Forecasting development outcomes under alternative surplus labour assumptions

Economic forecasts are useful to policymakers both as aids to planning, and as baselines against which counterfactual scenarios can be compared. However, policy makers should be aware that assumptions relating to model structure can influence forecast results. We explore the sensitivity of forecasts to one aspect of model structure important in modelling developing economies: surplus agricultural labour. We outline a framework for modelling surplus agricultural labour that relies on average product remuneration. We embed this within a model of a developing economy (the Philippines) characterized by surplus agricultural labour. We compare the results of two forecasts that differ in their treatment of the agricultural labour market. In the first, the surplus labour theory is activated, establishing average product remuneration in agriculture. In the second, the surplus labour theory is not activated, creating a failure to recognize average product remuneration in agriculture. By comparing the two simulations, we show that failure to model the presence of average product remuneration, when it would be appropriate to do so, has an impact that would be material to economic planners, leading them to: under-estimate agricultural employment; over-estimate GDP growth; and, over-estimate important policy variables (like tax revenue) that are related to GDP growth.     

论我国劳动与增长的战略选择和经济政策

我国的增长方式应该是:尽可能地节约使用资源和资金,尽量利用丰富的劳动力资源加快经济增长的速度。目前实际制约我国经济增长最主要的瓶颈是劳动方面的诸多问题。需要规范国营企业和城镇集体企业劳动者的行为,提高劳动力素质,并扩大开放,使国民经济转向知识、技能和技术的更高级和更有力的竞争。实行节约使用国内稀缺资源的政策;宏观上调节就业容量,使失业率保持在适当的水平上,国家积极地对劳动经济运行进行间接调控;有组织地将劳动力过剩劣势转化为经济增长的劳动力剩余优势;对第三产业的发展在政策上进行扶持;在不影响效率的前提下使收入分配公平化;政策上重视劳动力素质因素对推动未来经济增长的必要性;完善劳动者社会保障体系。     

The effects of rising labour costs on global supply chains: the case of China’s cotton yarn industry

Rapid economic growth in China and India has resulted in rapidly rising labour costs in those countries. In this study a Muth-type model is used to assess the potential effects of this development on global supply chains using China’s cotton yarn industry as a case study. The model considers i) product differentiation at the yarn level; ii) imperfect competition in the markets for cotton yarn and raw cotton fibre, iii) input substitution between raw cotton fibre, labour, and capital; and iv) offsetting increases in the demand for cotton yarn caused by rising consumer income. Results suggest the effects of rising labour costs on the supply chain are modest, and easily swamped or obscured by the effects of rising income. Increases in industry market power (both oligopoly and oligopsony) have the same effect on the supply chain as increases in labour costs, raising prices to consumers of cotton yarn, and lowering prices to input suppliers, including foreign suppliers of raw cotton fibre. The combined effects of increases in labour costs and income have increased the factor shares for labour and to a lesser extent capital at the expense of raw cotton fibre.     

Land use rights,market transitions,and labour policy change in China (1980–84)

This paper provides a systematic analysis of the way shifts in property utilization rights in China induced another sequence of institutional changes that led to the rise of rural–urban labour migration from 1980 to 1984, a critical period in the country’s market transition. The paper shows that the 1980s’ Household Responsibility System (HRS), which brought family farming back from the communal system, endowed rural households not only with land use rights, but also with de facto labour allocation rights. These shifts in property relations promoted a growth in agricultural market size as well as the emergence of intraprovincial non‐hukou rural–urban migration, which may have made labour retention policies such as the small township strategy ineffective, and may have given the government an incentive to deregulate its subsequent labour market policy.     

Trade expansion and employment generation: how mercantilist does China have to be?

We conduct an input–output analysis of China’s employment changes due to changes in trade structure on a sectoral level. We find that between 2002 and 2007 China generated about 71 million jobs due to trade expansion. We also estimate the additional amount of trade that would be needed if China were using its trade surplus as the main tool to absorb its excess labour. Given the magnitude of this estimated amount, we conclude that this ‘mercantilist’ approach to excess labour absorption is not feasible. Finally, using Spearman rank correlation analysis, we find that the ranking of China’s sectors’ employment generation capacities is inversely related to the ranking of these sectors’ trade performances. This suggests that the ‘mercantilist’ approach to excess labour absorption is not only infeasible but also inefficient. We end the paper by suggesting a more balanced growth path for China.     

The employment contract with externalised costs: the avatars of Marxian exploitation

Abstract

The paper pursues two aims. The first is to argue that the foundation of Marx’s theory of capitalist exploitation is to be found, not in the labour theory of value, but rather in the contract of employment, the legal frame of the capital-labour relation. The second is to suggest that the partial externalisation of the reproduction cost of labour power has been an important source of relative surplus value, along with the productivity increase, emphasised by Marx, in the industries supplying wage goods.     

China's Exchange Rate and International Adjustment in Wages, Prices and Interest Rates: Japan Deja Vu?

China's fixed its exchange rate at 8.28 yuan to the dollar from1994 to July 2005, and has only allowed for a small appreciationsince then. China's productivity growth has been very high relativeto most other countries: its trade surplus has been rising andit continues to accumulate large dollar exchange reserves. Manyobservers, including high officials in the US government, takethis as per se evidence that the renminbi is undervalued. Tobalance China's international competitiveness and reduce itstrade surplus, they want the renminbi to appreciate much more.This common presumption of renminbi undervaluation is wrong,and its appreciation need not reduce China's trade surplus butwould cause serious deflation in China. To show this, we considerinternational adjustment between China and the US from bothan asset market and a labor market perspective, and comparethis to Japan's unsuccessful appreciation of the yen from 1971to 1995. During a time of economic catch-up and rapid financialtransformation, fixing the exchange rate is the preferred wayof anchoring the domestic price level. (JEL codes: F15, F31,F33)     

中国城市化在城乡关系中的作用及其发展

城市化是社会进步的产物，在协调城乡关系中起着十分重要的作用。但长期以来，我国城市化一直滞后于工业化，使大量农业剩余动力滞留在农村和土地上，导致农业劳动生产率低下，城乡差别扩大，城乡对立加剧。城市化是解决城市矛盾的根本途径。加速城市化，首先必须转变几个认识误区，树立正确的城市化发展观，不能因为就城市人口会蛔财政负担，农民进城会带来社会冲突等问题，就不搞城市化。其次，不论大，中，小城市都应在吸收农村劳     

The impact of China's millennium labour restructuring program on firm performance and employee earnings1

Around the turn of the century, China experienced perhaps the largest labour restructuring program in the world. This paper uses a new dataset of Chinese industrial enterprises to examine what leads to downsizing, and tries to understand the effects of labour downsizing on firms’ technical efficiency, financial performance and employee wages. We find that downsizing is more prevalent in state‐owned enterprises (SOEs), and is more likely when enterprises are older, larger and have higher excess capacity. For both SOEs and private firms, downsizing is more likely when the prices of their products drop, but private firms respond more dramatically. Moreover, downsizing has serious short‐term costs in terms of total factor productivity (TFP). For mild downsizing, private firms suffer more deterioration in productivity. The distribution of surplus after downsizing is more favourable to labour in SOEs. For severe downsizing, both SOEs and private firms exhibit lower TFP growth with similar magnitudes. Our findings imply that private firms emphasize profit goals, while SOEs place a greater weight on labour protection.     

The Art of Reforming Centrally Planned Economies: Comparing China, Poland, and Russia

The three reasons for gradualism, (1) agricultural reform should precede industrial reforms, (2) state-owned enterprises (SOEs) can be reformed, and (3) economic liberalization should precede political liberalization, are not generalizable. China′s gradualism is the product of political deadlock over the final form of the economy. China has been most successful in the areas where reforms have been radical and lackluster where reforms have been incremental. The output performance across reforming countries reflected differences mainly in economic structures rather than in policies. China′s growth comes from the movement of surplus agricultural labor into industry, and Poland′s and Russia′s decline come from the closing of noncompetitive enterprises to release factors of production to the new efficient enterprises. J. Comp. Econom., June 1994, 18(3), pp. 000-000. University of California, Davis, California 95616-8617.     

A Note on Perry's Reconsideration of Macroeconomic Evidence from New Zealand

Perry in this journal draws on two new sources to challenge claims by Dalziel (2002) and Peetz (2005) about relatively weak labour productivity growth in New Zealand after the introduction of its Employment Contracts Act (ECA) in 1991. While new data raise further research questions, they do not overturn our original conclusions. Whether the ECA contributed to higher labour input growth compared with Australia, it failed to improve labour productivity growth.     

中国经济增长动力及前景分析

中国经济在过去26年间持续快速增长,高增长的动力是什么?未来10—20年,能否继续保持这种态势?引起了国内外广泛的关注。本文通过建立中国经济增长的综合因素模型,得出如下基本结论:资本投入增加是中国经济增长最主要的源泉,包括结构升级、人力资本效率提高、制度变迁等在内的技术进步的贡献也较强,劳动投入增加的贡献相对较弱,这与中国劳动力供给相对过剩、劳动边际效率较低有关。未来16年,中国经济仍可望继续保持适度较快增长,但要达到目前的高速度,将面临投资率继续增高,能源约束加大等矛盾。大力转变经济增长方式是解决这一症结的根本途径。     

Chasing after “good jobs.” Do they exist and does it matter if they do?

Most people believe that there are such things as good jobs—jobs that a worker would consider herself lucky to get. But for economists, the existence of good jobs is debatable. In this paper, I provide a definition of a good job based on various theories of the labour market: a job that involves a surplus captured partly by the worker. I use that definition to guide an empirical investigation of the existence and importance of good jobs. I conclude that good jobs do exist—that the labour market does not just function according to a Roy model with wage differentials reflecting only skill differentials, compensating differentials or bond posting—and that their impact on the overall wage structure is substantial. Finally, I discuss the implications of the existence of good jobs for policy setting and for assessments of the justice of a society.     

对我国外贸顺差功过及原因的认识与展望

近年来,我国外贸顺差规模迅速扩大,引起了国内外各方面的极大关注。一方面,我国相继出台了一系列政策措施,意在抑制顺差过快增长。另一方面,欧美等西方国家不断对我国施压,要求加大人民币升值幅度。本文从外贸顺差的积极意义、负面影响、成因分析以及减少顺差的政策建议等多个视角,对我国贸易顺差进行了分析,并对顺差的未来走势作出初步判断。     

The Dynamic Effects of the US Productivity Boom on Australia*

How has the USA's ‘new economy’ productivity boom affected Australia? We consider this question using a dynamic multisector growth model of the Australian and US economies. We find that productivity growth in the US durables sector generates small but important gains to Australia. We find that the transmission of growth is generated through increased export demand for agriculture. Consequently, the USA's productivity growth tends to favour Australia's traditional export sectors. Likewise, it increases the relative demand for less skilled labour in Australia and reduces the demand for more skilled labour and higher education.     

A note on surplus labour and risk aversion

The necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of surplus labour, as derived by A.K. Sen, have been found to be less plausible in the usual framework of the theory of economic planning and project evaluation than seems to be commonly realized. Under a very reasonable assumption concerning strict risk aversion on the part of peasant family members, surplus labour is an impossibility in such a framework.     

DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFT,POPULATION AGEING AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN CHINA: A COMPUTABLE GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM ANALYSIS

Abstract. Using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and a given ageing profile of the population to forecast the growth path of China's economy during the twenty‐first century, this study finds that: population ageing leads to declining economic growth as labour supply shrinks and the rate of physical capital formation declines; households’ material living standards improve, albeit at a declining rate; falling domestic investment partially offsets declining national savings; and the resulting saving‐investment surplus generates a current account surplus and capital outflows. Finally, the main force that can sustain China's economic growth against the backdrop of population ageing is productivity improvement.     

What Is the Recent Evidence on an Excess Supply of Legal Qualifications in Australia?

This article considers the Australian evidence on whether there has been an excess supply of law graduates. There is evidence of a strong growth in demand for legal services over the past 15 years. It is also shown that the number graduating from Australian universities with a law degree grew by 3.5‐fold between 1989 and 2007. Evidence on employment rates and starting salaries for law graduates does not suggest that the labour market has been unable to absorb this increase in supply. There is, however, some evidence from the 2006 Census of a decline in the median salary of law graduates.     

中国二元经济与农村富余劳动力转移就业——理论分析与政策选择

农村劳动力向非农产业和城镇转移就业,是中国从乡村型农业社会向城市型工业社会这一历史转型期最为突出的特征,是工业化和现代化发展的必然趋势。影响中国农村富余劳动力转移有制度因素、供给因素和经济因素,针对中国目前二元经济的特殊性,应强化对农村劳动力转移就业的组织推动工作,加快城镇化、农村工业化进程,健全农村劳动力培养培训机制,建立良好的劳务输出服务体制等,以引导农村富余劳动力平稳有序转移,促进城乡经济社会协调发展。