Shifts and twists in the relative productivity of skilled labor

Skill-biased technical change is usually interpreted in terms of the efficiency parameters of skilled and unskilled labor. This implies that the relative productivity of skilled workers changes proportionally in all tasks. In contrast, we argue that technical changes also affect the curvature of the distribution of relative productivity. Building on Rosen (1978) [Rosen, S., 1978. Substitution and the division of labor. Economica 45, 235–250] tasks assignment model, this implies that not only the efficiency parameters of skilled and unskilled workers change, but also the elasticity of substitution between skill types of labor. Using data for the United States between 1963 and 2002, we find significant empirical support for a decrease in the elasticity of substitution at the end of the 1970s followed by an increase at the beginning of the 1990s. This pattern of the elasticity of substitution has contributed to the labor productivity slowdown in the mid-1970s through the 1980s and to a speedup in the 1990s.     

Foreign Competition and Wage Inequality

The author argues that increased foreign competition can affect technical choice and skill differentials even when actual imports do not rise significantly. A model is presented of general oligopolistic equilibrium (GOLE) in which a reduction in import barriers (whether technological or policy–imposed) encourages more strategic investment by incumbent firms. The predictions accord with many of the stylized facts: higher skill premia; higher ratios of skilled to unskilled workers employed in all sectors and throughout the economy; little change in import volumes or prices; and rapid technological progress with rather little change in total factor productivity.     

Admission standards,student effort,and the creation of skilled jobs

We consider the implications of expanding enrollment through lower standards in a model with human capital externalities and a market failure. Workers and firms make uncoordinated investment choices prior to random matching. Investment choices depend on the expected productivity of the counterpart in production. The setting generates a potential human capital externality as a more skilled labor force induces more skilled job openings. Exploiting the externality is complicated by a market failure which may cause some workers to earn a degree but not put forth the effort required to become highly skilled. We show that beyond a threshold, increased enrollment through low standards can be poor policy. Policies which increase returns to agents and firms in best matches can improve outcomes.     

APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY AND INCOME DIFFERENCES

This article studies the relative productivity of skilled to unskilled workers across countries. Relative productivities are broken down into the human capital embodied in skilled workers and relative physical productivities (reflecting production techniques). I find that skilled workers from poorer countries embody less human capital and are also relatively less physically productive. Furthermore, results show that production techniques are inappropriate for most low‐income countries, and these countries experience large increases in GDP per capita by increasing the relative physical productivity of skilled to unskilled workers. This suggests that there are significant barriers to the adoption of skill‐complementary technologies.     

What explains skill upgrading in less developed countries?

Although many developing countries have experienced growing income inequality and an increase in the relative demand for skilled workers during the 1980s, the sources of this trend remain a puzzle. This paper examines whether investment and adoption of skill-biased technology have contributed to within-industry skill upgrading in Chilean plants. Using semiparametric and parametric approaches, I investigate whether plant-level measures of capital and investment, the use of imported materials, foreign technical assistance, and patented technology affect the relative demand for skilled workers. I find that some of the increased relative demand for skilled workers can be attributed to capital deepening. However, the relationship between skill upgrading and the three technology measures disappears once I control for unobserved plant characteristics. These results suggest that plant adoption of foreign technology is not associated with plant skill upgrading.     

Performance Pay,Productivity and Morale*

This paper incorporates the notion of worker morale into an economic model of pay and performance, and examines its implications for the efficacy and design of performance-based pay schemes. A worker's morale is determined by his relative pay status. A contract that rewards only individual performance can therefore undermine the morale of the least skilled workers in a firm and thereby adversely affect their productivity. On the other hand, competition for relative pay status tends to boost the productivity of highly skilled workers in the firm. The net effect on productivity depends on the composition of the firm's workforce. If the workforce is sufficiently heterogeneous then the inclusion of a profit-sharing component in the pay contract, which reduces the pay differential across workers, can sufficiently boost the morale of the least skilled workers as to improve overall productivity and profitability.     

国际贸易、自主研发与高技术产业生产率增长

本文采用DEA方法测算了我国省际高技术产业的生产率及其分解的技术效率和技术进步,并运用动态面板GMM方法对国际贸易、自主研发与高技术产业生产率增长的关系进行了实证检验。研究结果表明:1998-2009年间,高技术产业技术效率出现了下降趋势,但其生产率增长和技术进步显著。高技术产业快速发展的国际贸易并没有促进其生产率增长,生产率增长和技术进步主要来源于持续的自主研发,而立足于自主研发途径的技术吸收也促进了生产率增长和技术进步。因此,在研发设计新产品过程中,高技术产业应具备生产中间产品的能力,减少对中间产品进口的依赖。促进高技术产业生产率增长主要取决于研发投入,但在加大研发投入的同时,应注重通过管理和制度创新提升技术效率。     

The efficiency of SMEs in Thai manufacturing: A stochastic frontier analysis

This study examines the technical efficiency of Thai manufacturing SMEs and their firm-specific determinants utilising firm-level industrial census data for 1997 and 2007. Results from a stochastic frontier production function and technical inefficiency effects model reveal that Thai SMEs are overwhelmingly labour intensive with low average technical efficiency in both years. Results also indicate that firm size, firm age, skilled labour, location, type of firm ownership, government assistance, foreign investment and export activity are important firm-specific factors contributing to the technical efficiency of SMEs. Specific policies are warranted to improve Thai SMEs. These policy measures include: easier access to financial services, access to skilled labour, training of the workforce and entrepreneurs, addressing location and regional capacity inequities, encouraging foreign investment for operational synergies and export incentives for penetration in the world market.     

The welfare impact of migration with endogenous cross-border movement: An application to the European Union

In this paper, I examine the welfare impact of migration in a general equilibrium model with endogenous worker location choice. My framework incorporates labor productivity differences across countries, worker heterogeneity in productivity across skill and nativity types, as well as country-pair specific costs of migration. In a series of experiments, I predict the migration response of workers to an expansion or contraction in the number of European Union (EU) member countries. For the case of the United Kingdom (U.K.) leaving the EU, commonly referred to as Brexit, low skilled native-born U.K. workers suffer a drop-in income, whereas high skilled workers experience an increase. This result is driven, in part, by an increase in high skilled immigration to the U.K. from outside the EU, which helps to dampen the loss in income of low skilled workers.     

Foreign workers and productivity in an emerging economy: The case of Malaysia

Many developed and developing countries are experiencing large and growing levels of international migration of labor. However, the large majority of research on the economic impact of inflows of migrant workers on host economies focuses exclusively on developed countries. In this paper, we address this gap in the literature by examining migrant‐induced productivity effects in the emerging economy of Malaysia. Importantly, the Malaysian case is typical for many Asian economies where, next to high skilled foreign workers, large numbers of migrants consist of low skilled workers that are employed in host economies on a temporary basis. Using detailed industry level data for the period 2005 to 2009, we find that both high skilled and low skilled foreign workers generate positive productivity effects in Malaysian manufacturing industries. Furthermore, our results identify a strong presence of industry heterogeneity, as the effects of foreign workers, in general, and low skilled foreign workers, in particular, are pronounced in labor and assembly intensive modern industries with a strong export focus. This indicates the importance of foreign workers for the contemporary international competitiveness of the Malaysian manufacturing sector. As such, our findings provide important new input to the debate on the role of low skilled foreign workers in processes of development of the Malaysian economy.     

International Outsourcing and R&D: Long‐Run Implications for Consumers*

We show that international outsourcing and R&D by the outsourced firm may be either substitutes or complements. Outsourcing increases the R&D investment in small markets and in highly competitive product markets, whereas it decreases the R&D investment in large markets. If the outsourced firm can be technologically very efficient under exporting, outsourcing can make the consumers worse off by reducing the R&D investment. If there is skill differential in the production process and outsourcing occurs only in the unskilled activities, R&D‐reducing outsourcing occurs in a relatively low‐skilled industry. If outsourcing of the unskilled jobs reduces the effective cost of the skilled workers by increasing the productivities of the skilled workers, outsourcing provides further disincentive for R&D compared to the situation where outsourcing of the unskilled jobs does not affect the effective cost of the skilled workers.     

FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT,NON‐TRADED GOODS AND REAL WAGES

Using a three‐sector general equilibrium model with non‐traded goods, we investigate the impact of foreign direct investment on the real wages of skilled and unskilled workers. We show that foreign direct investment increases the real wages of skilled and unskilled workers alike, but widens the gap between the two under plausible conditions.     

TRADE IMPACTS ON SKILL ACQUISITION VIA VARIETY EXPANSION*

We show that trade enhances skill formation through gains from trade via variety expansion à la Krugman. Although workers are identical as unskilled labour, they differ in productivity as skilled labour. Workers become skilled by incurring training costs. By introducing these settings into a trade model with monopolistic competition, we show that, although trade makes all agents better off, its effect is stronger for skilled than unskilled workers, which stimulates skill acquisition. As a result of less productive workers becoming skilled, the wage dispersion among skilled workers increases.     

Persistent income gaps in an occupational choice model with multi‐goods

In this study, we propose a theory to explain why income gaps persist. We model a simple overlapping‐generations economy with three consumption goods and two types of workers. We find that high‐skilled workers have comparative advantage in skill‐intensive jobs and low‐skilled workers in less skill‐intensive jobs. This pattern of comparative advantage determines occupational choices by workers. Combined with human capital accumulation, the occupational choices widen income gaps between families. At the same time, the relative price of skill‐intensive goods declines owing to productivity improvement. The decline holds back income gaps from exploding. The implications of skill‐biased technological change are also examined.     

Causality between foreign investment and spillover efficiency

While there is considerable evidence on the observed linkage between foreign investment and technical efficiency of the developing countries, the question of causality between them has not been investigated. This paper re-examines the relationship between foreign direct investment and technical efficiency in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Singapore and Zambia using Granger Causality tests. The results suggest that foreign direct investment and labour productivity are causally independent variables. However, capital formation of the host country is found to exert ‘Causal’ influence on foreign investment.     

Equipment Investment and the Relative Demand for Skilled Labor: International Evidence

The effects of equipment investment on relative wages and employment of skilled labor are estimated. The basic hypothesis is that such effects are positive, because of the presence of either equipment–skill complementarity or skill advantage in technology adoption. Using a panel data set for a wide range of countries, the relative wage and relative employment of skilled workers are regressed on lagged investment in machinery and other relevant variables. The results indicate a positive and strong effect of machinery investment on the relative demand for skilled labor, with the relative wage responding much sooner and for a much shorter time than relative employment. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: E24.     

环境约束下的制造业生产率增长分析

本文引入Malmquist-Luenberger生产率指数,对比分析环境约束和无约束情形下的2001-2008年中国制造业28个细分行业生产率增长状况。进一步的,本文分别将行业全要素生产率指数、技术进步指数及技术效率指数作为生产率增长指标,选取资本深化、行业规模、科技投入、环境污染和行业属性作为解释变量,利用面板数据回归模型分析环境约束下生产率增长影响因素。研究发现,忽略环境约束会低估制造业技术效率水平及其指数,但会高估技术进步指数和全要素生产率指数;分析结果表明影响因素对生产率增长均有显著影响。     

Human–capital investment and the wage gap

Summary. According to empirical studies, the wage differential by skills evolved non–monotonically in the past decades although the relative supply of skilled labor steadily increased. The present paper provides a theoretical explanation for this finding. In our setting, technological change intertemporally alters the human–capital investment incentives of heterogeneous individuals. As a consequence of changing incentives, the time path of the relative wage is U–shaped while there is a rise in the share of skilled workers. Received: November 28, 2000; revised version: January 30, 2001     

LABORS INFLUENCE ON THE BALANCE OF THE USA'S MERCHANDISE ACCOUNTS

The results found here indicate that American labor does influence importantly the level of imports and exports of manufactures in the US. In particular, imports tend to be lower and exports tend to be higher in those industries in which higher skilled American workers are used more abundantly. Moreover, labor efficiency and productivity also influence inversely the level of imports and directly the level of exports.     

Productivity Growth and its Components in Chinese Agriculture after Reforms

This study uses nonparametric Malmquist procedures to investigate the temporal and spatial nature of productivity growth and its components in Chinese agriculture over the period 1980–1995. The results of this study indicate that total factor productivity grew at 2.4% annually with technical change augmenting the growth by 3.8% while efficiency change reduced productivity growth by 1.3%. For all provinces, 288 out of a total of 442 cases experienced productivity growth while the rest showed productivity regression during this post-reform period. Coexistence of improvement in technical change and retardation in efficiency change indicates the lack of success in diffusing the existing agricultural technology. Continuing innovation and efficiency improvement through capital investment, modern input use, and greater competitive market pressures are important for augmenting productivity growth in Chinese agriculture.