Occupational and Internal Labor Markets in Japan

The distinction between internal and occupational labor markets requires the development of informative indicators that go beyond standard measures such as firm size, which are too vague. This article develops an alternative measure, based on the comparison between firm-specific and occupation-specific tenure, and applies it to Japanese occupational data. We believe that the proposed measure is useful not only in classifying different occupations according to the degree of labor market internalization but also in documenting changes over time in job definition, "reengineering" of the corporation, and the like.     

On Storage Behavior Under Imperfect Competition,with Application to the American Cheese Market

This paper investigates the economic implications of storage behavior under imperfect competition. It evaluates the economic dynamics implied by a storage firm under alternative market structures. This includes perfect competition as well as imperfect competition under Cournot behavior. The conceptual analysis is used to specify and estimate a model of storage behavior, with an econometric application to the U.S. American cheese market. The empirical results provide statistical evidence of non-competitive storage behavior. They show how the exercise of market power can contribute to reduced stock fluctuations and increased price instability in the U.S. cheese market.      

Gender and Job Search in Developing Country Labor Markets

Gender discrimination in developing country labor markets raises the concern that women may be unable to find alternative employment following public-sector job loss. Theoretical and empirical results in this article suggest that, in segmented labor markets, observed unemployment spells may actually be shorter for women than for men. This is a result of the relatively strong incentive wage-sector discrimination creates for women to accept more readily available, but less-remunerative, nonwage-sector positions.     

Labor Market Analysis and Concerted Behavior

In the first part of this paper, the importance of concerted behavior by workers emerges from examination of some prominent theories which set out to explain wage rigidity in the face of declining demand or excess supply without abandoning key elements of competitive theory. In the second part, the imoportance of certain Keynesian and satificing behavioral postulates in motivating concerted worker behavior is suggested by the shortcomings of some contemporary econmic models of the trade union which assume expected utility maximization and accurate knowledge of market conditions under ordinary circumstances.     

Industrial Structure and Unemployment in Regional Labor Markets Industrial Structure and Unemployment

Even during periods of moderated national joblessness, certain regions face stubbornly high unemployment. Rust Belt areas are often particularly affected and raise the question of whether such labor markets may not clear even in equilibrium. This article examines evidence from a panel data set of West Virginia counties, along with case-study surveys. The combined findings help provide a better understanding of persistent local unemployment, which appears to be due to nonclearing labor markets.     

Opening the Black Box: The Internal Labor Markets of Company X

This paper sets out to analyze an internal data set on a Taiwanese auto dealer employing three distinct types of workers. The effects of jobs and levels are positive on both the salary and bonus equations, albeit smaller under a fixed effects than under OLS; however, when factoring in individual fixed effects, the reductions in the bonus equations are greater than those in the salary equations. With changing economic conditions, any consequent variations are greater in bonuses than in salaries, with the most extreme variations being felt by higher ranking employees than lower-level workers. Promotion premiums between levels are smaller than the average differences in pay, and although wage variations do exist within and between levels, the greater effect is on bonuses rather than salaries. The variations in both salaries and bonuses, defined by the coeffficient variations, are also greater in those years when demand is high, as opposed to years of low demand. Entry and exit behavior is observed at all levels, although it is more likely to occur among the lower levels of the hierarchy. Finally, we present strong evidence in support of the cohort effect. Overall, our findings confirm the prevalence of internal labor market (ILM) theories.     

Predicting Household Switching Behavior and Switching Costs at Depository Institutions

This paper uses new survey data to investigate the covariates of self-reported switching costs and switching behavior by deposit account holders. Factors affecting geographic mobility appear to be most important in explaining the duration of deposit relationships. Both younger and older respondents are more likely than others to be at their first bank ever, suggesting a cohort effect in deposit relationships. Households reporting switching costs, net of the benefits from switching, are less likely than others to have stayed with a bank for prices or customer service, suggesting that switching costs may decrease price sensitivity. Switching costs appear more severe for households with high income or education and for households with very low income or minority ethnicity. These findings imply that banking markets characterized by such households may present greater entry costs for new firms.     

中国30年经济增长与就业：构建灵活安全的劳动力市场

运用宏观统计数据,本文首先回答了中国经济增长是否创造就业的问题.通过分阶段分析经济增长对就业的拉动效应.文章认为中国经济增长是一种创造了大量就业的增长;本文第二部分分析劳动供求关系的最新变化及其演变趋势.认为劳动供求关系正在发生根本性转变。但中国尚没有步入劳动力短缺时代.在今后20年左右的时间内仍然拥有充足的劳动供给;本文第三部分讨论了当前劳动力市场所面临的主要问题,认为结构性矛盾突出、就业非正规化严重、初次收入分配扭曲等问题突出:第四部分为结论,提出构建安全灵活劳动力市场的概念和设想。     

Imperfect competition law enforcement

Competition policy is a subject of often heated debate. Competition authorities, seeking to prevent or battle anticompetitive acts in complex cases to the best of their abilities, regularly find themselves advised by rival economic theories and disputed empirical analyses. As a consequence, there is a real possibility that they may occasionally err, missing true violations of competition law or finding firms liable that actually had no other intentions than good competition. In this paper, possible consequences of such imperfect competition law enforcement on firm strategies are considered. In a simple model of collusion, it is found that the incidence of anti-competitive behavior increases in both types of enforcement errors: Type II errors decrease expected fines, while Type I errors encourage industries to collude precautionary when they face the risk of a false conviction. Hence, fallible antitrust enforcement may stifle genuine competition, thus stimulating the very behavior competition policy is meant to deter. When enforcement errors are non-negligible, competition authorities run the risk of being over-zealous, in the sense that welfare is best served by an authority that is selective and conscientious in its targeting of alleged anticompetitive acts.     

Two-Period Duopolies with Forward Markets

Review of Industrial Organization - We experimentally consider a dynamic multi-period Cournot duopoly with a simultaneous option to manage financial risk and a real option to delay supply. The...     

企业内部市场定价:基于行为的理论模型

本文从行为的视角探讨内部市场定价问题。根据内部市场主体之间的合作、竞争行为提出并界定了内部市场结构的概念，将内部市场划分为简单型、合作主导型、竞争主导型、复合型四种结构类型；通过分析企业战略、内部定价对内部市场主体之间合作、竞争行为的影响，得出了企业战略决定内部市场结构应然、内部定价调节内部市场结构实然的结论：以内部市场结构的实然与应然相一致为原则．构建了企业内部市场定价的理论模型，阐述了在各种内部市场结构应然要求下的内部定价方法、决策权安排、绩效考核标准和激励机制等。     

城乡劳动力市场一体化的条件：基于制度变迁的视角

城乡劳动力市场由分割走向一体化是重大的制度变迁过程,其实质是政府、企业、城乡劳动力多方的利益博弈过程。从制度变迁的角度看,城乡劳动力市场一体化的条件在于外部利润的存在以及各利益集团的成本-收益比较。要加快城乡劳动力市场一体化进程,必须从这些条件的影响因素着手。     

Imperfect Tests and Natural Insurance Monopolies

In a housing insurance market buildings have different damage probabilities. High-risk houses need investment, low-risk houses don't. Insurers use imperfect tests to assess risks. The market is a natural monopoly: with more than one active insurer, high-risk house owners continue to apply to insurers until they are eventually assigned to the low-risk class. The natural monopoly need not be sustainable. In equilibrium the incumbent accommodates entry even when the natural monopoly is sustainable. We explain recent observations from Germany and Switzerland where damage rates and prices went up drastically after the transition from state monopolies to competitive environments.     

The Integration of Mortgage Markets and Capital Markets

In this paper, we develop a model to predict the impact of deregulation in the form of relaxing interest rate control on the integration between the mortgage credit market and the general credit market. The model is tested through the examination of the long-term Granger-like equilibrium relationship between mortgage interest rates and general interest rates in the pre-1980 regulated vs. the post-1980 deregulated periods. It is shown that the level of regulation, in the form of targeting general interest rate levels, contributes to the segmentation of the mortgage market from the capital market. To test this model, we compare the relationship between mortgage interest rates and general interest rates around 1980 where major control on interest rate levels in capital markets was lifted. Using Engle and Granger's procedure to overcome the estimation problem from nonstationarity in the interest rate series, we are able to find that the two interest rates were cointegrated after 1980 but not before. More importantly, it appears that the two markets were already integrated before the full development of the secondary mortgage markets between 1984 and 1987. Therefore, we conclude that the bulk of the integration between the mortgage and capital markets was completed as a result of the removal of interest rate controls around 1980, in contrast with previous studies that find integration occurred during the mid-1980s primarily as a result of the rapid development of the secondary mortgage markets.     

Competition in Two-Sided Markets with Common Network Externalities

We study competition in two-sided markets with a common network externality rather those than with the standard inter-group effects. This type of externality occurs when both groups benefit, possibly with different intensities, from an increase in the size of one group and from a decrease in the size of the other. We explain why common externality is relevant for the health and education sectors. We focus on symmetric equilibrium and show that when the externality itself satisfies a homogeneity condition then platforms’ profits and price structures have some specific properties. Our results reveal how the rents coming from network externalities are shifted by platforms from one side to the other, according to the homogeneity degree. Prices are affected but in such a way that platforms only transfer rents from consumers to providers. In the specific but realistic case where the common network externality is homogeneous of degree zero, platforms’ profits do not depend on the intensity of the (common) network externality. This result differs from those of the two-sided models, which deal with standard positive inter-group network externality.     

Allocating Control over Firms: Stock Markets versus Membership Markets

The theory of the firm must explain howdecision-making powers are allocated between suppliersof capital and labor. Most large enterprises awardformal control to investors rather than workers. Isuggest here that this asymmetry can be traced in partto differences between stock markets and membershipmarkets as institutional mechanisms for allocatingcontrol over firms. The attractive theoreticalproperties of membership markets are examined, alongwith some factors that may account for their rarity inpractice. These practical difficulties help explainthe rarity of labor-managed firms themselves, alongwith various facts about their design, behavior, anddistribution across industries.     

Markets without boundaries

Western economies, and the US in particular, are experiencing a dramatic diversification and proliferation of information activities which will effect all aspects of leisure and business. Against this background, Manley Irwin considers the nature of market entry, the reasons why markets are changing so rapidly, and the implications for both public and private sectors. He concludes that the blurring of market boundaries will defuse and decentralize economies, spur competition and encourage entrepreneurial activity.