Book review

The paper develops a general equilibrium model of international production and trade. Technology is carried across borders by multinational producers and the set of technologies being used in a particular country is endogenous. Production locations are chosen based on the costs of production and getting the product to market. A producer may manufacture its product in its home country, target market country, or a third country. Estimated model parameters describe the states of technology in different countries, barriers to international investment, and trade costs. It is found that the barriers to international trade and investment are highly correlated. The model is used to measure the extent of technology diffusion across countries, study the relationship between international production and trade, investigate the effects of free-trade agreements (FTAs) on offshoring, and to quantify the welfare effects of international production and trade.     

市场开放度、劳动生产率与我国地区工资差异

以新经济地理学的空间工资结构理论为基础,实证分析了我国西部大开发以来市场开放度、劳动生产率与地区工资差异之间的关系,结果表明,从全国角度来看,市场开放度和人力资本的增加对工资增长的贡献效应很显著,劳动生产率和外商直接投资的增加虽然对工资增长的贡献效应为正,但其效果并不明显;分东、中、西地区来看,市场开放度增加对工资增长的贡献,东部高于中部,更高于西部;人力资本的贡献效应则恰好与之相反;劳动生产率和外商直接投资的增加对工资增长的贡献效应在不同地区的差别并不明显。     

外资对中国经济的影响:基于来源地差异视角

文章在经济增长理论模型的基础上纳入不同来源地的外资,发现外商直接投资不仅与国内资本异质,而且其内部因来源地不同也存在着差异。这种异质性不仅体现在其对中国经济增长的影响上,而且还体现在对技术进步、人力资本等的外溢效应上。来源于港澳台地区的华资对中国经济增长的促进作用在所有外资中最大,而来源于美国和欧盟国家的外资的作用较小。     

Performance and Competitiveness of Latin American Cities: The Human Capital Case

Abstract

Besides the human capital, elements that make Latin American cities competitive include, for instance, their culture or financial maturity. However, the most important challenge for Latin American cities to succeed is how to manage all these variables. The purpose of this study is to identify the contribution of human capital and its relationships and impacts on the performance of Latin American cities. This quantitative, non-experimental, explanatory, correlational, and cross-sectional study observes factors that increase city competitiveness and develop their relationships. The study is based on the Economist Intelligence Unit database of 2012, in which 120 cities were evaluated, particularly contrasting Latin American cities with the top cities in the world and their characteristics. Urban competitiveness in Latin American cities can be predicted partially on the presence of Human Capital. In some instances, we found positive relationships between human capital and the characteristics considered in a city’s performance.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Andrei Schleifer, Inefficient Markets: An Introduction to Behavioral Finance Robert C. Feenstra, The Impact of International Trade on Wages Prema‐Chandra Athukorala and Chris Manning, Structural Change and International Migration in East Asia: Adjusting to Labour Scarcity     

Globalization and Greater Flexibility in the Japanese Labor Market: Exploring the Macro–Micro Link

The author explores the missing links between globalization and greater flexibility in the Japanese labor market based on review of literature and available evidence. Understanding Japan’s responses to globalization requires a nuanced approach, which accounts for its historical trajectory and social-institutional context. Along with globalization, Japan is experiencing a greater infusion of foreign capital, and an increasing presence of foreign firms. These foreign firms bring human resource practices that are more market driven and less socially embedded compared to the status quo. The diverging human resources practices of foreign firms have spillover effects that may destabilize the Japanese employment system in the long run.     

人力资本理论在再就业培训中的应用

下岗再就业是当前政治经济生活中的一个重要问题。如何解决、安置下岗失业人员是关系到国计民生的大事。文章分析了目前我国人力资本及就业现状 ,提出进行职业教育和培训是解决下岗再就业的有效手段 ,人力资本投资对再就业工程的实施有深远的现实意义     

Jackson,Karl D., (Ed.), Asian Contagion: The Causes and Consequences of a Financial Crisis

The purpose of this article is to identify the extent of inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI) worldwide. A large number of countries were aggregated on a regional basis to examine their inward and outward stocks as a percentage of gross fixed capital formation for the period 1980–2006. Among the findings was that the annual increase for both inward and outward FDI was less than 1%. Also, countries grouped by the aggregates developed, Africa, Latin America and Caribbean, Asia and Oceania, and developing were found to differ significantly in their means.     

Foreign Capital Inflows and Economic Growth in Nigeria: Any Nexus?

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the impact of foreign capital inflows on economic growth in Nigeria for 1980–2015 period. It employs Autoregressive Distributed Lagged (ARDL)-bounds test, and finds a cointegration relationship between foreign capital inflows and growth. Specifically, foreign portfolio investment has positive impact on growth, while the impact of foreign loans is negative. Nevertheless, foreign direct investment and foreign aid have insignificant impact on growth, suggesting that Nigeria cannot rely on foreign direct investment and foreign aid as vehicles to stimulate growth. Rather, an increase in foreign portfolio investment or reduction in foreign loans has beneficial effects on the economy.     

Transplanting corporate culture across international borders: Foreign direct investment and female employment in Japan

This paper examines the effect of foreign ownership on gender‐related employment outcomes and work practices in Japan. The data indicate that the proportion of females among workers, managers, directors and board members is higher in foreign affiliates than in domestic firms of comparable size operating in the same industry. Foreign affiliates are also more likely to offer flexible working arrangements, telecommuting and childcare subsidies as well as employ foreign workers. These effects are visible almost exclusively in older affiliates. The analysis of foreign acquisitions combining propensity score matching with a difference in differences suggests that increase in the female labour share takes place a few years after the ownership change. All these patterns are in line with the view that it takes time to transplant corporate culture to an overseas affiliate.     

人才资本形成中教育投资的成本收益分析

随着我国社会经济的飞速发展,人力资本概念也登上了历史的舞台,人力资本形成方式中教育投 资便成为全社会关心的问题。同其他投资一样,教育投资也必须考虑其成本和收益问题。     

A note on export-platform Foreign Direct Investment,training and absorptive capacity

The empirical literature on FDI suggests that investment in training is the major source of human resource development activities undertaken by MNEs, particularly those with sophisticated technologies, and host countries' absorptive capacity plays an important role in attracting FDI. We develop a model of export-platform FDI that provides theoretical rationalisation of the role played by a host country's absorptive capacity in determining MNEs' location decisions as well as their level of investment and training–and, through this, the extent to which they contribute to human capital formation in the host country.     

Local human capital formation and optimal FDI

This paper lends both theoretical and empirical support to the notion of optimal foreign direct investment (FDI) levels. It does so by uncovering an inverted-U-shaped relationship between FDI and human capital formation. The optimality of a particular FDI inflow depends on the educational incentives induced by FDI on the local, heterogeneous population. Our estimates confirm the significance of a positive (linear) and a negative (non-linear) impact of FDI stocks on tertiary schooling, which are exclusively relevant in developing countries.     

苏州利用外商直接投资现状分析

随着全球经济一体化和投资自由化程度的进一步加深,外商投资成为促进苏州经济高速发展的重要因素,外商投资企业进入苏州有效地填补了苏州经济发展的资金缺口,扩大了出口创收,增加了就业,促进了产业结构的调整,对苏州经济产生了深刻的影响。目前苏州利用外资的特点是外商直接投资规模较大、外商直接投资来源相对集中、外资投向地区分布较为集中和投资产业集中于第二产业等。     

我国利用外国直接投资过程中存在的问题及对策

自1979年以来,我国坚持对外开放的基本方针,积极引进外资,发展对外贸易,取得了举世瞩目的成就,同时,也出现了一些不容忽视的问题,给本国经济的进一步发展带来了负面影响。进入21世纪,随着经济全球化的不断深化和贸易投资自由化的推进,国际资本越来越成为重要的资源之一,各国政府都采取了积极的引资政策,加大了引资力度,我国利用外国直接投资面临着前所未有的挑战和强大的竞争压力。因此,克服利用外资中出现的问题,保证本国经济的健康和快速发展,制定相应的对策成为我国政府的必然选择。     

税收饶让抵免对涉外投资影响效应的实证研究

为研究双边税收协定中饶让抵免条款对我国涉外投资的影响效应,运用2003~2010年37个国家的宏观面板数据,通过一个简单的实证分析模型分别检验了外国予以我国的税收饶让对外国对华直接投资（FDI）的影响以及我国予以外国的税收饶让对我国对外直接投资（ODI）的影响。结果表明,税收饶让明显刺激了外国直接投资流量,但并未发现税收饶让对我国对外直接投资具有显著的促进作用。据此,建议在进行双边税收谈判与协定签订时,既要争取外国对我国的饶让抵免优惠,也要积极给予对外投资战略合作国家以税收饶让,从而充分利用国际税收协定,促进国内战略资本的优化布局,实现＂引进来＂与＂走出去＂的双向协调。     

外商直接投资、对外直接投资与国际收支——基于国际收支平衡的我国对外直接投资

在我国,引进外商直接投资和对外直接投资之间存在着严重的不对称性。我国国际收支中投资收益逆差抵消了大量的贸易顺差,在未来贸易顺差和外资流入减少的情况下,这将会导致中国国际收支的恶化。因此,需要大力推进我国的对外直接投资以谋求国际收支平衡。     

Pitfalls in the use of foreign direct investment statistics

Foreign direct investment (FDI) statistics are widely used to study the impact of international capital movements and multinational enterprise (MNE) activities. FDI intensity is also an important indicator of globalisation and economic integration. Datasets spanning long time periods and with broad country coverage have been employed in numerous studies to analyse various aspects of the determinants and consequences of FDI. Focusing on a relatively homogeneous group of six Western European EU countries, the present study finds major inconsistencies in the construction and coverage of these data both through time and across countries, leading to large discrepancies. Asymmetries will be far greater for broader groups of more economically and institutionally diverse countries. This study recommends extreme caution in drawing conclusions based on FDI data.     

全球发展服务外包的多重模式及其对我国的启示

服务外包是现代服务业的一种新业态．即企业将信息服务和商务流程等业务发包给企业外第三方服务提供者,以降低成本。优化产业链提升企业核心竞争力。由于全球服务外包的迅速发展以及其所蕴藏的巨大发展潜力,我国已经把服务外包作为发展经济的一个新增长点。国际经验表明,运用适当模式将极大地促进服务外包的发展。本文对全球发展服务外包的多重模式进行了研究,并在我国发展服务外包动因和优势分析的基础上,提出以多重模式加快发展我国服务外包的建议。     

Relational Capital and Performance of International Joint Ventures in Vietnam

Relational capital (RC), which is defined as mutual trust, respect, understanding, and close friendship between individuals in a business partnership, is one of the foremost important elements of the international joint venture (IJV) relationship. However, only relatively few researchers have hitherto attempted to measure this concept or its antecedents and consequences on joint ventures (JVs). This article examines the links between RC and relational factors, such as inter-partner flexibility, cultural sensitivity, goal clarity, information exchange and conflict management, and how RC contributes to performance of the IJVs in Vietnam. Based on an extensive questionnaire survey, the study found significant relationships between these relational factors and RC and between RC and performance of the IJVs. The findings suggest that investment in RC between partners is critical for the success of the IJV. In this regard, this research highlights the mediating roles of inter-partner flexibility, goal clarity, and conflict management.