Do Supermarkets Change the Food Policy Agenda?

Policy makers want supermarkets to serve the interests of important groups in society, especially small farmers and the owners of traditional, small-scale food wholesale and retail facilities. But consumer issues are also important, including “internalizing” the full environmental costs of production and marketing, and helping supermarkets be part of the solution to the health problems generated by an “affluent” diet and lifestyle. This paper places the supermarket debate in the broader evolution of food policy analysis, a framework for integrating household, market, macro, and trade issues as they affect hunger and poverty. Increasingly, supermarkets provide the institutional linkages across these issues.     

Is Belgium ready for EMU? A look at national, sectoral and regional developments

In EMU the question arises how countries will respond to adverse economic shocks. A statistical decomposition of output shocks in Belgium identifies the sectoral level as the main source of turbulence. This sectoral focus reduces the need for monetary, exchange rate and budgetary policies as macro-economic adjustment mechanisms but raises the issue of labour market flexibility. We show that wages fail to respond to sectoral and regional shocks. Similarly to the other EU countries, this absence of wage adjustments tends to amplify the regional divergence in production and employment performance, and can thus threaten political cohesion.     

Sectoral Effects of Monetary Policy: Evidence from Malaysia

The present paper analyzes the effects of monetary policy shocks on aggregate and eight sectoral outputs for Malaysia using vector autoregressive models. In line with many existing studies on Malaysia, the results are supportive of the real effects of monetary policy shocks. More importantly, we find evidence suggesting sector-specific responses to innovations in monetary policy. In response to positive interest rate shocks, we note that the manufacturing, construction, finance, insurance, real estate and business services sectors seem to decline more than aggregate production. By contrast, we observe the relative insensitivities of agriculture, forestry and fishing, mining and quarrying, electricity, gas and water to interest rate changes. The results, therefore, seem to confirm potential disparities in the effect of monetary policy on real sectoral activities.     

农业劳动力转移入发达地区的主要阻碍因素分析

农业劳动力转移主要受就业概率、城乡收入差距、公共服务成本等因素影响。在我国,农业劳动力的转移呈现出速度快、规模大、流入发达地区的趋势明显等特点。现阶段,农业劳动力转移入发达地区的主要障碍并不是制度因素,而是工业化中期向后期过渡中产业结构和劳动力结构调整的动态契合问题。为此,我们需要根据工业化、城镇化和区域经济的变动趋势,采取一系列的相应措施。     

Engel versus Baumol: Accounting for structural change using two centuries of U.S. data

In the last two centuries, the reallocation of labor out of agriculture has been a dominant feature of structural change and economic growth in the United States. This paper uses an accounting framework founded in economic theory to decompose this reallocation into three components: a demand-side effect due to the low income elasticity of demand for agricultural goods (Engel effect), and two supply-side effects, one due to differential sectoral productivity growth rates (Baumol effect), and the other to differential capital deepening. The results show that the Engel effect accounts for almost all labor reallocation until the 1950s, after which the Baumol effect becomes a key determinant. Our framework provides a unified account of long-run structural change, and demonstrates that historical interpretations and theoretical models that emphasize only one dimension of this process cannot properly account for the dramatic history of labor reallocation in the United States.     

Baumol's Law and Verdoorn's Regularity

This paper tests the laws of Verdoorn and Baumol for the Netherlands in order to assess whether these laws provide an appropriate framework to interpret developments of output, employment, and wages and prices in the manufacturing industry and the services sector. The empirical evidence is not conclusive with respect to Verdoorn's law, but strongly supportive of Baumol's law.     

服务业劳动者年龄结构对劳动生产率和工资的影响研究

将年龄结构引入到Cobb-Douglas 生产函数中,采用全国第六次人口普查和全国第七次人口普查的截面数据研究中国服务业劳动者年龄结构对劳动生产率和工资的影响,研究发现不同年龄区间劳动者比重对劳动生产率和工资的影响程度和影响方向存在差异。劳动者数量对劳动生产率影响为负向,16-24 岁、25-34 岁和45-54 岁劳动者比重对劳动生产率产生正向影响,而55-64 岁和65-74 岁对劳动生产率的影响分别由负转正和由正转负。劳动者数量及各年龄段劳动者比重对工资水平产生正向影响。因此,提出对不同行业劳动者教育水平进行合理要求、综合考虑不同年龄段劳动者能力以及给予老年劳动者合适的工作岗位等政策建议。     

China＇s FDI Net Inflow and Deterioration of Terms of Trade： Paradox and Explanation

Starting from the contradiction between China's sustained growth in foreign direct investment (FDI) net inflow and deterioration of the terms of trade, this paper analyzes the characteristics of FDI sectoral structure since the 1990. Moreover, considering the international market competitive environment, this paper gives a concrete analysis of the influence mechanism and concludes that the flowing of FDI into labor‐intensive export sectors caused the deterioration of China's terms of trade. To improve its terms of trade, China needs to direct FDI inflow into capital‐ and technology‐intensive sectors and service sectors. (Edited by Xiaoming Feng)     

Does the application of ICTs facilitate rural economic transformation in China? Empirical evidence from the use of smartphones among farmers

This paper investigates the role of information communication technologies (ICTs) in the transformation of rural economies by evaluating the use of smartphones among farmers in China. We use unique three-wave panel data to document the transformation path of rural economies in recent years. An endogenous switching probit model and a counterfactual analysis are applied to estimate the effects of smartphone use. The results show that from 2008 to 2015, rural economies in China could be characterized by the following three aspects: a) increased off-farm employment, b) expanded grain cultivation, and c) decreased crop diversification. The estimation results indicate that the use of smartphones among farmers had significant impacts on the transformation of rural economies by facilitating the off-farm employment of the farmers' family members, the cultivation of nongrain crops and crop specialization. These findings complement the empirical evidence on the role of ICTs, particularly smartphones, in the development of rural economies in China and other developing countries.     

Divide and Rule: Geographical Diversification and the Multinational Firm

We develop a model to illustrate a motive for FDI that derives from a firm's overall locational strategy. A firm, that initially has a plant in its home country, may choose to also have a foreign plant in order to improve its bargaining position versus local labour unions. This permits the firm to reduce wages. Furthermore, the existence of a second foreign plant acts to discipline the demands of foreign workers. Thus, the firm is faced with a link between the wage and its degree of geographical diversification. This drives up the number of plants the firm has in equilibrium.     

创新投资对经济高质量发展的影响研究——基于产业结构升级的中介视角

创新投资是否以及如何影响经济高质量发展是近年来大家关注的焦点.从理论上阐述创新投资如何通过产业结构升级来影响经济高质量发展,并以中国2008—2017年30个省、市以及自治区的数据作为样本,借助中介效应模型,实证检验上述影响机理和效应.研究发现:创新投资能够促进经济高质量发展;创新投资与产业结构升级显著正相关;产业结构升级在创新投资与经济高质量发展之间具有完全中介作用,即创新投资是通过影响产业结构升级来影响经济高质量发展的;不同地区的创新投资对经济发展高质量的影响程度不同,其中,西部地区的创新投资对经济高质量发展的影响强度较大,而且产业结构升级的中介效应也更为明显.     

论农村信用社的产权多元化

信用社有着自己的基本特征。中国农村信用社实践中存在三大误区:与集体经济相提并论;信用中介与一般中介特征相混淆;改革中出现行政化、机关化问题突出。因此,进行农信社的产权多元化是关键。本文分析的逻辑表明,我国农信社的改革应坚持两条道路,一是将多数农信社改造为商业银行;二是按照合作原则对部分农信社改造成真正意义上的信用社组织。     

The Chinese State Enterprise Sector: Labour Market Reform and the Impact on Male–Female Wage Structure

The paper examines the wage structure in the Chinese state enterprise sector between 1981 and 1987. This period is of particular interest given the introduction of major labour market reforms in China during the early 1980s. In essence the reforms represented a movement away from administratively determined prices towards a market–oriented system combined with a relatively flexible system of labour allocation. The Juhn, Murphy and Pierce (1991) decomposition is employed to shed light on the role of changing labour market institutions over the period.
JEL classification : J 31; J 16     

论“两极分化”与收入分配结构转型

两极分化程度的控制,可以说将成为时代的主题。如何做到兼顾"效率与公平",实现社会收入分配结构的成功转型就成为当务之急。本文就从"两极分化"入手,以改变我国目前的贫富差距状况为目标,提出一些使社会收入分配结构逐步转型的有效途径,旨在改善人民的生活条件,使社会向更加和谐的方向发展。     

多元化之惑——对企业性质的再思考

本文认为经济学在多元化利弊和多元化动因方面的研究均难以给企业内在的不断多元化力量这种多元化之惑提供完整的解释,因而提出理解多元化之惑应该重回对企业性质的思考,多元化之惑恰恰是由企业的性质决定的。现代经济学企业理论重点放在对企业的解构上,而忽视了以"企业"本身作为分析单位的研究,解释多元化应从企业的实体性入手,理解企业创新过程的本质。     

产业创新系统视角下的创新联合体建设——以美国纽约州纳米产业为例

产业创新联合体的建设对于高科技发展至关重要。创新联合体的建设与架构者密不可分。产业创新系统理论认为架构者是产业内部引导各行为体朝着共同目标协同进化的组织。架构者在政府的赋能下改进制度环境,创建创新网络,扩散知识库,拓展和创造需求,推动创新联合体的形成和运行。纽约州纳米产业发展经验体现了这一机制的运行过程。该州经验表明,建设创新联合体应注重扶持作为架构者的公立科研机构,改革知识产权转移制度,完善科研人才评价体系。     

研发投入能否降低企业产出波动

文章基于内生技术进步的理论框架分析了研发投入对企业产出波动的影响,构建了包含技术种类扩展和质量阶梯升级的内生技术进步理论模型,发现研发投入对企业产出波动的影响同时受到多样化效应和“创新性毁灭”效应两种效应的作用。文章利用工业企业数据实证分析验证,结果表明：企业研发投入与产出波动之间存在非线性关系,当研发强度较低时,研发强度增加将有利于降低企业产出波动;随着研发强度的增大,生产率提升、“创新性毁灭”效应更加明显,企业增加研发强度抑制产出波动的作用逐渐变弱。研发投入带来的技术多样化效应具有抑制产出波动的作用。因此,企业应保持适度的研发强度便于抑制产出波动、保障生产供给侧稳定。     

生产率的测度以及各种生产率的比较

生产率的测度是产出和投入之比。对产出和投入的不同界定而产生的生产率包括：直接劳动生产率、完全劳动生产率、增加值劳动生产率等。本文探讨了完全劳动投入的测度,并比较了这些生产率之间的关系。