GLOBALIZATION AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE SUPPLY CHAIN: WHO GAINS AND WHO LOSES?*

This article focuses on two distinct facets of globalization: decrease in the trade costs of goods and the decline of communication costs between headquarters and production facilities. When the unskilled have about the same wage in two regions, decrease of these costs fosters the agglomeration of plants in the core accommodating headquarters. When the wage gap is significant, process of integration eventually triggers the relocation of plants into the periphery. When this process of relocation is driven by falling communication costs, the welfare of all workers in the core falls whereas that in the periphery rises.     

On the welfare effects of competition for foreign direct investments

This paper investigates welfare effects of subsidy competition for the location of a multinational enterprise. One of the competing regions benefits more from the inward investment but, in the absence of incentives, the multinational's preferred location is the other, more advanced region. The paper shows that subsidies, by making the multinational switch location, may increase aggregate welfare. If the multinational exports in the absence of incentives, the welfare effects of subsidy competition may look very different. Allowing subsidies attracts the direct investment, which otherwise would not take place, in one of the two regions. Further, it intensifies competition in the market. The paper shows that the welfare increasing role of incentives may be amplified, but also that the competition effect, by hurting domestic firms, may cancel out any other positive role of incentives.     

Can regional policy in a federation improve economic efficiency?

In the European Union and in many federal and non-federal countries, the central government pays subsidies to poor regions. These subsidies are often seen as a redistributive measure which comes at the cost of an efficiency loss. This paper develops an economic rationale for regional policy based on economic efficiency. We consider a model of a federation consisting of a rich and a poor region. The economy is characterized by imperfect competition in goods markets and unemployment. Firms initially produce in the rich region but may relocate their production to the poor region. We show that a subsidy on investment in the poor region unambiguously increases welfare if labour markets are competitive. If there is unemployment in both regions, the case for regional subsidies is weaker.     

Subsidy competition and imperfect labor markets

This study presents a two‐country model of subsidy competition for manufacturing firms under labor market imperfections. Because subsidies affect the distribution of firms, subsidies influence unemployment rates and welfare in both countries. We show that when labor market frictions are high, subsidy competition is beneficial, although subsidies under subsidy competition are inefficiently high. In the coordinated equilibrium, the supranational authority provides a subsidy to firms that equal the expected total search costs, which increases the number of firms relative to laissez‐faire and improves welfare relative to laissez‐faire and subsidy competition. Finally, we find that a rise in a country's labor market frictions raises the equilibrium subsidy rate, affects unemployment rates, and lowers welfare.     

Does tax competition make mobile firms more footloose?

We examine a two‐period regional model with evolving economic geography, potentially creating incentives for firm relocation between periods. We argue that tax competition makes firms more footloose, but that this increases efficiency relative to the laissez‐faire outcome. We establish that: (i) tax competition leads to efficient investment outcomes and (ii) firm mobility is greater with tax competition than with a laissez‐faire regime. When relocation is costly, there can be too little mobility over time, as firms do not take into account the impact of FDI on social welfare in each country. With lump‐sum taxes or transfers, firms capture these benefits and internalize them, such that tax competition leads to the efficient outcomes. When more time periods are examined, tax competition induces firm relocation sooner than in its absence.     

Credible redistribution policy and skilled migration

We analyze the joint determination of income redistribution and migration flows across fiscally independent regions. In our model, regional governments lack commitment so their policy announcements must be credible, and redistribution between skilled and unskilled workers is bounded by informational constraints. In any given region, the welfare of all workers is increasing in the share of skilled workers, as after-tax incomes increase for both skilled and unskilled workers. When skilled workers are more geographically mobile than unskilled ones, the endogenous response of redistribution policy can induce regional agglomeration of skilled workers. We also find that the equilibrium features symmetry-breaking if migration costs are relatively low; and that worker mobility tends to amplify pre-existing welfare differences in income and welfare across regions.     

中国通用航空产业补贴效率及最优补贴制度研究—以低空飞行服务业为例

补贴效率是检验补贴制度设计合理性、运行有效性的核心标准。研究发现,我国通用航空飞行服务业补贴制度存在相对供给挤占、暂时性收益陷阱、恶性亏损经营和资金体内循环4类突出的效率损失及福利侵蚀问题,补贴对通航运营企业经营效益提升无显著影响。立足补贴效率受损形式并顺应有效供给和需求严重不足的产业发展矛盾,以社会福利和外部性为核心,从结构重塑、机制优化两个维度出发,全面建立我国通用航空飞行服务业补贴制度并探讨最优补贴边界,最大化补贴效益。首先,以需求二维影响机制为理论支撑,搭建“需求侧保险费率补贴制度+供给端弹性补贴计划”的双侧补贴模式,减缓有效供需规模偏小对企业短期非理性补贴行为的过度激化。其次,从调整补贴标准、丰富补贴层次、规范补贴流程、定位补贴属性4个方面着手深度优化供给侧补贴计划,并以应用事后补贴安排、筹建再保险补贴基金的形式细化需求侧补贴内容,以期最大程度减少补贴效率损耗对预期补贴福利的影响。     

A Note on the Adverse Effect of Competition on Consumers

It is usually believed that higher competition, implying more active firms, benefits consumers. We show that this may not be the case in an industry with asymmetric cost firms. A rise in the number of more cost‐inefficient firms makes the consumers worse off in the presence of a welfare‐maximizing tax/subsidy policy. A rise in the number of more cost‐inefficient firms also reduces social welfare.     

Multilateral subsidy games

This paper examines the rationale for multilateral agreements to limit investment subsidies. The welfare ranking of symmetric multilateral subsidy games is shown to depend on whether or not investment levels are “friendly”, raising rival profits in total, and/or strategic complements, raising rival profits at the margin. In both Cournot and Bertrand competition, when spillovers are low and competition is intense (because goods are close substitutes), national-welfare-maximizing governments over-subsidize investment, and banning subsidies would improve welfare. When spillovers are high, national governments under-subsidize from a global welfare perspective, but the subsidy game is welfare superior to non-intervention. For helpful comments we are grateful to two referees, to Arijit Mukherjee, and to participants in seminars at Prague and UCD, at the EEA Conference in Lausanne and at the GEP Conference on “New Directions in International Trade Theory” at the University of Nottingham, June 2007. Dermot Leahy acknowledges the support of the Science Foundation Ireland Research Frontiers Programme (Grant MAT 017).     

LEARNING-BY-DOING AND ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION IN A MODEL OF MONOPOLY REGULATION*

This paper combines learning-by-doing and asymmetric information in a model of monopoly regulation with and without foreign competition. The principal source of the information asymmetry is unobservable firm effort in the learning process, although unobservable costs are also considered. The major result is that a post-learning all-or-nothing output-contingent lump-sum subsidy can achieve the regulator's complete information welfare maximum. With foreign competition this model can best be thought of as one involving infant industry regulation.     

智能制造业创新产出：政府补助与市场竞争是否协同助力

基于2015—2019年中国智能制造行业上市公司数据，探讨政府补助与市场竞争对创新产出的协同作用，研究不同产业类别、不同市场竞争环境以及不同区域下政府补助的异质性效果。结果表明，政府补助和市场竞争对企业创新产出均有显著激励作用，市场竞争正向调节政府补助与企业创新产出的关系；政府补助对智能制造四大行业的创新产出均具有正向激励效应，其中对高端装备和新材料产业的促进作用更显著；在高市场竞争环境下，政府补助对高质量创新产出的促进作用更加显著；分区域看，东、中部地区政府补助对企业创新产出的促进作用更显著，且东部地区政府补助与市场竞争的协同促进作用更强，中部地区次之，西部地区较弱。结论对政府制定智能制造业补助政策、完善创新市场环境、促进政府与市场发挥协同创新作用等具有参考价值。     

The optimal rate of decline of an inefficient industry

This paper considers the problem of the optimal time path of contraction of an industry which has been hit by foreign competition, and shows that in general, along the optimal path, a production subsidy is warranted. The optimal subsidy trades off the benefit of unemployment in speeding up the approach to the new long-run equilibrium against the cost of lost output in the ‘inefficient’ industry. The dynamic shadow price of labour in this industry is also derived and shown to be always positive, though below the industry wage rate.     

Employment Risk and Optimal Trade Policies

This paper considers trade policies and welfare in a Harris–Todaro model with risk-averse workers. Workers are assumed to have identical and homothetic preferences, but their incomes differ, depending on whether and where they are employed. When workers are equally valued, maximizing social utility is equivalent to maximizing the utility of a rural worker. An optimal policy consists of a production subsidy on the exportable and an import tariff. This model explains the widespread use of import tariffs on manufactured goods along with production subsidies on the export sectors in many LDCs.
JEL Classification Numbers: F13, D8.     

The Role of Central Government in Tax Competition Between Heterogenous Regions

This paper analyzes the role of central government in a Nash tax competition between two heterogenous regions, which differ in their endowments of two production factors. Regional governments use a source-based unit tax on mobile capital to finance their public service expenditures. The central government employs excise subsidies and lump-sum taxes to induce the two regions to efficient resource allocations. We answer to the question that whether the central government can induce an efficient equilibrium, and investigate the effects of endowments difference on the optimum subsidy rates. We find that there exists a unique tax rate under which the efficiency is achieved. We identify the set of endowment allocations for which the subsidy rate to one region is higher (or lower) than the subsidy rate to the rival. The large poor region receives a higher subsidy than the small rich region, but the subsidy to the small poor region may be higher or lower than that to the large rich region. [H2]     

环境污染责任保险补贴制度构建的路径分析——以广州市为例

环境污染责任保险补贴制度构建中涉及的诸多问题均与各地区的经济发展水平、产业结构、高环境风险行业布局等密切相关。结合广州市经济发展中的环境污染状况,针对环境污染责任保险补贴制度构建的路径依赖,探讨了环境污染责任保险补贴制度构建的对策。     

全球化、区位竞争与农民工社会保护

本文认为,农民工社会保护条件欠缺的根本原因在于,在全球化进程中,日趋激烈的国际竞争和区位竞争导致传统的"政府-资本-工会"三方均衡模式解构,资本力量得到加强,工会集体谈判能力下降,政府面临削减福利支出的压力.而政策的外溢效应造成国家之间、地区之间冲向底线的竞争,导致社会倾销、福利解体以及劳工工作环境的恶化.     

Globalization,product differentiation,and wage inequality

Abstract This paper develops a two‐country, general equilibrium model of oligopoly in which the degree of horizontal product differentiation is endogenously determined by firms’ strategic investments in product innovation. Consumers seek variety and product innovation is more skill intensive than production. Stronger import competition increases innovation incentives, and thereby the relative demand for skill. An intra‐industry trade expansion following trade liberalization can therefore increase wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers. As long as some industries remain shielded from international competition, the welfare implications of globalization are found to be generally ambiguous.     

分配承诺、产权与经济效率

在政府分配的承诺可置信时,地方政府分权竞争的结果是资方获得了最大利益,而劳方的利益被忽视了。而当政府分配的承诺不可置信时,资方的投资生产激励会受到较大的削弱,社会福利会受到较大损害。关于中国经济增长奇迹的经济解释,文章认为:在改革开放初期,中性政府对经济增长起到了很重要的作用;而随着改革开放的深入,地方政府分权的竞争激励机制可能起到了更为重要的作用。产业结构与产权保护有着密切的关系,要使产业结构完成升级,拥有良好的产权保护制度是一个重要条件。针对地方政府分权竞争带来的问题以及承诺可置信性缺失,文章引入第三方规制和以权力配置作为一种可信承诺等两种解决途径,并指出了其不足之处。     

国际多市场寡头条件下的贸易政策和产业政策

国际多市场寡头是Bulow( 1 985)提出的多市场寡头概念在国际贸易领域的自然延伸。在本文中 ,市场之间联系的纽带是本国企业具有规模收益递减的生产技术。本文的主要结论是 ,第一 ,如果本国企业与外国企业在外国市场进行价格竞争 ,那么 ,最优干预组合包括国内生产补贴与出口税 ,它们对本国福利的作用是一致的。第二 ,如果本国企业与外国企业在外国市场进行数量竞争 ,那么 ,最优干预政策组合包括国内生产补贴与出口补贴 ,它们作用于本国福利的方向是不一致的 ,这时 ,本国政府用国内生产补贴执行反托拉斯职能 ,用出口补贴执行利润转移职能。第三 ,作为模型的一个应用 ,本文论证了出口退税政策会加剧国内市场的扭曲 ;而且它不一定能够提高本国福利。     

Mixed duopoly,privatization, and subsidization with excess burden of taxation

We investigate optimal tax‐subsidy policies in mixed and private oligopolies with excess burden of taxation. We compare the optimal subsidies and the resulting welfare levels among four regimes: mixed and private Cournot duopolies and Stackelberg competition with public and private leaderships. We show that, in contrast to the existing works on the privatization neutrality theorem, privatization affects resulting welfare.