Real Wages in Australia and Canada, 1870–1913: Globalization versus Productivity

Australia's and Canada's real wage experiences between 1870 and 1913 were distinctive. Faster productivity growth underpinned Canada's overtaking of Australia's wage levels. The globalization forces of migration and trade also shaped their comparative wages, principally by reducing wage growth in Canada. Immigration increased slightly Australia's real wages, but reduced wage levels in Canada, and tempered there the beneficial effects of rising productivity and improving terms of trade. In contrast, wage earners' share of national income rose after 1890 in Australia, with the productivity slowdown hitting chiefly rents and profits. Distributional shifts favouring wage earners in Australia, and the depressing effects of mass immigration on wages in Canada, limited Canada's wage lead before 1914, despite her faster productivity growth.     

双城记

我想,在过去5年的时间里,凡是到过中国的人,没有人会怀疑中国将要在2008年举办一场有自己特色奥运会的决心。最近,我到2012年奥运会的承办城市伦敦走了一遭,却看到了一副与中国完全不同的场景。中国北京申办2008年奥运会得到了举国上下的支持。然而英国申办2012年奥运会则被多数人看作是前布莱尔政府想要恢复其急速衰退的声望的一种政治策略。许多人认为,英国目前有许多亟待解决的     

China and India： A Tale of Two Economies

I. Two Populous GiantsIt has been conventional wisdom to make comparison between the two geographicallylarge and populous countries, which share a long common border, have entrepreneurialtrading heritage, enormous internal diversity, large agricultural sectors, ancient culturesand almost five thousand years of histories. Both were noted for their economic prowess inthe past, albeit their more recent history of the last two centuries has been replete withdistressful colonization of one and eco…     

A Tale of Two Surplus Countries: China and Germany

Open Economies Review - We analyze current account imbalances through the lens of the two largest surplus countries; China and Germany. We observe two striking patterns visible since the 2007/8...     

轨道上的双城记

今年10月20日发布的《成渝地区双城经济圈建设规划纲要》,提出共建轨道上的双城经济圈,重庆、成都间1小时可达.事实上,去年12月24日9点15分,随着G8607次、G8608次复兴号动车组列车分别从成都东站、沙坪坝站相向驶出,成渝双城的通勤已缩短至62分钟.复兴号动车组开行那天,王丽因为值乘其他线路,很遗憾没能第一时间感受到成渝之间的新速度.不过,这样的遗憾在今年6月得到补偿:王丽成为了成渝复兴号智能动车组列车长.     

Pump Prices and Oil Prices: A Tale of Two Directions

It has been argued that retail gasoline prices adjust more quickly to crude oil price increases than to price decreases. We investigate this issue using the statewide data on weekly retail gasoline prices in the United States between January 2000 and June 2007. Our analysis does not confirm the prediction that gasoline prices adjust more quickly to price increases in crude oil prices. On the contrary, the results suggest that in some geographic areas gasoline prices could change faster when crude oil prices decrease. These findings suggest that a national or a one size fits all energy policy for the United States may be misguided.

Taiwan's Yacht Industry: A Tale of Two Entrepreneurial Firms

Abstract

This paper studies the evolution of Taiwan's yacht industry in general, and in particular we focus on two entrepreneurial firms, the Horizon Yacht Company and the Jade Yacht Company. Our purposes are two-fold. First, most research studies on Taiwan's economic success are based on the neoclassical economic model, which uses a proportional input-output production function, and emphasizes aggregate data to explain economic growth. We instead emphasize the role of entrepreneurship, which allows us to investigate closely how each individual firm discovers opportunities, exploits profits, and accumulates its capabilities to create perpetual wealth. Second, Taiwan is a very entrepreneurial society and its entrepreneurial spirit permeates into every corner with successful stories not just confined to some champion industries, such as integrated circuits (ICs), personal computers (PCs), etc. Taiwan's yacht industry, though it sailed through stormy periods in the late 1980s, has learned to grow to be a much more competitive player on the world stage. We show two cases of yacht corporations, Horizon and Jade, to shed light on how the firms use variant strategies to build their continuous competitive advantages, to meet challenges, and to galvanize their capabilities on their pathway to growth.     

A Tale of Two Countries and Two Stages: South Africa,China and the Lewis Model

The paper compares the economic progress of two countries, South Africa and China, in relation to the Lewis model. These economies are chosen because they have interesting similarities and also interesting differences. At the start of economic reform in China and with the advent of democracy in South Africa, both countries had surplus labour: they were at the first, labour-surplus, stage of the Lewis model. It is shown that, since then, South Africa has continued to experience surplus labour: the unemployment rate has risen. By contrast, China’s labour market is shown to have tightened, and there is evidence that China has entered the second, labour-scarce, stage of the Lewis model. The difference lies in their growth rates. There are sections explaining why the South African economy has grown slowly and why the Chinese economy has grown rapidly, in relation to the growth of their labour forces. The Lewis model provides an enlightening framework for explaining how widely the fruits of economic development can be shared.     

A Tale of Two Armies: Comparative Growth in the Mirror of the First World War

Soldiers born during the late nineteenth century were taller in Australia than in Canada. A widening of the gap for those born in the 1890s supports the more optimistic interpretation of Australia's 1890s depression and is consistent with the ‘hazardous growth’ hypothesis of an inverse relationship between economic change and public health. The rural–urban stature gradient was steeper in Australia although Canada had greater stature inequality in all other dimensions. Native-born soldiers were taller than the British-born in both countries. We see no evidence of selective migration effects that would imply feedback from stature to growth.     

A Tale of Two Gate-Sharing Plans: The National Football League and the National League, 1952-1956

Do professional sports leagues design revenue-sharing rules primarily to help financially weaker teams, or do such organizations view revenue-sharing rules as ways to reward teams for being competitive? Baseball's National League and the National Football League provide evidence from the 1950s that revenue-sharing plans may have surprising effects. If strong teams draw well on the road, revenue-sharing plans may provide modest succor to teams in smaller cities and may benefit teams in larger cities. The two leagues' experiences also suggest that owners are willing to enact regressive aspects in their revenue-sharing plans, possibly to forestall moral hazard possibilities arising from automatically helping teams that remain poor draws or that fail to improve.     

唱响成渝双城记的合川和声

推动成渝地区双城经济圈建设,是以习近平同志为核心的党中央着眼全局和长远发展作出的重大战略部署.为积极响应中央部署,进一步深化落实市委、市政府相关要求,合川区提高政治站位,树牢一体化理念和一盘棋思想,唱响融城之歌、弹好协作之调、练就发展之功.     

Trade Policy in Canada and Australia in the Twentieth Century

The paper provides an analytical comparison of the evolution of trade policy in Canada and Australia and of the two countries' roles in international trade diplomacy. Despite similarities in history and resource endowment, these roles have differed substantially, especially during the third quarter of the twentieth century. The focus is on the reasons why Canadian and Australian attitudes and policies differed so markedly. The importance of the USA as a trading partner, differing economic experiences during the decade of the 1920s, and the more concentrated composition of Australian exports all played a part. Once in train, the position that Australia was different and need not participate in GATT tariff cuts as long as agriculture was excluded became the inertial position, while Canada played an active role in GATT's early development. After 1973 Australia's position as an outlier among high-income countries' trade policies was reversed, and Australian and Canadian trade policies again became similar in the 1980s.     

A Tale of Two Tails: Establishment Size and Labour Productivity in United States and German Manufacturing at the Start of the Twentieth Century

This paper studies the importance of establishment size for the German/US labour‐productivity gap in manufacturing at the start of the twentieth century. First, we show that the left tail of the employment distribution by establishment size was larger in Germany than in the USA. Second, using US state data for 1909, we find a positive correlation between establishment size and labour productivity. Third, imposing the coefficients of these estimates on establishment‐size differences between Germany and the USA, we calculate that a redistribution of German employment to larger establishments, as in the USA, reduces the labour‐productivity gap by about 25 per cent.     

The convergence process of Argentina with Australia and Canada: 1875-2000

This paper uses time series techniques to estimate the points in time when Argentina started to lose ground with Australia, Canada and the OECD. Based on my estimates Argentina started to fall behind Australia in 1899 and behind Canada in 1896, earlier than the dates maintained by previous scholars.     

汇率制度演变与宏观经济绩效：文献回顾

本文回顾了利用不同汇率制度分类方法对汇率制度演变、假说与争议以及汇率制度与宏观经济绩效之间关系的研究。本文发现：一,由于;12率制度分类方法的不同,经验研究对汇率制度演变及其发展趋势得出了不同的结论;二,同样由于分类方法的不同,经验研究对不同;12率制度下的宏观经济表现也不能形成一致的看法,并且,经验结果与理论预测之间存在非常大的鸿沟;三,一国政府在;12率制度安排上的言行不一致极大地影响了一国的宏观经济绩效。这些发现促使经济学家重新审视不同汇率制度的优劣和对汇率制度选择的理论研究。     

Australia in Focus: Photographs in the National Archives A Nation's Imagination: Australia's Copyright Records, 1854–1968

Book reviewed
Peter Nagle, Australia in Focus: Photographs in the National Archives. Canberra: National Archives of Australia, 2003. Pp. 251. ISBN: 0642344957. Paperback $10.00. Merilyn Minell, A Nation's Imagination: Australia's Copyright Records, 1854–1968. Canberra: National Archives of Australia, 2003. Pp. 147. ISBN: 0642344930. Paperback $10.00. Reviewed by Jane Ellen University of Melbourne Archives