Compensating Wage Differentials with Unemployment: Evidence from China

We estimate the economic value of mortality risk in China using the compensating-wage-differential method. We find a positive and statistically significant correlation between wages and occupational fatality risk. The estimated effect is largest for unskilled workers. Unemployment reduces compensation for risk, which suggests that some of the assumptions under which compensating wage differentials can be interpreted as measures of workers’ preferences for risk and income are invalid when unemployment is high. Workers may be unwilling to quit high-risk jobs when alternative employment is difficult to obtain, violating the assumption of perfect mobility, or some workers (e.g., new migrants) may be poorly informed about between-job differences in risk, violating the assumption of perfect information. These factors suggest our estimates of the value per statistical life (VSL) in China, which range from approximately US$30,000 to US$100,000, may be biased downward. Alternative estimates adjust for heterogeneity of risk within industry by assuming that risk is concentrated among low-skill workers. These estimates, which are likely to be biased downward, range from US$7,000 to US$20,000.      

电子商务、搜寻成本与消费价格变化

电子商务交易平台通过有效提高消费者搜寻次数、降低市场搜寻成本,对零售市场的价格产生了显著影响。基于搜寻理论框架,本文首先构建了一个包含消费者差异性的搜寻与匹配效率理论框架,并且基于1999—2012年的月度微观价格监控数据,以淘宝网的B2C交易平台作为典型案例研究,通过多重差分的方法检验了理论假说。我们发现:首先,消费者通过电子商务交易平台搜寻商品效率对商品市场均衡价格的影响具有产品差异性,对价格低于一定水平的商品,消费者的搜寻效率提高会使商品均衡价格上升;而对价格高于一定水平的商品,消费者的搜寻效率提高会使商品均衡价格下降。其次,消费者运用电子商务平台的边际搜寻成本对商品均衡价格的影响具有消费市场的差异性。实证方面,本文分别运用倍差法和三重差分方法检验了上述两个理论假说中的电子商务平台对商品均衡价格影响的产品和城市差异性,并运用城市差异性指标刻画了搜寻成本。本文结果在进行若干稳健性检验后仍是稳健的。     

Equilibrium Price Dispersion with Consumer Inventories

A model with two types of consumers, shoppers and captives, is constructed that leads to an equilibrium price dispersion. Shoppers may hold inventories of the good; the level of consumer inventories leads to state-dependent price dispersions. It is shown that prices and quantities display negative serial correlation. The model is tested using grocery store data, which display the predicted correlations. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D43, L13, D83, L81.     

Inter-Industry Wage Differentials in Greece: Evidence from Quantile Regression Analysis

Using a consistent estimator of the covariance matrix of the asymptotic distribution of the quantile regression estimator with intra-cluster correlation of the error terms, the paper investigates whether and to what extent inter-industry wage differentials derive from worker heterogeneity in the form of unobserved quality. To conduct this study, we pioneer in utilizing a unique data set, the European Union Structure of Earnings Survey for Greece, which follows a two-stage random sampling approach of employees clustered within firms. Data refer to 2010 when the first elements of the economic adjustment programme to deal with the chronic deficiencies of the Greek economy and restore sustainable public finances, competitiveness and set the foundation for long-term growth, gained visibility. Results point to high wage dispersion across industries at the mean of the conditional wage distribution, even after controlling for personal and workplace characteristics. However, evidence for the unobserved heterogeneity hypothesis is rather scant. Therefore, there is room for efficiency wage or rent-sharing theories in accounting for a large part of inter-industry wage differentials tentatively implying that firm heterogeneity in the ability to pay matters more than employee unobservable attributes in the wage determination process.     

Intranational Price Convergence and Price Stickiness: Evidence from Denmark

We show that estimates of the half‐life of deviations from the law of one price are biased when their precision is not taken into account when aggregating data for different types of goods. Using a comprehensive dataset with monthly price data for 124 homogeneous products across regions in Denmark over the period 1997–2010, we find a large positive aggregation bias. On average, we find that the half‐life is 8.4 months when taking the bias into account, compared with 28.7 months when applying the standard method. The heterogeneity in the estimated half‐life can be explained by price stickiness, distance between regions, and whether the good is traded or non‐traded.     

中小企业商业信用融资区域差异研究

商业信用融资的发展为解决我国中小企业融资问题提供了新的方向。为了更好地利用商业信用融资方式,文章运用面板数据方法对关中—天水经济区和珠江三角洲经济区的中小企业商业信用融资使用情况做了比较分析,发现中小企业商业信用融资使用水平具有区域差异性,并进一步分析了造成差异的原因及其影响程度。文章认为中小企业商业信用融资受到环境、组织和个人三个层面因素的影响,在不同的地区,这些影响因素具有不同的表现。     

Private Tutoring: Evidence from India

Drawing on the nationally representative “Participation and Expenditure in Education” surveys, we document the incidence and cost of private tutoring at different stages of schooling over the last two decades in India. As private tutoring involves two decisions: (1) whether to take private tuition or not, and (2) how much to spend on private tutoring conditional on positive decision in (1), we analyze the determinants of the two decisions separately using a Hurdle model. We find that private tutoring is not a new phenomenon in India: a significant proportion of students at each stage of schooling took private tutoring even in 1986/87, and there has been no dramatic increase in those proportions. Students from urban areas, private schools, and from better economic backgrounds are more likely to take private tutoring. Furthermore, the demand for private tutoring is inelastic at each stage of schooling, which implies that private tutoring is a necessary good in the household consumption basket. We also find evidence of pro‐male bias in both decisions regarding private tutoring.     

略论生态消费品价格

生态消费品价格是生态消费发展研究的重要理论命题之一。在生态消费品与普通消费品并存的中国经济转型期,如何科学而合理地制定生态消费品与普通消费品之间的比价关系和差价关系显得尤为重要。本文重点探讨：生态消费品价格的理论基础;生态消费品价格在国际运行中的决定因素;中国推行生态消费品价格的对策措施。     

Consumer Inventory and Demand for Storable Goods: New Evidence from a Consumer Survey

In this study, I provide new evidence on consumer inventory from a unique survey on the purchase and inventory of a storable product. I confirm that the predictions regarding the correlations between the key variables of purchase probability, purchase quantity and inventory derived from the standard dynamic models of consumer inventory are consistent with the data. Furthermore, I find that the amount of daily consumption varies within a household across time and depends on inventory holding. The evidence does not conform to a constant consumption rate, which studies often assume for tractability.     

Calculating the Candy Price Index: A Classroom Inflation Experiment

In this classroom experiment, students develop a price index based on candy-purchasing decisions made by members of their class. They use their index to practice calculating inflation rates and to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the consumer price index (CPI). Instructors can use the experiment as an introduction to the topic of inflation and how it is measured. The exercise also provides a concrete example of the sources of bias in the CPI, promoting discussion of the measures the Bureau of Labor Statistics has taken to reduce bias. The experiment, including follow-up discussion, fits into a 50-minute class period. The authors and other professors have used the exercise in introductory and intermediate macroeconomics courses, in classes of 10 to 135 students.     

Decomposing Gender Wage Differentials Using Quantile Regression: Evidence from the Lebanese Banking Sector

This paper investigates gender pay inequality in the labor market of a developing country. Our empirical investigation uses data derived from a sample of employees in the Lebanese banking sector for the years 2008 and 2014. Using Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition, the results reveal that the unexplained component of the gender wage gap, attributed to discrimination, represents a substantial share of the total gap. A surprising result is that the contribution of human capital to the gender wage gap is negative, suggesting that wage discrimination is the main explanation for the gap. Utilizing the Machado-Mata methodology to decompose the wage gap across the entire wage distribution, our findings indicate that the unexplained component of the raw gender wage gap is more pronounced at the low and middle ranges of the distribution. However, the explained component dominates at the top of the distribution, suggesting that earnings gaps are fully explained by observed characteristics.     

Macroeconomic Determinants of Crime: Evidence from India

This paper examines the relationship between crime, inflation, unemployment, and real GDP per capita in India. Based on the national-level data, the Johansen cointegration test confirms the presence of cointegration relationship between the variables. The Toda–Yamamoto Granger causality test suggests that macroeconomic indicators, especially unemployment, can significantly affect crime in India. Based on the state-level data, the ordinary least squares results corroborate the effect of inflation on crime even after controlling for governance. However, they fail to verify the relationship between crime, unemployment, and real GDP per capita.

     

区域后发优势理论:来自中国的证据

后发优势理论在忽略本国各地区差异的前提下经常被运用于先起国与后起国之间的讨论,但后起国区域间差距的不断扩大却是不可回避的事实.本文在引入区域型后发优势和劣势概念的基础上,通过两个理论化模型把后发优势理论运用于区域经济领域来分析区域间发展的不平衡问题.在封闭的条件下,通过区域后发优势的发挥可以促进后起国落后地区的长期发展.但在开放的条件下,区域型后发优势的发挥会受到制度和市场的双重抑制,因此只有在后起国的发达区域彻底追赶上先发国之后,不发达区域才能获得长时间的快速发展,并通过对中国区域发展进程的实证考察印证该理论.     

International trade and unionization: Evidence from India

We exploit exogenous variation in tariffs to examine the impact of import competition on unionization and union wages in a developing country. Using a combination of nationally representative household data (National Sample Survey Organization) and nationally representative industry‐level data (Annual Survey of Industries) from India, we find that net‐import industries that experienced larger cuts in tariffs also experienced larger declines in unionization. In addition, we find that these industries also experienced larger increases in union wages. These results are consistent with the predictions of an efficient bargaining framework that we extend to endogenize the union formation decision by allowing for a fixed cost of union formation. We also conduct a back‐of‐the‐envelope calculation to show that the total wage gains to unionized workers marginally exceed the total wage losses to deunionized workers.     

Determinants of women's financial inclusion: Evidence from India

A number of studies have analyzed the determinants of financial inclusion in India, but few if any have focused specifically on the factors that shape women's access to finance. This paper draws on the trove of women-specific data collected in the fourth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), conducted in 2015–16 in India, to examine the factors that influence women's access to finance. The results indicate that while the forces that shape women's access to finance function at multiple levels, micro-level factors appear to be powerful drivers of inclusion. The analysis reveals that household-level economic indicators like wealth, gender of household head and their rural-urban location are crucial, but so are individual-level characteristics which explain approximately 83% of the variation in the multilevel regressions. Informal gender norms that govern women's mobility and economic activity crucially influence the ability of women to access loans and open bank accounts.     

An Unequal Spatial Structure of Location and Price with Consumer Density*

This paper incorporates the interdependent relationship of firms and the increasing consumer density into a framework of spatial equilibrium analysis, and studies the location of firms and the price system on a plane market. As consumer density increases, symmetric equilibrium is established initially for the first- and the second-round entry of firms, but this equilibrium becomes unequal later for the third and the fourth rounds. This fact means that in spatial equilibrium, even if all firms sell identical goods on a plane market, mill prices and market area sizes will differ.     

Exchange Rate Regimes and Inflation: Evidence from India

Abstract

Exchange rate stability is crucial for inflation management as a stable rate is expected to reduce domestic inflation pressures through a ‘policy discipline effect’ – restricting money supply growth, and a ‘credibility effect’ – inducing higher money demand and reduced velocity of money. Alternatively, the ‘impossibility trillema’ of Mundell (1961a Mundell, R. A. (1961a). Capital mobility and stabilization policy under fixed and flexible exchange rates. Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 29, 475–485. doi: 10.2307/139336[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 1961b Mundell, R. A. (1961b). Flexible exchange rates and employment policy. Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 27, 509–517. doi: 10.2307/139437[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) predicts that in the presence of an open capital account, a stable exchange rate may lead to lack of control on monetary policy and, hence, higher inflation. Using a monetary model of Inflation, this paper investigates the impact of the ‘empirically-claimed’ de facto stable exchange rate regime on inflation in India during different sub-periods of exchange rate stability. The results show that the impact of exchange rate regime on inflation is not visible in the Indian case, which could be because of the offsetting sterilization policy undertaken by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during expansionary money supply growth resulting from its large-scale intervention to even out exchange rate volatility.     

Market efficiency and international diversification: Evidence from India

This study evaluates one of the most important emerging markets, India (Bombay Stock Exchange and Indian National Exchange), for its efficiency and for its potential to offer diversification benefits to international investors. Market-wide tests include; 1) contemporaneous relationship, 2) Granger type causality and 3) day-of-the-week effect. Tests on individual Indian stocks include: 1) panel estimation of Granger causality, 2) stock-by-stock estimation of Granger causality and 3) runs test. In sum, Indian markets are well integrated with the international equity markets, a characteristic that lowers the international diversification benefits. While day-of-the-week effect is an international spillover, it may be possible to predict individual Indian stocks' returns through causality with international equity markets and through momentum trading techniques.     

Trade Liberalization and Wage Inequality: Evidence from India

We evaluate empirically the impact of the dramatic 1991 trade liberalization in India on the industry wage structure. The empirical strategy uses variation in industry wage premiums and trade policy across industries and over time. In contrast to most earlier studies on developing countries, we find a strong, negative, and robust relationship between changes in trade policy and changes in industry wage premiums over time. The results are consistent with liberalization‐induced productivity increases at the firm level, which get passed on to industry wages. We also find that trade liberalization has led to decreased wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers in India. This is consistent with the magnitude of tariff reductions being relatively larger in sectors with a higher proportion of unskilled workers.