Productivity,Employment and Growth in European Integration

We compare the evolution of key macroeconomic indices for the European Union (EU), viewed as a unified economy, with that of the USA and Japan for the period 1950–95, report the process of convergence in the EU, and analyze the effect of its potential enlargement through the accession of 10 Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC) that are in active negotiation for EU membership. The EU has followed a path of rising labor productivity, declining capital productivity and rising capital intensity typical of advanced capitalist economies. Its productivities in the 1990s lie between those of the USA and Japan. There is evidence of convergence of EU-15 relative labor productivity and capital intensity levels to those of the USA. Relative real wages also seem to be converging. Profit rates in all three economies fell, most rapidly before 1975. There is a general pattern of convergence in the EU members in the evolution of labor productivity, capital productivity, real wage, gross profit rate, investment per worker, consumption per worker and capital intensity. The evidence for a specific membership effect on convergence is weak. The CEEC have much lower relative labor and capital productivity than any other countries that have entered the EU. The process of development in the CEEC will have to follow an atypical path of increasing or constant capital productivity and rising labor productivity in order to converge to EU norms. EU membership might have a positive impact on the prospective economic growth in the CEEC in these respects, as the vehicle for the transmission of critical changes in technology and productive organization.     

我国供应链环节中制造业生产率测度模型研究

采用不变弹性生产函数法测算全要素生产率,引入完全市场竞争和生产者均衡的假设,利用资本价格、劳动力价格、劳动和资本投入及产出回归估计出分配系数、替代参数和生产弹性μ的值,从而确定不变弹性生产函数的方程式。采用1993-2006年制造业的相关数据,测算出中国制造业的生产率。     

Induced Innovation,Endogenous Technical Change and Income Distribution in a Labor‐Constrained Model of Classical Growth

We present a steady state analysis of a labor‐constrained classical growth model with endogenous direction and intensity of technical change. Firms use retained profits to raise their productive capacity and to improve labor and capital productivities. Investments are planned to maximize instantaneous profits. Comparative dynamics exercises show that (1) an increase in the saving rate and in R&D subsidies raises the steady state labor share, labor productivity growth and the employment rate, and (2) a rise in workers' bargaining power reduces the employment rate while leaving productivity growth and distribution unaffected.     

中国制造业企业利润决定机制研究——基于异质性生产率的视角

基于异质性生产率角度提出决定企业利润的数量模型,使用中国制造业企业样本数据研究企业的利润状况,并且提出衡量企业利润状况的两种利润率,即销售利润率与投资利润率,最后实证检验生产率对企业利润的决定作用。研究结论显示:中国制造业企业的投资利润率具有逐渐提高的趋势,而销售利润率却具有逐渐下降的趋势;企业生产率与其利润规模呈显著的正相关关系,并且具有相同生产率的企业选择进入出口市场会获得更高的利润。     

Participation in export and Chinese firms’ capacity utilization

This paper first sets up a firm heterogeneity trade model and shows that given capital stock and productivity, export firms will have higher rates of capacity utilization. In addition, given capital stock and fixed export costs, firms with higher productivity are more likely to export. I then use the 2012 Chinese enterprise survey from the World Bank to empirically investigate the impact of participation in export on Chinese firms’ capacity utilization rate. The results show that on average, export firms have capacity utilization rate 1.55–2.01 percent higher than non-export firms, which amounts to 14.6–18.9 percent of the standard deviation of capacity utilization rate in the sample. I also find that firms with a larger part of shares owned by the government have lower capacity utilization. Stronger market competition leads to over-investment and therefore lower capacity utilization rate. Faced with more rigorous labor market regulation, firms will substitute capital for the use of labor, resulting in higher capacity utilization rate.     

Income shares,secular stagnation and the long-run distribution of wealth

Four alarming stylized facts have recently emerged in the United States: (a) a decline in the labor share of income; (b) a decline in labor productivity; (c) an increase in the top 1% wealth share and (d) an increase in the capital-income ratio. In Capital in the XXI Century, Thomas Piketty's argument is that the r > g inequality determines an increase in the capital-income ratio; if the elasticity of substitution in production is above one, the profit share rises. We provide a contrasting explanation that draws from the Post Keynesian approach to differential saving propensities between classes and the Classical-Marxian theory of induced technical change. In a simple model of “capitalists” and “workers,” we show that institutional changes that lower the labor share—declining unionization, increasing monopsony power in the labor market, the global ‘race to the bottom' in unit labor costs or the exhaustion of path-breaking scientific discoveries—can reduce labor productivity growth because of the lessened incentives to innovate to save on labor costs. A falling labor share reduces workers' total savings, and wealth concentrates in the capitalists' hands. A higher profit share and wealth share both put pressure on accumulation: but the long-run growth rate, which is anchored to labor productivity growth, has fallen. To restore balanced growth, the capital-income ratio must rise, independent of the elasticity of substitution. These tendencies are not inevitable: taxation can be used to implement any wealth distribution targeted by policymakers, while worker-crushing institutional arrangements can also in principle be reversed through policy. Neither change appears likely given the current institutional and global policy climate.     

东亚生产网络分工提高了我国制造业的出口竞争力吗

在梳理东亚生产网络分工影响制造业竞争力的作用机理基础上,基于面板数据模型,验证了东亚生产网络分工对我国制造业出口竞争力的影响。实证分析结果表明:结合影响制造业行业竞争力的国内因素进行考察,东亚生产网络分工对我国制造业整体以及不同行业的出口竞争力均具有促进作用。进一步将东亚生产网络分工的作用效应进行分解,发现东亚生产网络分工主要是通过劳动生产率提升效应、技术外溢效应途径提升我国制造业整体的出口竞争力,但理论上所预期的规模经济效应并未发生促进作用。东亚生产网络分工对我国制造业出口竞争力的作用途径在制造业不同部门存在显著差异,一方面,资本、技术密集型制造业的出口竞争力的提升在很大程度上是由东亚生产网络分工所导致的劳动生产率效应所驱动,即便是此类融入东亚生产网络程度很高的制造业行业所获得的技术外溢效应并不显著。另一方面,劳动密集型制造业部门出口竞争力的提升却并非由东亚生产网络分工所导致的劳动生产率提升效应、技术外溢效应所推动。这种分工状况容易导致我国制造业比较优势的锁定效应,压缩我国制造业出口竞争力提升的空间。     

THE WAGE–WAGE‐ . . . ‐WAGE–PROFIT RELATION IN A MULTISECTOR BARGAINING ECONOMY

The equalization of profit rates across industries subject to firm‐level bargaining over wages generates an interindustry wage structure with higher wages in capital‐intensive sectors. The familiar inverse wage–profit relation gives way to a wage–wage‐ . . . ‐wage–profit surface on which the profit rate can vary directly with the wage paid in an individual industry. Institutional changes that decrease workers' bargaining power and increase the incomes of the unemployed tend to compress the wage distribution; these changes draw political support from cross‐class coalitions of low‐wage workers and capital‐intensive firms. Some capital‐using, labor‐saving technical changes that raise capitalists' profits in current prices lower the equilibrium profit rate.     

On the similarity of country endowments

We study the production side of the Heckscher-Ohlin model empirically. The evidence we present suggests that the endowments of countries around the world are too dissimilar for all countries to be able to produce the same set of goods. In contrast, the endowments of the rich OECD countries are sufficiently similar, so that these countries do not have to specialize in different subsets of goods. Our findings have implications for a variety of issues ranging from the trade and wages debate to economic development. Our analysis relies on the lens condition of Deardorff [Journal of International Economics 36 (1994) 167-175] that compares country endowments with sectoral factor inputs. We mainly focus on the production factors capital and labor. We test the robustness of the results with different data sets and with corrections for international differences in productivity and human capital. We confirm the similarity of the developed OECD countries with skilled and unskilled labor data. We also investigate in detail the implications of measurement error and sectoral aggregation.     

企业集聚、劳动生产率与我国地区经济发展差异

经济一体化使得分工逐渐细化,产业内与产业间联系明显加强,企业的空间分布模式由分散逐渐向集聚发展。本文在新经济地理学理论分析的基础上,利用全国30个省市自治区（除西藏外）的面板数据,引入人力资本投资和技术水平作为控制变量建立模型,分析企业集聚、劳动生产率与我国地区经济发展差异的关系。实证分析结果表明,从全国层面看,劳动生产率对经济发展的贡献度最大,其次是人力资本投资,企业集聚与技术水平对地区经济发展水平也有显著正影响。分地区看,人力资本投资对东部地区经济发展贡献度最大,而企业集聚对中部地区的贡献度最大,劳动生产率与人力资本投资对西部地区经济发展贡献度很显著。     

Regimes of Interest Rates,Income Shares,Savings and Investment: A Kaleckian Model and Empirical Estimations for some Advanced OECD Economies

The first part of the paper deals with the effects of an exogenous variation in the monetary interest rate on the real equilibrium position of the economic system in a Kaleckian effective demand model. Different regimes of accumulation are derived and it is shown that a negative relation between the interest rate and the equilibrium rates of capacity utilization, accumulation and profit usually expected in post‐Keynesian theory only exists under special conditions. In the second part the model is applied to the data of some major OECD countries, the relevant coefficients are estimated and the relevance for an explanation of the course of GDP and capital stock growth since the early 1960s is discussed.     

DO RISING REAL WAGES INCREASE THE RATE OF LABOR‐SAVING TECHNICAL CHANGE? SOME ECONOMETRIC EVIDENCE

The long‐run relationship between real wages and labor productivity is investigated using cointegration and Granger non‐causality tests for the US economy over the period 1869–1999. The series are cointegrated, indicating that there is a link between real wages and labor productivity in the long run. Granger non‐causality tests support unidirectional causation from real wages to labor productivity. This outcome corroborates the conception that increases in real wages drive profit‐seeking capitalists to raise labor productivity as their main weapon in defending their profitability. This result is consistent with a long tradition among economists that perceives technical change as being biased toward labor‐saving.     

International productivity and factor price comparisons

Using OECD input–output tables for a diverse group of 33 countries in the year 2000 and estimates of each country's factor stocks, I compute factor payments for aggregate labor and capital with value-added data adjusted for self-employment by sector. Using a detailed technology matrix for the U.S., I compute factor-specific productivity measures in each country relative to the U.S., and show that these measures are strongly correlated with the pattern of wages and rental rates. I find that many low income countries with low labor productivity have relatively high capital productivity. I also find a distinctive pattern between factor productivity and factor payments depending on whether a country has a high or low wage-rental ratio compared to the U.S. I show these findings are consistent with the existence of sector-based differences in production technology and complementarities between factors.     

包含技术创新的江苏经济增长模型分析

以研发经费、全社会固定资产投资额和从业人员分别为技术创新、资本和劳动力的衡量指标建立生产函数模型,实证研究发现：技术创新对江苏省经济增长的边际弹性是0.058643,贡献率均值为14.26%,均低于资本（或劳动力）对于江苏经济增长的边际弹性和贡献率值。江苏省需要加大技术创新力度,积极优化创业环境,加强对企业家的培养,逐步完善技术创新体制。     

中性还是偏向性技术变迁影响出口?——基于细分行业贸易数据的经验分析

运用Tobit模型对中国SITC-3位码行业出口数据进行实证分析,本文发现,生产率越高的行业出口能力越强,技术变迁带来的效率改进是出口增长的重要原因。但与中性技术变迁相比,偏向性技术变迁更适合解释中国不同行业的相对出口存在差异的问题。劳动和资本密集型行业发生的偏向资本技术变迁,是中国劳动密集型产品出口比重不断减小,而资本密集型产品出口比重不断增加的重要原因。偏向资本的技术变迁,以及由此引起的要素相对生产率改变,与要素相对禀赋一起,预示着我国动态比较优势的逐渐形成。     

A division of the capitalist class and the market for money capital

In a one‐commodity economy populated by capitalists equipped with equal endowment but with heterogeneous linear production technology, a division of the capitalist class emerges endogenously. The capitalists with relatively weak technology, yielding the profit rate lower than the interest rate, become a money capitalist (lender), whereas the capitalists with relatively strong technology, yielding the profit rate greater than the interest rate, become an industrial capitalist (borrower). The equilibrium interest rate is derived by the associated demand and supply relation. From this setup of the model follow two essential relationships Marx establishes between the average profit rate and the interest rate: (a) that the profit (rate) sets a maximum limit of interest (rate), and (b) that the two rates are correlated in the long‐run. Lastly, the profit rate of financial sector is less than that of industrial sector due to the basic setup of the model where the industrial sector uses leverage to amplify the underlying capital profit rate, whereas the financial sector lacks intermediation technology, which would have enabled it to borrow profitably.     

On the employment, investment and current account effects of inflation

The effects of inflation targets are examined for a small open economy with cash in advance constraints. An increase in the inflation rate, by increasing the price of consumption relative to leisure, reduces consumption and labor supply. The fall in labor reduces the marginal productivity of capital, and a fall in investment. The country runs a current account surplus, despite the fall in output. The dynamics of the model for permanent and temporary policy changes are fully worked out, with the aid of a diagrammatic apparatus. Quantitative analysis of the model reveals substantial impact and steady state effects.     

产业转型升级水平测度及劳动生产效率影响因素估测——以长三角地区16个城市为例

文章从三个层次对长三角地区在2000 -2004年和2005 -2009年两个时期的产业升级状况进行了分析.首先,对长三角地区16个城市产业现状进行分析,并对该地区三大产业的转型升级方向及速度进行量化测度.其次,构建了Shift—Share模型对这16个城市的劳动生产效率进行了分解,得出产业内效应是促进长三角地区劳动生产率增长的主要动力.第三,运用面板估计对劳动生产率的影响因素进行了估测.实证研究表明:劳动生产率与基础要素、政府支出、贸易要素之间呈显著相关.在上述基础上,文章提出一些具有建设性的政策建议和进一步的研究展望.     

Does globalization weaken labor unions in developing countries?

For a developing economy with a given urban wage rate, globalization in capital markets strengthens labor unions. This result hinges on the fixed urban wage rate, which leads to a constant capital–labor ratio in the urban sector. Globalization via capital inflows not only enhances the employment effect of unionization but also reduces the rent-shifting related loss in production inefficiency to domestic capital, lending a support to labor unions for developing economies. This result is contrary to the common belief that labor unions tend to be weakened during the globalization process observed after 1980s in many developed economies.