业波动。政府补贴强度与企业就业波动之间存在"U"形的非线性关系,面板门槛模型回归结果表明,当政府补贴强度低于门槛值0.0368时,具有抑制波动作用;而高于门槛值0.0368时,具有增加波动的作用。进一步分析表明,其抑制波动的作用渠道是通过缓解短期的资金压力和强化企业储备员工的能力以应对冲击,但技术进步和技术种类多样化的作用渠道效果不太明显。增大波动的作用渠道是因为新产品创新带来产品业务线和就业岗位调整导致了企业就业波动更大。     

最低工资会打击农民工就业吗

本文对最低工资不利于农民工就业的各种观点进行了反驳.指出,政府需要制定相应的劳动力保护政策,以维护社会公平.通过制定最低工资,吸引农民工加入工会,壮大农民工在经济利益上合法抗争和博弈的能力,同时建立和健全农民工的社会保障体系,可以阻止农民工劳动供给曲线向右下方的无限制发散.本文提出了农民工实行最低工资的可行性,并对最低工资法的实施效果给予了肯定性评价.     

Its Bark is Worse Than its Bite: The Wage and Employment Effects of the Minimum Wage in the US

This study examines the effect of changes in the US minimum wage on wages and employment in 32 industries selected for their presumed sensitivity to the minimum wage. Applying time series techniques commonly used in macroeconomics and finance to changes in the minimum wage occurring from 1967 and 1991, we initially test for a wage response; only where one is found do we test for an employment response. Twenty-five per cent of the industry/minimum-wage-increase pairs show evidence of an appropriate wage response. Eight of these 54 show a statistically significant negative employment response, while six show significant, positive employment responses. Positive effects may be due to either a high variance distribution centred on zero or markets with 'lemons' problems concerning worker quality. Limiting analysis to industries in which the minimum wage binds provides no evidence of a consistent negative relationship between the historical minimum wage and employment.     

Effects of Monitoring Costs on Employment Adjustment and Wage Profiles

I consider the effects of monitoring costs on the wage profile and employment adjustment of older white-collar workers under asymmetric information on workers' efforts towards skill acquisition. A firm has two options to encourage employees to acquire skills: delayed compensation (an upward-sloping wage profile), and monitoring. I show that the high monitoring costs common in white-collar jobs result in a more upward-sloping wage profile and fewer dismissals under a larger "hostage repayment", which is the difference between the wage payment and productivity of older employees.
JEL Classification Numbers: J31, J41.     

健康对非农就业及其工资决定的影响

利用 1 993年中国营养调查数据 ,本文探讨了中国农村地区健康对非农就业及其工资决定的影响 ,并试图从微观层面揭示中国农村地区健康与收入之间的关系。本文的主要发现是 ,对于劳动参与及非农就业机会 ,健康状况都有显著的影响 ;然而在传统的种植业领域 ,健康并不是劳动参与的决定性因素 ;同时 ,在农村的非农就业者中 ,健康并不是劳动力市场表现的重要因素。尽管如此 ,由于非农就业机会对家庭收入的重要作用 ,我们仍不难发现健康在获取非农就业收入乃至增加家庭收入方面的作用     

发展劳动密集型和低工资型产业是否真能促进就业

要实现消费与投资的均衡增长必须使消费———投资比例合理,但我国目前的工资和就业机制无法满足这一要求。必须建立符合国情的工资收入和要素收入管理机制,通过对初次、二次分配、个人消费倾向同时进行调节,才能保证经济的协调、可持续发展。