Factor Endowments,Democracy, and Trade Policy Divergence

We develop a stochastic model of electoral competition in order to study the economic and political determinants of trade policy. We model a small open economy with two tradable goods, each of which is produced using a sector‐specific factor (e.g., land and capital) and another factor that is mobile between these tradable sectors (labor); one nontradable good, which is also produced using a specific factor (skilled labor), and an elected government with the mandate to tax trade flows. The tax revenue is used to provide local public goods that increase the economic agents’ utility. We use this general equilibrium model to explicitly derive the ideal policies of the different socioeconomic groups in society (landlords, industrialists, labor, and skilled workers). We then use those ideal policies to model the individual probabilistic voting behavior of the members of each of these socioeconomic groups. We use this model to shed light on how differences in the comparative advantages of countries explain trade policy divergence between countries as well as trade policy instability within countries. We regard trade policy instability to mean that, in equilibrium, political parties diverge in terms of the political platforms they adopt. We show that in natural resource (land)–abundant economies with very little capital, or in economies that specializes in the production of manufactures, parties tend to converge to the same policy platform, and trade policy is likely to be stable and relatively close to free trade. In contrast, in a natural resource–abundant economy with an important domestic industry that competes with the imports, parties tend to diverge, and trade policy is likely to be more protectionist and unstable.     

Endowments,Culture and Economic Development

This paper investigates whether the geographic characteristics of a country can explain cross‐country variations in income levels through their ability to explain cross‐country variations in cultural traits that enhance economic development. In other words, this paper attempts to determine whether the geographic endowment can serve as an instrument in examining the effect of culture on economic development. The paper conducts two‐stage least‐squares regressions. The second stage is a regression of the logarithm of real gross domestic product per capita on each of the cultural attributes that are considered in this study. In the first stage, the geographic factors that statistically explain a cultural aspect are used as instrumental variables. The results of the empirical estimation show that the cultural variables, instrumented by the geographic variables, explain cross‐country variations in economic development.     

后续扶持政策、资源禀赋与易地搬迁农户生计风险——来自陕西省的经验证据

基于陕西省两地区最新的搬迁户调查数据,通过构建易地搬迁农户生计风险指标评价体系,采用熵值法定量评估易地搬迁户生计风险水平,比较不同搬迁异质性因素下农户生计风险水平及其各维度的差异,实证分析后续扶持政策、家庭资源禀赋对易地搬迁农户生计风险的影响。结果显示：(1)易地搬迁农户健康风险、环境风险、社会风险水平较高,各维度风险水平在搬迁户内部分化明显,且不同搬迁特征下搬迁户的生计风险水平存在显著差异。(2)政府的经济补贴对搬迁户生计风险有显著负向作用,但技能培训和产业帮扶仅能够显著降低搬迁户的信息风险,对其生计风险总水平的影响并不显著。(3)家庭资源禀赋中的金融资本和人力资本能够显著降低搬迁户的生计风险。结合研究结论,进一步提出完善易地扶贫搬迁后续帮扶措施、防范农户生计风险的政策建议。     

高校衍生企业的企业家能力、资源基础与企业绩效

在影响企业绩效的各种因素中,企业家能力是最为核心的内容。现有研究普遍认为,高校衍生企业作为一种特殊形式的衍生企业,其从高校获取的一系列战略资源有利于提升企业绩效,但对于企业家能力在这一过程中的正向促进作用鲜有触及。从衍生企业与资源继承、企业家能力与绩效等相关理论视角入手,以我国3家典型高校上市公司为对比案例,分析验证企业家能力在高校衍生企业资源—绩效关系中的核心地位。     

要素禀赋、产业距离与产业升级路径选择

基于输入端的行业距离构造并利用自然条件、人力资源、物质资本、科技、经济结构和制度6大类共23种要素禀赋结构提出一种行业的"距离"度量。根据该度量绘制了行业的空间分布图,计算了10个低价值行业升级至3个高价值行业的最短路径。研究发现,资源型行业升级至高价值行业要经历更多的轮次,有时甚至缺乏升级至高价值行业的路径。有些中间行业如饮料制造业则始终出现在低价值行业升级至高价值行业的升级路径中,中西部省份产业升级路径选择若能趋近这些行业,产业升级将更为便利。     

Factor Endowments and Industrial Structure

What determines industrial structure? Do sector‐specific characteristics such as unionization, regulation, and trade policy dominate production patterns? One is inclined to believe so based on countless industry‐level studies and the many political battles that are continually fought over trade and industrial policy. In contrast, standard neoclassical trade theory suggests that industrial structure is primarily driven by relative factor supplies. This paper demonstrates that aggregate factor endowments explain much of the structure of production—independent of industry idiosyncrasies—and quantifies the extent to which shifts in industrial structure in a cross‐section of countries are driven by the broad forces of factor accumulation. These results are reached through an empirical application of the factor proportions model of production.     

Intraindustry Trade and Relative Factor Endowments

This article investigates the relationship between relative factor endowments and intraindustry trade shares in bilateral trade flows. While Helpman and Krugman's theoretical framework predicts a negative relationship, empirical studies often report contrary results. We, however, argue that previous empirical studies fail to provide an exact link between the theory and the data. New empirical evidence based on the estimating equation derived directly from the theoretical framework demonstrates that the theory finds support in the data once the sums of capital–labor ratios are controlled for.     

Managerial versus Production Wages: Offshoring,Country Size,and Endowments

We explore the role of trade in differentiated final goods as well as offshoring of tasks for inequality both within and between countries, emphasizing the distinction between managerial and production labour. We extend Grossman and Rossi‐Hansberg (2012), where task trade is driven by external economies of scale, by considering asymmetric endowments. Identifying possible equilibrium patterns of task trade, we find little scope for two‐way trade if endowments are asymmetric. Our numerical simulations identify non‐monotonicities between the level of offshoring and measures of within‐country as well as between‐country inequality.     

International Productivity Differences,Trade and the Distributions of Factor Endowments

This paper presents a model of task assignment and worker matching to explore how the distributions of labor endowments within countries influence aggregate productivity and international trade patterns. Higher moments of the skill distribution have complex relationships with the organization of the labor force. First, labor endowments skewed toward high abilities exhibit positive assortment of workers across tasks, while countries with distributions of ability skewed towards low abilities exhibit underemployment. Second, greater dispersion improves aggregate productivity in countries that experience underemployment, but worsens productivity where there is assortative assignment. Furthermore, the shape and size of factor endowments are shown to jointly determine a global pattern of comparative advantage. Countries are more likely to export their abundant factors when labor markets organize heterogenous workers effectively. These predictions receive empirical support from Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries using measures of diversity constructed from educational attainment.     

经济一体化、地方保护主义与地区专业化

地区专业化是社会生产地域分工的表现形式,经济一体化和地方保护主义是影响地区专业化水平的重要因素。本文以2001～2008年我国30个省区的面板数据为样本,就经济一体化、地方保护主义与地区专业化的关系进行实证检验,结果发现:对外经济一体化对地区专业化具有显著的正效应,区域经济一体化的作用不显著,地方保护主义则会阻碍地区专业化水平的提高。因此,应进一步推动区域经济一体化,减少地方保护主义行为,发挥各地区的比较优势,促进地区产业的专业化发展。     

Off‐Shoring,Specialization and R&D

This paper investigates whether off‐shoring promotes technological specialization by reallocating resources towards high‐tech industries and/or stimulating within industry R&D. Using data for the USA, Japan and Europe, our results show that material off‐shoring promotes high‐tech specialization through input reallocation between sectors, while service off‐shoring favors technologically advanced production by increasing within‐industry productivity, mainly via its positive impact on R&D. Conversely, we find that the increasing fragmentation of core production tasks, captured by narrow off‐shoring, has adverse effects on technological specialisation, which suggests that this type of off‐shoring is mainly pursued for cost‐reduction motives.     

Factor Endowments and the Private Provision of Public Goods

The paper examines the consequences of increasing the size of the community in the standard model of the private provision of public goods when costs are variable. In contrast to an economy with fixed costs, the provision of the public good can fall with a larger community, and an increased provision of the public good is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for individual utility to rise. The paper also contributes to the literature on immiserizing growth in that it shows that capital accumulation can possibly result in lower utility for all individuals.     

汇率、垂直专业化和中美贸易不平衡

人民币的升值并没有导致中国对美国贸易顺差的减少,结合中国参与国际垂直分工,计算整体和行业层面对美国出口的垂直专业指标,并且利用汇改以来的月度数据,检验在垂直专业化条件下的汇率与贸易的关系,结果发现,垂直专业化程度高的行业,汇率的变化对于贸易没有影响;而垂直专业化程度低的行业,人民币的升值对于出口和贸易顺差产生了显著的负面影响。其主要原因是高垂直专业化的行业大量进口中间产品,经过组装以后再出口,其利益主要为跨国企业获得。并且从整体上看中国的出口主要依赖这些行业,所以人民币的升值并没有导致对美国贸易顺差的减少。     

Specialization, Transaction Efficiency, and Firm Size: Empirical Evidence

The paper provides some empirical evidence for the relationship between average firm size and the relative transaction efficiency and per capita income as hypothesized by Liu and Yang in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 42(2) (2000):145–65. The empirical data of 11 industries in Hong Kong from 1982 to 1999 are found to be broadly consistent with the predictions of Liu and Yang.     

Specialization, Information, and Growth: A Sequential Equilibrium Analysis

Pricing costs and information problems are introduced into a framework with consumer-producers, economies of specialization, and transaction costs, to predict the endogenous and concurrent evolution of the division of labor and of information concerning economic organization acquired by society. Concurrent evolution generates endogenous growth based on the tradeoff between gains from information about the efficient pattern of the division of labor—which can be acquired via experiments with various patterns—and experimentation costs, which relate to the costs of discovering prices. The concept of Walras sequential equilibrium is developed to analyze the social learning process which is characterized by uncertainties in the direction of the evolution and by a certain trend of the evolutionary process.     

International Asset Trade,Capital Income Taxation,and Specialization Patterns

This paper constructs a small economy version of dynamic Heckscher‐Ohlin models with overlapping generations and analyzes effects of capital income taxation on the specialization pattern of the country. It is shown that once international asset trade is allowed, in the presence of international technological asymmetries, a small country eventually leads to perfect specialization in our overlapping generations model. It is also shown that the residence‐based tax has no effect on the specialization pattern while the source‐based tax has a negative effect on capital accumulation and thereby it can affect the specialization pattern of the small country.     

Folk Theorem For Bilateral Bargaining with Vector Endowments

We analyse a bargaining game of two players on the division of the sum of their vector endowments, with alternating proposals and discounting of single period utilities. The pair of endowments is not weakly Pareto‐efficient. Until they reach an agreement, each of the parties can withdraw from bargaining and keep their endowments. Any strictly individually rational division of the sum of endowments can emerge in some subgame perfect equilibrium if discount factors are close enough to one. Each subgame perfect equilibrium, in which the parties’ decisions do not depend on past rejected proposals, leads to a weakly Pareto‐efficient agreement in the first period.     

An Economic and Ethical Approach to Charity and to Charity Endowments

We examine how and why donors divide gifts between people in the present (across distance) and between the present and future (across time). US donors tend to give less to charities that benefit the poor and more to charities that benefit the non-poor (such as museums, universities, and arts organizations). Many of these wealthier charities have created endowments that benefit not only present persons, but also future persons. We develop a shorthand framework for linking time to distance in charitable allocations that incorporates a “proximity preference,” i.e., charity that prefers those who are nearer to us whether by reason of physical distance, psychic-identity, or temporal distance. Even though ethical considerations suggest that recipients' level of need should be the dominant factor in allocating gifts, donors also express preferences, ceteris paribus, for benefits arriving sooner rather than later, and for recipients who are ``closer'' rather than farther away.