Offshoring and firm performance: self-selection,effects on performance,or both?

This paper uses unique new data for German manufacturing enterprises from matched regular surveys and a special purpose survey to investigate the causal effect of relocation of activities to a foreign country on firm performance. Compared to non-offshoring firms, firms that relocated activities were larger and more productive, and had a higher share of exports in total sales. These differences existed the year before some firms started to relocate, and this points to self-selection of “better” firms into offshoring. To investigate the causal effects of offshoring, six different variants of a matching approach are used. Contrary to what is often argued we find no evidence for a large negative causal effect of offshoring on employment in Germany.     

Can older workers stay productive? The role of ICT skills and training

This paper quantitatively examines the effects of aging on labor productivity using individual worker data in Korea. We find that information and communications technology (ICT) skills and participation in job-related training can help older workers stay productive. The estimation results present that ICT skills, a measure incorporating an individual’s proficiency in ICT skills and their utilization in the workplace, has a positive effect on the wages of the older workers aged 50–64 with a high level of education or in a skill-intensive occupation. Job training also has a significant positive effect on the wages of older workers. These results imply that compared to younger workers, well-educated older workers can obtain greater productivity increase through ICT skill attainment and their adequate use, and job-training. The evidence suggests that a productivity decrease in line with the aging process can be mitigated by training aging workers to equip themselves with ICT skills.     

Unions and firm innovation in China: Synergy or strife?

The ‘monopoly face’ of unions suggests that the rent-seeking activities of unions discourage research and development investment and that the collective bargaining rules may restrict management flexibility, thus deterring innovations. On the other hand, the arrival of unions in the workplace may ‘shock’ the management into adopting more systematic rather than ad hoc management practices and that such innovative workplace practices may enhance an organization's ability to introduce new products and/or new processes. Further, the ‘voice face’ of unions argues that the independent ‘questioning’ of the management deliberations by the unions can also lead to better, more creative and, hence, more productive solutions. This paper investigates the link between unions and firm innovations in China. Different from their counterparts in advanced economies, Chinese unions are found to encourage firm innovations and R&D investment.     

International Accounting Firms in China— An Empirical Research on Competition and Cooperation

This article bases on game theory, analyzing the pattern of competition and cooperation of domestic accounting firms and international accounting firms in the view of asymmetric information game. The authors will use empirical research method to analyze equilibrium associating the auditing marketing situations, and give some points on Chinese accounting market development strategy in face of the world＇s challenges.     

Convergence or Convenience? International Conservation NGOs and Development Assistance in Tanzania

International conservation NGOs and development agencies have historically operated independently of one another. Recently, their agendas have converged to consider both environmental and human needs, with an emerging focus on private sector involvement in conservation. New funding from international finance institutions has become available for NGO initiatives, and today there is little difference between the environmental strategies of international development agencies and those of the major conservation NGOs operating in Tanzania. While this is due in part to independent shifts in both sectors, NGOs may also be serving to carry out and legitimate the neoliberal policies of development institutions.     

Is care by grandparents or parents better for children's non-cognitive skills? Evidence on locus of control from China

This study investigates the effect of grandparental involvement in childcare on children's locus of control (LOC), which is an important non-cognitive skill that affects children's future development. We use data from the China Family Panel Studies, which is a nationally representative survey, and employ instrumental variables to address the endogeneity of family childcare choice. We find that children with grandparental care have more external LOC than children in the sole care of their parents do; that is, they are more likely to attribute individual success to external factors, such as luck, fate, and family background. This finding is robust to different measures of grandparental involvement in childcare and different model specifications, as well as a minor violation of the exclusion restriction of the instruments. We further examine the potential mechanisms underlying this effect. Grandparents have more external LOC than parents do, which can affect children's LOC through intergenerational transmission of LOC. Their parenting attitudes and styles are also different from parents' in that grandparents take less responsibility for children's academic performance than parents do and are less strict with children. In addition, grandparental care induces adverse effects on children's family environment.     

Reviewing China and Africa: Old interests,new trends – or new interests,old trends?

Africa was for a long time considered to be Europe's backyard. This situation since the turn of the century has changed considerably. With new actors pursuing their own economic interests, mainly representing the growing influence of so-called emerging economies, new multipolar realities have arrived on the continent. Access to and control over natural resources has entered a new stage of competition among external actors and in their interaction with local elites. Africa has changed as an arena, and realities are increasingly shaped by Chinese influence too. This overview on recent contributions to the debate summarises the current assessments of the degree, impact and effects of the Chinese economic expansion. It then reflects on the potential new scope for cooperation and development and ends with some conclusions on the possible options and opportunities this might offer.     

Emporiophobia (Fear of Markets): Cooperation or Competition?

Widespread emporiophobia (fear of markets) has important policy implications, since it leads voters to demand anti‐market policies. There are many reasons for this anti‐market attitude; however, economists could reduce emporiophobia if we stressed cooperation rather than competition in writings and policy discussions. In a sample of introductory textbooks, competition is mentioned on average eight times as often as cooperation. The fundamental economic unit is the transaction, and transactions are cooperative. The benefit of a market economy—increased consumer surplus—comes from cooperation through transactions, not from competition. Competition in a market economy is competition for the right to cooperate. Competition is important because it guarantees that the best cooperators will win and because it establishes the efficient terms for cooperation, but cooperation is fundamental. For most people, competition has negative connotations since it focuses on losers, while cooperation implies a win–win situation. Other implications involve the morality of the market, “giving back,” and characteristics of market failures.     

Analysis on Balance Gap between Saving and Credit Account in China

In China, the balance gap of credit and saving account emerged in 1995, and its amount enlarged since then. By the end of Dec. 2005, with 28.7 trillion RMB saving balance and 19.5 trillion RMB gross credit account balance, the gap between saving and credit account was as large as 9.2 trillion RMB, which indicated a 67.8% of credit/saving ratio. Some believed this phenomenon was resulted from on one hand, the rapid growth of saving account; and on the other hand, relatively slower expanding of credit account. Some believed cooling down cash demand was behind the gap, while others claimed the balance gap caused dead capital and inefficiency service of saving account. In fact, the balance gap between credit and saving account might not necessarily relate to dead bank capital. And the phenomenon itself could not indicate the down-tendency of finance power that underlay economy. Nevertheless, it was liquidity not the balance gap should be regarded an index of capital situation in financial organizations. Therefore the balance gap between saving account and credit account could not be viewed as criteria against liquidity position. Solution of this problem should lay in boosting financial innovation among commercial banks, expending capital market and encouraging or permitting commercial banks as well as state-owed funds to enter share market and so on.     

Innovation,learning, and exporting in China: Does R&D or a technology index matter?

This paper undertakes econometric analysis of innovation, learning, and exporting in automobiles and electronics firms in China using a large-scale 2003 dataset to identify the most appropriate innovation proxy. Drawing on recent literature on innovation and learning in developing countries, it tests two alternative proxies: (i) a technology index (TI) to capture a variety of minor activities involved in using imported technologies efficiently; and (ii) the research and development (R&D)-to-sales ratio, which represents formal technological efforts to create new products and processes, often at world frontiers. A higher TI increases the probability of exporting in both industries, while the R&D-to-sales ratio was not significant. Foreign ownership, technical manpower, and the characteristics of the general manager/chief executive officer also matter. The findings suggest that China's remarkable success in the export of automobiles and electronics since initiating an open-door foreign direct investment (FDI) policy in 1978 is linked to technology transfer from multinationals; systematic investments in and upgrading of minor technological activities (like search, engineering, quality management and design); and human capital. As China's per capita income rises over time, however, formal R&D activities are likely to become more important to sustain competitiveness and technological upgrading in automobiles and electronics.     

Impact of Globalization on Economic Disparity：Comparisons between Southeast Asia and China

This paper studies the issue of develop ment disparity and its relationship to the effect ofglobalization by comparing the cases of selected South-east Asian countries and China.Policy recommenda-tions are made based on our analysis.     

Self-employment in Urban China:Entrepreneurship or Disguised Unemployment?

To explore the mechanism of entry to the self-employed sector in urban China,this study tested two hypotheses:the entrepreneurship hypothesis and the disguised unemployment hypothesis,investigating the impact of mass entrepreneurship and innovation policies on business start-ups.Three main findings emerged.First,the entrepreneurship hypothesis was rejected for both local urban residents and migrants in 2013 but was supported for both groups in 2018.Second,the causality relationship between mass entrepreneurship and innovation policies and business starts-ups was not significant.Third,the results differed by group.The entrepreneurship hypothesis was supported for the younger generation of migrants in 2018 but was clearly rejected for the less educated,both in the local urban resident and migrant groups in 2013 and 2018.Robustness checks confirmed these conclusions.     

Are there spillover effects between coastal and noncoastal regions in China?

A major policy debate in China starting in the Mao era and carrying through the Deng area involves the tradeoff between equity and efficiency in regional growth policies. In this paper, we explore whether there are regional growth spillover effects promised by Deng's policy of favoring initial industrial development in coastal provinces. A stated objective of these policies was the spread of coastal provinces' growth inland. We review the theoretical underpinnings of such effects and test for them with panel data for the period 1981–1998. We also test whether any spread effects are equally distributed over inland provinces. We find that spillover effects have not been sufficient to reduce disparities across Chinese provinces in the short run.     

Belt and road: The China dream?

This paper explores the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in terms of changes in trade costs on trade and consumer welfare in China, the EU, and the rest of the World. We employ a general equilibrium structural gravity approach and conduct a counterfactual analysis. Our key findings are as follows: (i) China and the EU are expected to make substantial gains from the BRI due to reductions in transport costs; (ii) signing and implementing a deep FTA between China and the EU is equivalent to transport cost reductions of 15–20%; (iii) the joint policy of the BRI and FTA is super-additive, magnifying the gains from the separate policies; and (iv) where transport cost reductions are 20% or more, the potential negative effect of the China-US trade war on China is more than compensated for by the BRI initiative. Our results provide evidence that the BRI has the potential to deliver significant welfare gains, particularly if combined with other trade integration schemes, and to counterbalance aggressive trade policies.     

Balance sheet expansion and economic growth in China: Crowd in or crowd out?

Balance sheet expansion is crucial to understand the historic path, current slowdown and future trend of economic growth in China. As the financial system transforms national savings into investment, balance sheet expands simultaneously. According to changing impacts of balance sheet expansion on real economy, economic growth in China from 1998 to 2016 can be divided into the crowd-in stage and the crowd-out stage. In the first stage (1998–2007), balance sheet expansion crowded China's real economy in, raised TFP dramatically and accelerated economic growth. In the second stage (2008–2016), balance sheet expansion crowded China's real economy out, with stagnant TFP and decelerated economic growth. Balance sheet expansion has slowed down since 2014, but it continues to exert crowding out effects on China's real economy. We argue that balance sheet expansion is crucial for China's future economic growth. In the long term, structural reforms, especially reforms in the financial system, could increase growth potential significantly. In the short term, financial system reforms should focus on generating sufficient cash flows to boost aggregate demand.     

Financial Development, Economic Growth and Adaptive Efficiency： A Comparison between China and Pakistan

The strong economic growth in China is difficult to reconcile with its inefficient financial system. The puzzle of China＇s financial development and growth can be explained through a dynamic criterion of adaptive efficiency, rather than through allocative efficiency. Using the framework of an autoregressive distributed lag model, the present paper tests the hypothesis that the GDP growth rate is dependent on financial development along with other variables in China and Pakistan. The hypothesis cannot be rejected in both cases. However, the results show that economic growth has a negative relationship with credit to the private sector in China. We conclude that financial development is a source of China＇s high growth rate and that the banking system is still under an evolutionary process, involving the pursuit of social objectives instead of the sole objective of profit maximization. Our results provide some implications for other developing countries like Pakistan.