Green taxation and individual responsibility

The current article aims at studying the effects of taxation on environmental quality, in an economy where its agents are responsible. Individual responsibility towards nature is modelized by the voluntary effort to which the households have agreed insofar as the improvement of environmental quality is concerned. It is an original way to show that the individuals may feel committed towards the environment and assume obligations towards it as well as towards environmental public policy. Given that, in our model, such effort is taken from one's allocated time for leisure, its opportunity cost is that of the sacrificed time for leisure, and is therefore equal to the individual's wage. We shall highlight that State intervention through the introduction of a (green) tax always crowds out individual responsibility. However, the intensity of this crowding-out depends on the performance of the State. Moreover, State intervention could, depending on the amount of crowding-out, reduce the overall quality of the environment. In a general equilibrium setting, we show that the crowding-out effect is not systematic. This is because there will then be an interaction between effort (or work time) and the cost of that effort (linked to the individual's wage, and therefore to production and finally to work/effort). In this article, we shall discuss the conditions under which public policy crowds out individual responsibility within this context.     

The impact of minimum wages and foreign domestic workers in Taiwan

The purpose of setting the minimum wage is mainly to protect the rights and interests of vulnerable workers and to enhance productivity of labour. In this paper, an attempt has been made to explore the effect of the upwards adjustment of the minimum wage in Taiwan on the inflation rate, the unemployment rate, labour productivity, economic growth and other macroeconomic variables by means of an analysis of empirical data using a structural vector auto‐regressive model. The findings of the paper show that upwards adjustment of the minimum wage in Taiwan will not intensify the unemployment rate. On the contrary, it will help to promote labour productivity to an extent that will have a positive effect on the economic growth rate. In addition, this paper investigates, long‐term care system should incorporate the foreign domestic worker labour pool, which could provide the additional personnel necessary for the nation's long‐term care. Minimum wage should apply to foreign domestic workers, and foreign domestic workers should not be treated as a separate group of workers in minimum wage policy.     

Excess supply equilibria

This paper addresses a fundamental problem in economic theory: How can there be equilibria of the economic system where some commodity is in excess supply, yet that commodity's relative price shows no tendency to fall? Of course, the principal example of such a phenomenon is an economy experiencing a prolonged period of involuntary unemployment of the labor force during which there is no significant change in the real wage.In the following pages, I shall describe a two-commodity, general equilibrium model that has a continuum of unemployment equilibria, one for any given unemployment rate. The important feature of this model is that workers establish their wage rates in an attempt to maximize expected utility. The information upon which these wage setting decisions are based is provided by actual labor market transactions.Despite the voluntary nature of the wage setting decision, I shall argue that each equilibrium of this economy exhibits involuntary unemployment in the Keynesian sense. For there will always be another equilibrium with a lower real wage, a higher level of employment, and at which (at least when workers are risk neutral) each worker achieves a higher level of expected utility.     

Rethinking wage policy in the face of the Euro crisis. Implications of the wage-led demand regime

Ten years after its introduction, the Euro is in an existential crisis. The crisis is the outcome of economic policies that have aimed at labour market flexibility and financial integration. This paper argues, firstly, that the aggregate demand regime in the Euro area is wage led. While an increase in wages (other things equal) does have a negative effect on investment and on net exports, it does have a positive effect on consumption. As the Euro area is a relatively closed economy, the consumption effect overpowers the investment effect and the export effect. Secondly, we argue that in the Euro area two growth models have emerged: a credit-led and an export-led model. These have given rise to the imbalances that are at the heart of the Euro crisis. Wage flexibility has proven insufficient to prevent these imbalances. Thirdly, we advocate a system of coordinated wage bargaining that aims at wages rising in line with productivity growth and a substantially upward-revised inflation target. If the project of European economic integration is to survive, it needs a drastic change in direction. An important building block of this redirection is a rethinking of the role of wage policy.     

A Model of a Price-setting Duopoly with a Wage-rise Contract

This paper considers a wage-rise contract between a firm and its employees as the firm's strategy, and suggests a wage-rise-contract policy. The policy is a promise by the firm that it will announce a certain output level and a wage premium rate, and if it actually produces more than the announced output level, then it will pay each employee a wage premium uniformly. First, this paper examines the case in which one of two firms unilaterally offers the wage-rise-contract policy by using a two-stage price-setting duopoly model. It is then shown that there exists an equilibrium which coincides with the Stackelberg solution where the firm adopting the policy is the leader. Next, this paper examines the case in which both firms can offer the wage-rise-contract policy in the model. It is then shown that there exists an equilibrium which is more profitable for both firms than in the unilateral case.     

中国地区工资水平差异的影响因素分析

本文运用模块数据和空间计量学的方法考察了中国改革开放以来影响地区工资水平及地区工资非均衡的各种政策体制因素和经济因素。实证结果表明,中国的地区工资水平及其差异既受制度变迁的影响又受市场机制的作用,具有典型的转型特征。具体而言,工资体制、对外开放、所有制改革、地方保护、教育水平和资本投入等因素对地区工资水平及其差异都有不同程度的影响作用。     

HIGH-SKILLED MIGRATION AND THE EXERTION OF EFFORT BY THE LOCAL POPULATION

The optimal design of immigration policy is a topical issue, both in the policy debate and the economic literature. In this paper, we present empirical evidence from a firm level dataset collected in 2000 on the demand for high-skilled workers, including foreign workers, in Europe and its determinants. Our major findings are that the fraction of high-skilled workers recruited from the international labour market is very small, and that foreign and domestic workers are very similar in terms of their formal education (measured by specialization subject) and their job characteristics. We suggest an efficiency wage model to explain why firms recruit foreign workers in small numbers, and why they are willing to pay immigrants the same wage as local workers, whilst at the same time also paying for their moving costs, despite the similar human capital profile of immigrants to domestic workers.     

Economic Reforms and Gender-Based Wage Inequality in the Presence of Factor Market Distortions

A simple three-sector general equilibrium model has been developed with both male and female labour and factor market distortions. The effects of different liberalized economic policies have been examined on the gender-based wage inequality. The analysis finds that credit market reform and tariff reform produce favourable effects on the wage inequality while the liberalized investment policy becomes counterproductive. The basic model has been extended to treat domestic capital differently from foreign capital. In the extended model, all of the above results hold. Additionally, it has been found that domestic capital formation is likely to produce a favourable impact on the gender wage inequality. These results have important policy implications for a small open developing economy.

     

Forecasting and Futurology

The Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research has published forecasts of the Australian economy since the late 1960s. These forecasts (usually 12 to 18 months ahead) have been dominated by short-term macroeconomic factors. Compared with when the IAESR commenced its forecasting, there are now many forecasters who concentrate on the performance of the Australian economy over the short term. There is, however, a dearth of regular commentary which focuses on policy options for the medium to long term. This article is the first of many which will aim to fill this perceived gap. In so doing we shall adopt a wider concept of forecasting called futurology. In this approach, many constraints of traditional forecasting are relaxed. In particular, we allow responses by economic agents to policy changes. This will suggest plausible situations in which different outcomes are possible. Our purpose is not to suggest what the future will be, but what it might be under different scenarios. Here, we put together some necessary ingredients to facilitate futurology. We review recent Australian economic performance, consider the implications of meeting a goal of five per cent unemployment by the year 2000 and outline some important influences on likely future growth. We suggest that new growth theory may provide a policy framework to achieve both high growth and low unemployment, noting the constraints imposed by increasing globalisation. In subsequent articles, we shall employ these ingredients to write out plausible timepaths setting out how desirable end-points (including the reduction of unemployment) may be achieved.     

Inequality and public debt: A positive analysis

This study extends the multi‐country, politico‐economic model of fiscal policy to incorporate wage inequality within each country. In this extended framework, we present conflict over fiscal policy within and across generations and show that a low‐inequality country realizes tight fiscal policy with low public debt accumulation, whereas a high‐inequality country experiences loose fiscal policy with high public debt. This model prediction is consistent with empirical evidence from OECD countries for the years 1980 to 2010.     

Imperfect credibility,sticky wages,and welfare

This paper studies optimal monetary policy under imperfect credibility in a New Keynesian model with staggered price and wage setting. In our imperfect credibility framework, the central bank commits to a policy plan but occasionally reneges on past promises with a given common knowledge probability. We find that the welfare gains from increasing credibility are approximately linear on the initial credibility level. We also find that the output-inflation stabilisation trade-off is nonmonotonic as higher credibility does not always reduce output volatility. The variance decomposition shows that wage markup shocks are the main driver of economic fluctuations and that these shocks are better contained, even in relative terms, when credibility is high. We then show that the degree of credibility impacts the effect of wage flexibility on welfare. When credibility is low, monetary policy is less potent and the economy can experience a feedback loop between wage volatility and price volatility. We show, though, that once wage markup shocks are taken into account, wage flexibility is usually welfare improving.     

The Economics and Ethics of Minimum Wage Legislation

Recent empirical studies have led the economics profession to question the proposition that minimum wage legislation necessarily leads to greater unemployment. This paper extends the analysis of these studies by providing several theoretical reasons why these empirical results may reflect a larger truth. Moreover, it addresses a relatively neglected aspect of the minimum wage debate - its ethical dimensions. Specifically, do the elementary principles of economic justice mandate that employees who “play by the rules”, should earn a “living wage”? This paper argues that the minimum wage is a successful economic policy that is consistent with economic justice.     

产业政策对企业间工资差距的影响—来自中国工业企业的经验证据

中国产业政策的执行对企业间工资差距有何影响?文章首先考虑加入了产业政策因素的异质性企业模型,从理论上将产业政策对企业工资影响分解为补贴转移效应与竞争效应两种机制,并提出如下假说:企业将部分政策补助用于生产,此时支付的更多工资等同于财政的直接补贴;同时,企业工资水平也取决于企业的生产效率,产业政策通过促进或抑制行业竞争改变企业效率,从而对企业的工资水平产生一种间接影响,即竞争效应.使用1998?2007年中国工业规模以上企业数据对理论假说进行实证检验,可以发现:"中国式"产业政策抑制企业效率带来的负向竞争效应超过了正向的补贴转移效应,最终造成了企业工资水平下降;然而,一旦产业政策的施行促进了行业竞争,竞争效应则为正,那么企业的工资水平也会随之提高.文章研究的结论有助于理解经济改革过程中产业政策对企业工资的影响,对推进企业工资体制改革也具有启示意义.     

Does the dutch model really exist?

The policy that led from the "Dutch disease" (in the 1980s) to the "Dutch miracle" (in the 1990s) consists of three tracks: wage moderation, retrenching public expenditure and reducing the tax burden, and slimming the welfare system. The wage moderation track seems to have been the most important. The term "Dutch model" refers to the socioeconomic system of the Netherlands. Most observers point particularly to the relatively low unemployment rate to indicate the success of this model. However, the economic inactivity rate in the Netherlands is not lower than in neighboring countries. This suggests that open unemployment in the Netherlands has been partly replaced with hidden unemployment. In particular, the disability scheme seems to contain a large component of hidden unemployment. Another feature of the Dutch model is its consensus-seeking nature, which is fostered by its institutional structure.     

Economics and the Supreme Court: The Case of the Minimum Wage

In the United States, laissez-faire has been the policy advocated in good times, while social legislation has been called for during crises. One instance of this dichotomy concerns the transformation of the American understanding of minimum wage laws during the early 20^th century. During this time, the view of minimum wage laws changed from one that viewed such laws as theft, to one that saw such laws as being required for distributional justness. We examine the legal-historical debate concerning whether the Supreme Court renounced its policy of laissez-faire individualism in its 1937 ruling finding the minimum wage law constitutional, arguing that it did not. We investigate the free market standard that the Court used to find minimum wage laws unconstitutional in 1923. We demonstrate how the economic conditions of the Depression, coupled with the development of economic theory, explain how the Court eventually found the minimum wage law constitutional.     

Testing the great decoupling: a long memory approach

The disconnection between productivity and workers’ compensation after 1980 is a fact not only for the U.S., Canada, Japan but also for Europe. The level of the decoupling between labor productivity and real hourly compensation is highest in the U.S. and Japan and lowest in Norway and Germany. This study investigates the great decoupling phenomena between 1950 and 2014 for eight economies with available time series data. The results should assist policy makers in developing efficient wage-setting mechanisms and help researchers in the field of wage moderation policy and the great decoupling. For this purpose we use fractional integration and cointegration techniques. Countries with stagnating minimum wages, rigid wage moderation policy and a high level of technological progress (strong total factor productivity growth) register higher wage stagnation in relation to labor productivity. Policy makers should be extremely careful when using wage moderation policy to improve a country’s competitiveness and should monitor the wage stagnation behind labor productivity (great decoupling) since workers have been producing more but receiving significantly less since 1980. The great decoupling is more prominent today and it is constantly increasing not just in the U.S. and Japan but worldwide.     

An approach to the wage level determination for a developing economy

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors determining wage and salary rates in Greek manufacturing. The model used originates from a derived demand for, and a supply of, labour. The wage equation is a theoretical long-run relationship. Because in the short-run disequilibria occur we develop an adjustment process whereby wage-rates in the short-run adjust to the long-run factors. The statistical estimates reveal that in this determination employment can be used as a proxy of product demand. This is due to the fact that in developing economies the increasing size of the product market determines employment. It is shown, moreover, that the use of productivity for the formulation of an incomes policy entails large wage-rates differentials, but due to the existence of a wage transfer mechanism wage-rates and salary-rates move upwards in unison.     

A Wage–Tax Policy to Increase Employment

We use MONASH, a dynamic general equilibrium model, in an analysis of the macroeconomic effects of combining a freeze on Award wage rates in Australia with the granting of tax credits to low-wage workers in low-income families. Our results suggest that if this policy were successful in lowering the actual real before-tax wage rates of workers in the Award system, then it would have favourable short-run effects on aggregate employment. These effects would persist into the long run if the policy led to rightward shifts in labour supply curves. The downside risk of the policy is that it would be counteracted by over-Award payments, leaving a budgetary problem with no compensating employment gain. At the same time, the Award system would be rendered irrelevant to the determination of wage rates, possibly increasing the costs of wage bargaining.     

我国工资差异变化及影响因素分析——基于家计调查的实证研究

尽管中国在经济转型过程中取得了令世人瞩目的经济增长速度,但随之而来的是不断扩大的工资收入差异和持续扩大的工资收入差距引发了广泛关注.一般认为,工资差距过大对社会公平和正义造成伤害,并直接影响中国经济和社会的可持续发展.基于家计调查数据并使用经济计量模型分析方法,本论文对中国在过去二十年日益增长的工资差距进行实证分析并探讨影响工资差距的主要因素.研究表明,政府对劳动力市场机构特别是工资政策改革是引发工资差距不断扩大的原因之一.本论文指出,劳动力市场机构的变化不是造成工资差异扩大的唯一因素;其它重要因素包括劳动力市场歧视以及制度性障碍,如中国现行的户口政策造成的劳动力市场分割等.本论文还从政策层面对减少工资差异提出建议.     

结构变迁与工资差距

本文构建一个现代部门技术选择内生的经济结构转变模型,来讨论结构变迁(经济结构转变)与熟练工人和非熟练工人间工资差距的关系.由于现代部门的技术选择内生于劳动力市场的供给结构,经济结构转变既影响劳动力市场的供给结构,又影响其需求结构.本文认为,在经济结构转变过程中,现代部门通过调整其技术结构,可以增加对传统部门剩余劳动力的需求,加快经济增长,同时缩小工资差距.