Trade patterns,unemployment and growth

This paper analyses the implications of a minimum wage in an open economy two-sector model where the effect of growth on trade and unemployment is explicitly determined. The first-best policy is a wage subsidy to all employment while the second-best policy is a production tax cum subsidy. In the absence of policy intervention it is shown that growth in the short run results in decreasing unemployment for the home country if it is specialized in consumption goods or incompletely specialized provided that the minimum wage is binding. If the economy is specialized in investment goods, then unemployment may increase initially but as growth continues the minimum wage no longer remains binding and full employment is restored. In the long run by examining the dynamic interaction between trade and growth it is possible for the economy to be incompletely specialized with unemployment. If the economy specializes in consumption goods, it is possible for the economy to attain full employment.     

FISCAL POLICY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE IMPERFECT LABOR MARKET

Using a simple overlapping generations model with the growth engine of public capital by incorporating the union wage setting, we examine the effects of fiscal policies on unemployment, economic growth and welfare in the imperfect labor market. We demonstrate that the growth‐maximizing tax in the imperfect labor market is larger than that of the perfect labor market. However, as the allocation ratio of public capital increases, the growth‐maximizing tax in the imperfect labor market approaches that of the perfect labor market, thus reducing the unemployment rate. The policy implications of the intergenerational welfare aspects are also mentioned.     

LABOUR SUBSIDIES: A NEW LOOK

This paper reexamines the case for subsidizing employment. One superficially promising approach, based on the idea that government cofinancing of unemployment benefits could induce firms to lay off too many workers in bad times, turns out to be an unsatisfactory argument for employment subsidies when worker-firm contracts are optimal. But efficiency wage explanations for unemployment offer considerable scope for a revenue-neutral combination of a specific labour subsidy and ad valorem wage tax. When pitched low enough, unemployment must fall under a wide set of conditions.     

大学毕业生人力资本存量贬损及对策研究

人力资本存量贬损指人力资本承载者获得收入的能力、拓展收入空间能力的弱化或消失,其实质是承载者无法获得既有投资决策时点的预期投资收益。大学生在我国＂毕业即失业＂的事实属于人力资本存量贬损现象。初始投资决策失误,保留工资水平过高,投资收益回收路径过少是贬损的内因;经济不景气,城市人力资本市场的供给激增,人力资本市场供求错位,企业、政府及非政府组织对职业培训供给不足是贬损的外因。可通过个体的后续人力资本投资、构建高校就业助推机制和营造社会的就业援助氛围,形成个体、高校、社会的三级联动应对体系。     

Efficient bargaining,welfare and strategic export policy

We present an efficient bargaining model and analyse the welfare effects of unionization, where rival exporting governments employ strategic export policy. The domestic firm is unionized and conducts a Nash bargain with its union to determine wage and employment. The union may be wage oriented, wage neutral or employment oriented. The foreign firm is non-unionized. Stability of the reaction function equilibrium in policy space is sufficient for the following results: (i) domestic welfare increases with the degree of wage orientation; (ii) an increase in the union's bargaining power leads to higher (lower) domestic welfare if the union is wage (employment) oriented; (iii) if the domestic social marginal cost of labour is less than or equal to the foreign marginal cost, domestic market share is higher under wage orientation.     

Contracts,the Spot Market Wage and Unemployment Benefits

This paper presents a model of the labour market with a contract and a spot market sector. Contracts are binding and enforceable, but unemployed contract workers are free to work in the spot market. The contracting wage is shown to be constant across states. A non‐trivial result shows that the spot market wage is increasing with product price. An increase in product price has an ambiguous effect on contract employment. An increase in unemployment benefits increases the contracting sector wage whilst stabilizing the spot market wage, and may have ambiguous effects on unemployment.     

THE PROFIT–INVESTMENT–UNEMPLOYMENT NEXUS AND CAPACITY UTILIZATION IN A STOCK‐FLOW CONSISTENT MODEL

This paper studies under which conditions the share of profit in value‐added, financial constraints on investment and capital shortage may foster unemployment and may limit the growth of capital and/or the growth of aggregate demand, in a stock‐flow consistent model. The efficiency of demand‐side versus supply‐side economic policies (decrease of the real interest rate and/or of the real wage, increase of the leverage ceiling constraint) depends on capital shortage and credit rationing, which are not necessarily simultaneous due to the effects of investment on aggregate demand and supply.     

The NAIRU,Aggregate Demand and Investment

The nature of the non‐accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) is analysed. The focus of our analysis is the role of aggregate demand and capacity in the context of the NAIRU. Two aspects of the relationship between the level of aggregate demand and the NAIRU are of particular significance. First, it is argued that the real wage–employment relationship based on enterprise decisions cannot be fully articulated without reference to the level of aggregate demand. Second, a model which allows for variable returns to labour and the notion of full capacity is used to explore the effects of shifts in the capital stock on the real wage–employment relationship. The model is specifically used to explore whether a sufficiently expansionary environment can generate sufficient investment to shift that relationship until the NAIRU is compatible with full employment. A number of limitations on the conclusions reached are considered, and the policy implications are briefly considered.     

福利性公共支出与长期经济增长——基于分布滞后模型和动态广义矩的实证研究

本文基于中国省际间1997~2011年的面板数据,利用动态广义矩估计和分布滞后模型,将就业、投资与经济增长纳入统一的理论分析框架,经验评估了福利性公共支出对长期经济增长的直接和间接机制。分析发现,福利性公共支出通过促进就业和投资的间接作用机制增进了长期经济增长;就直接作用机制而言,福利性公共支出增加了税收筹资,造成居民和企业形成税后报酬率下降的预期,反而不利于经济增长。政府在扩大福利性公共支出规模的同时,要借助结构性税收调整和支出政策激励企业扩大就业,通过公共品供给机制效应外溢引导产业间投资要素的优化配置。充分发挥福利性公共支出的就业增长和投资增长功能,才能有效促进均衡的长期经济增长。     

Redistribution of Trade Gains in the Presence of Firm and Worker Heterogeneity

Trade gains are unequally distributed; in particular, low‐ability workers lose out in terms of wages and employment probability. In this paper, we investigate the impact of redistribution schemes on aggregate and disaggregate variables. To this end, we built a trade model with trade unions, heterogeneous firms and workers. Three redistribution schemes are distinguished: unemployment benefits financed by either a wage tax, a payroll tax or a profit tax. We find that: (i) all three redistribution schemes reduce output per capita; (ii) but the marginal reduction is lowest in the wage tax funding scenario; and (iii) If the profit tax is used, labour demand for low‐ability workers increases.     

Unionized Labour Market,Unemployment Allowances,Productive Public Expenditure And Endogenous Growth

An endogenous growth model with unionised labour market is developed to analyse the interaction between the tax financed productive public expenditure policy and the unemployment benefit policy. We consider both ‘Efficient Bargaining’ model and ‘Right to Manage’ model; and analyse properties of balanced growth rate maximising income tax policy as well as effects of unionisation. This growth rate maximising income tax rate exceeds the competitive output share of the public input in the presence of an unemployment benefit scheme. The growth effect of unionisation in the ‘Efficient Bargaining’ model and in the ‘Right to Manage’ model are different.     

Employment Trends in the Hotel and Catering Industry in Great Britain

As in other service industries, the outstanding feature of recent increases in employment levels in the hotel and catering trades has been the extensive utilisation of part-time labour, accounting for 95 per cent of new jobs between 1971 and 1981. Growth of part-time employment in the industry reflects changes in the patterns of employers' labour demands. The simultaneous growth in unemployment emphasises the permanent role of part-timers in the industry. Reductions in working hours associated with part-time employment provide a means of controlling wage costs, whilst carrying implications for employees' rights and benefits under employment and social welfare legislation.     

Unemployment governance,labour cost and earnings management: Evidence from China

This study investigates the effect of labour cost on earnings management based on the panel data of listed firms in China. We use the average wage of employees in firm level as the proxy for labour cost. Firms with rising labour cost become more likely to engage in negative earnings management to conceal profits or report losses. The effect becomes more significant in state-owned enterprises, labour-intensive enterprises, firms in high unemployment-rate regions and firms with political connections. Further research finds that, under the institutional background of Chinese unemployment governance, firms get more government subsidies and tax preferences and reduce the excessive employment through negative earnings management. To a certain extent, this weakens the policy effect of unemployment governance. Overall, our conclusions are meaningful to the reform of unemployment governance, the standardisation of earnings management behaviour, the improvement of the government subsidy policies and the improvement of the efficiency of public resource allocation.     

Growth,income distribution and unemployment in a two-sector economy

We build a two-sector general equilibrium growth model with capital-intensive consumption goods and a labour-intensive investment goods sector to investigate the coexistence of growth and unemployment. The model uses heterogeneity in saving behaviour, introduces an effective demand problem, has full employment of capital with input non-substitutability and shows that the aggregate labour employment is determined by available capital along with commodity market equilibrium. The long-run growth may not be balanced, and under biased growth, the level of unemployment may monotonically increase or decrease over time, or may first increase (decrease) and then decrease (increase). Such possible unemployment paths help us tightly define “jobless growth”.     

Efficiency,equity, and environmental implications of trade liberalization: A computable general equilibrium analysis

This paper evaluates the effect of trade liberalization on global efficiency, equity, and the environment using global welfare, welfare redistribution, and carbon emission as indicators. A static, computable general equilibrium trade model with explicit representation of agricultural production and energy use is used to simulate a series of new scenarios in which 1997 baseline import tax and export subsidy trade barrier equivalents are scaled back. Findings indicate that with trade liberalization agricultural output declines, energy use increases, and carbon emissions rise. Global welfare rises revealing an overall increase in efficiency; however, gains to poorer nations come at the expense of richer nations. An increase in the use of polluting inputs such as coal in developing countries suggests poorer nations will risk environmental degradation with the lowering of trade barriers.     

Corporate Taxation of Heterogeneous Firms and the Welfare Effects of Labour Unions

This paper examines the welfare effects of powerful labour unions when the government levies a uniform tax rate – as is currently the case in most OECD countries – and firms are heterogeneous with respect to productivity. I show that an increase in the bargaining power of labour unions can decrease the welfare loss generated by restriction of the tax policy and provide conditions under which powerful labour unions decrease the likelihood that firms will move abroad. I also reproduce the well‐known effect whereby powerful labour unions decrease corporate tax rates if firms are mobile.     

Efficiency wages,unemployment and international factor movements

"This paper examines the implications of unemployment resulting from efficiency wages for international factor movements in a standard Heckscher-Ohlin model where the relative size of the endowments of skilled and unskilled workers and the efficiency wage induced unemployment level in the unskilled labour market are simultaneously determined given the population, supply of capital and its distribution in the economy.... It is shown that the optimum labour inflow in the market with domestic distortion and the optimum capital inflow are always positive because they reduce the severity of distortion by raising employment and income for the residents. The income and employment of foreigners also increase. Under this situation the optimum labour or capital outflow on the other hand is always zero. These conclusions directly contradict the result obtained for international factor movements in the presence of exogenously determined unemployment."     

菲利普斯曲线在我国不适用的成因分析

菲利普斯曲线是建立在西方发达的市场经济的基础之上的,由于国情和经济体制的不同,菲利普斯曲线在我国并不适用。现阶段通货膨胀与失业率不符合菲利普斯曲线所规定的负相关关系,也是菲利普斯曲线在我国不适用的另一个原因。要解决失业问题,简单地通过提高通货膨胀率来解决失业问题时就会失效。我国可以通过投资来刺激经济增长,实现降低失业率的目标。在实现这一目标的过程中,尤其要注意我国经济的结构问题,应加快第三产业的发展速度,有侧重的对第三产业给予支持,这将是我国解决就业问题的一个新出路。     

西方失业理论对解决我国大学生就业难问题的启示

西方主要的失业理论包括古典学派的自愿失业理论、凯恩斯学派的非自愿失业理论、新古典综合派的失业理论等。目前我国大学生存在就业难问题,主要原因有劳动力市场和教育体制之间未能有效衔接,以及社会福利和城乡差异等因素。当前在短期内存在大学生就业难的问题,与我国的经济发展阶段相适应。根据西方失业理论,得出解决大学生就业的几点有益启示：合理设置专业和课程,加大农村投入,重视政府在劳动就业中的作用及人力资本投资的重要性。     

IS LABOUR MARKET FLEXIBILITY DESIRABLE OR HARMFUL? A FURTHER DYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE

A common belief of mainstream economics as well as underpinning government policy is that the more flexible real wage is, the lower is unemployment. In this paper we study the dynamics of a standard neoclassical labour market under the simplest Walrasian adjustment rule. We show that when consumption and leisure are sufficiently low substitutes, an increase in real wage flexibility may destabilize the unique Walrasian equilibrium of the economy, triggering fluctuations in wages and employment. Minimal departures from strict (Walrasian) neoclassical equilibrium modelling are required to obtain instability results for wage flexibility.