OVERTIME WORK AS A SIGNALING DEVICE†

This paper provides an explanation for the empirically proven relationship between overtime and future benefits. We suggest an internal signaling model, in which a worker signals his value to the employer by supplying unpaid overtime. In our empirical analysis, we examine whether overtime has in fact a signaling component. Variations in collectively bargained hours between industries are exploited, as they imply different overtime thresholds for workers with the same number of actual hours. Using data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel Study for the years 1993–2004, a positive signaling value of unpaid overtime is found for West German workers.     

IN SEARCH OF AN OPTIMAL DEBT RATIO FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH

This paper extends the work of Barro (1979), Eisner (1992), foines (1991), Sawhney and DiPietro (1994), and others and examines whether an optimal debt ratio exists that will maximize economic growth. The growth rate of real GDP is specified as a function of the debt ratio, the debt ratio squared, the growth rates of labor employment, capital services, money stock, and a trend variable. The sample ranges from 1960 to 1991. Hypothesis tests show that economic growth and its determinants, including the debt ratio are cointegrated and have a long-run stable relationship. Results also indicate that the optimal debt ratio is 38.4 percent for debt held by the public and 48.9 percent for total debt. Thus, the current (1993) debt ratios of 50.9 percent for the debt held by the public and 68.2 percent for total debt are far greater than the desirable levels.     

THE SOLOW CONDITION IN AN EFFICIENCY WAGE MODEL WITH OVERTIME WORK*

A simple synthesis of an efficiency wage model and a conventional labour supply model is used to investigate the validity of the Solow condition which holds that the effort-wage elasticity is unity. The key feature of the model is its consideration of the possibility that workers may work in excess of standard working hours. It is found that when employees are free to choose the number of working hours and actually work more than the standard hours, the effort-wage elasticity is less than unity. This result proposes a possible explanation to support Akerlof and Yellen's criticism that the unitary effort-wage elasticity is too high.     

MAKING WORK PAY FOR WELFARE RECIPIENTS

This paper describes five new welfare reform programs being tested in six areas of the United States and Canada. These programs all use financial incentives to encourage selfsufficiency among welfare recipients. Some programs also provide employment and training services. A microsimulation model is used to predict the impacts of the two most generous programs: the Canadian Self-Sufficiency Project (SSP) and the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP). The simulation results suggest that SSP and MFIP will modestly increase the number of welfare recipients who work. However, because SSP has a fulltime work requirement and MFIP does not, only SSP is predicted to generate an increase in fulltime employment     

OPTIMAL RULES FOR PATENT RACES*

There are two important rules to patent races: minimal accomplishment necessary to receive the patent and the allocation of the innovation benefits. We study the optimal combination of these rules. A planner, who cannot distinguish between competing firms in a multistage innovation race, chooses the patent rules by maximizing either consumer or social surplus. We show that efficiency cost of prizes is a key consideration. Races are undesirable only when efficiency costs are low, firms are similar, and social surplus is maximized. Otherwise, the optimal policy involves a race of nontrivial duration to spur innovation and filter out inferior innovators.     

THE OPTIMAL MINIMUM WAGE FOR POVERTY MINIMIZATION

This paper characterizes the poverty minimizing minimum wage, and shows how it varies as productivity, inequality and market competitiveness change. We show that the optimal minimum wage is equal to the competitive wage only in special cases. In general, the former is higher than the latter. Thus, poverty minimization does not coincide with employment maximization. We also show that the optimal minimum wage always rises with productivity and, under certain conditions, falls with competitiveness and inequality. Furthermore, the higher the competitiveness and inequality, the more the optimal wage rises with productivity.     

A SEARCH FOR CLOSER ECONOMIC RELATIONS IN EAST ASIA

In recent years, growing interdependence in East Asia through trade and financial cooperation heightened the need for East Asian Economies to engage in closer regional economic relations. This paper attempts to discuss emerging economic integration efforts in East Asia with special reference to bilateral and regional free trade agreements. It discusses backgrounds for recent developments of East Asian regionalism in terms of deepening intraregional economic dependence and financial cooperation, and South Korea's position towards FTAs with major trading partners as well as East Asian economic integration. Important issues and challenges for an East Asian FTA are presented.     

OPTIMAL CAPITAL TAXES FOR PUBLIC GOOD PROVISION*

This paper constructs a general equilibrium trade model of a small open economy that produces many traded private goods and one non-traded public consumption good. Trade in goods is free, but the country taxes the internationally mobile capital to finance the provision of the public good. Within this framework, the paper identifies the conditions under which the optimal policy on the internationally mobile capital calls for a tax. Under the assumptions that (i) the welfare function is concave with respect to the tax rate, and (ii) the net revenue-maximizing capital tax rate is positive, it is shown that the marginal cost of the public good always understates its social marginal cost.     

OPTIMAL BANKING STRUCTURE: IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERSTATE BANKING

This paper assesses the implications for the banking industry of relaxing interstate branching prohibitions. Theoretical models suggest that the number, size distribution, and specialization of firms in an industry are determined so as to minimize costs of production. Analysis presented here shows that interstate branching prohibitions, or their removal, are likely to affect costs only if the "convenience" of office location is important and if significant economies of scale are associated with office expansion. These conditions apparently do not hold in either retail banking or wholesale banking. The paper concludes that productive efficiency alone will not force a major consolidation of the banking system when branching restrictions are eliminated. To the extent that a consolidation does occur, it likely will reflect factors not considered in our model. These factors include (1) possibilities for increased diversification with greater size, (2) scarce managerial resources, (3) managerial incentives to maximize the organization's size, and (4) demand for multi-office banking.     

基于有序搜索算法的土地利用外业调查最优路径规划

最优路径分析是地理信息系统空间分析的重要技术之一,在理论和应用上有着广泛而深入的研究。结合土地利用外业调查的特点和要求,综合分析了复杂的地形情况,建立了代价函数的数学模型,并基于栅格数据,采用有序搜索算法实现最优路径搜索。     

努力开创无锡宣传思想工作新局面

宣传思想战线是党的一条重要战线,宣传思想工作是党的一项重要工作。在深入贯彻落实党的十六大精神,全面建设小康社会、率先基本实现现代化的新形势下,宣传思想工作要坚持以邓小平理论和“三个代表”重要思想为指导,以全面准确深入地学习宣传贯彻党的十六大精神为主线,以全面建设小康社会、率先基本实现现代化为目标,解放思想、实事求是、与时俱进、开拓创新,以科学的理论武装人,以正确的舆论引导人,以高尚的精神塑造人,以优秀的作品鼓舞人,统一思想,坚定信心,凝聚力量,振奋精神,为无锡改革开放和现代化建设提供强大的思想保证、精神动力和…     

AN APPROXIMATION FOR THE OPTIMAL LINEAR INCOME TAX RATE

This paper derives a convenient method of calculating an approximation to the optimal tax rate in a linear income tax structure. Individuals are assumed to have Cobb-Douglas preferences and the wage rate distribution is lognormal. First, the optimal tax rate is shown, for a general form of social welfare function, to be the smallest root of a quadratic equation involving a welfare-weighted average wage rate. Second, an approximation to this average is derived for an isoelastic social welfare function. This average depends on the degree of inequality aversion of the welfare function and the coefficient on consumption in individuals' utility functions. Calculations show that the method performs well in comparison with standard simulation methods of computing the optimal tax rate.     

COMPENSATION FOR QUALITY DIFFERENCE IN A SEARCH MODEL OF MONEY*

We study an economy in which there is always double coincidence of wants, agents have perfect information about qualities of goods, and there are no transaction costs. The hold‐up problem arises because efforts invested in improving quality prior to search may not be compensated in the market. Situations in which barter fails to motivate quality improvement are identified. With money, however, the extra effort in quality improvement will be compensated when high‐quality good producers trade with agents holding both the low‐quality good and money. Injection of money can induce almost all agents to produce the high‐quality good.     

AN OPTIMAL SCHEME FOR INJECTING PUBLIC FUNDS UNDER THE MORAL HAZARD INCENTIVE FOR BANKS

I consider whether the injection of cash funds into a bank through the purchase of securities together with a bank closure policy can be designed as a strong incentive instrument for preventing the bank from taking moral hazard action in the presence of deposit insurance. Under certain conditions, the regulator's optimal policy can be to inject new cash funds into a bank through the purchase of securities, even though there are no bankruptcy costs. Furthermore, the regulator may transform the private bank into a government-owned bank. However, this kind of injection policy cannot be independent of the bank closure policy.     

OPTIMAL CONTRACTS FOR CENTRAL BANKERS AND PUBLIC DEBT POLICY*

We consider how the second‐best allocation corresponding to an optimal rule under the policy commitment of a central bank and a fiscal authority with a consolidated government budget constraint can be achieved, even though these authorities are unable to commit themselves to their optimal policies and ignore the strategic interaction between their policies. Our results show that the best practical institutional arrangement is to have an instrument‐independent central bank that controls the money supply to determine the rate of inflation and commits itself to an inflation target that depends on fiscal variables.     

SECRET SEARCH

For high-profile positions, should applicant identities be made public within the organization (“open search”) or kept confidential (“secret search”)? We construct a model where an organization seeks to hire, but where candidates' abilities are private information unless it uses open search. Rejected applicants, under open search, suffer disutility. We find the following: Salaries are lower under secret search, the expected ability of applicants decreases as the posted (open search) salary increases, secret search is preferred by organizations where quality of candidate is relatively unimportant, and organizations will, for some parameter values, choose secret search even when open search is more efficient.