IMMIGRANT WAGE GROWTH IN THE UNITED STATES: THE ROLE OF OCCUPATIONAL UPGRADING

Immigrants to the United States routinely take jobs below their skill qualifications because of barriers to entering occupations. We use a structural model of immigrant job choice to quantify the benefits of potential policies to promote entry into suitable occupations. We estimate the model using longitudinal labor market data on immigrants to the United States. Our counterfactual results show that eliminating barriers to occupational entry would lead to only a small earnings increase for the average immigrant in our sample, but a substantial earnings increase for the most highly skilled immigrants.     

Generalized barriers to entry and economic development

In their catching-up processes, less developed countries face inter-country barriers which hamper their efforts to imitate the technologies of advanced countries. These international barriers to entry can be traced back to differences in the institutions supporting technological advancement and to the physical and intangible resources necessary for the creation of new competences. In less developed countries, these international barriers aggravate the barriers to entry at the sectoral level and, together, they constitute the generalized barriers to entry. In our paper, we extend a model of economic growth by the entry of new sectors by including these international barriers and show how widening development gaps describing the differences in general income and employment trends can emerge in an auto-catalytic process.     

技术进步、工资差距与人力资本形成

本文在劳动力异质的假设下通过建立一个二元经济模型分析发展中国家技术进步与收入差距的关系,结果显示技术进步主要通过直接和间接两种途径影响收入差距:其一,通过提高相应劳动力的劳动效率,提高其工资;其二,通过收入差距的扩大,吸引劳动力进行人力资本投资,从而劳动效率的提高,影响其收入.并得也结论,不同类型的技术进步对收入差距的影响存在较大差异,而这种差异在某种程度上影响人力资本投资,因此,在城乡转化的过程中,要缩小收入差距必须选择适当的技术进步,而且还要结合长期经济发展注意保持相应的收入差别.     

Sustainable Development in Affluent Countries and the Neo-Institutionalist Synthesis

Since development is a process rather than an end-state, all countries are always in a constant state of change, regardless of their level of income. This article focuses on the challenges that affluent countries face today in shifting to a sustainable development path. These challenges include improving the quality of life, achieving environmental sustainability, and addressing inequality. In the United States in particular, these challenges have increased in recent decades, despite significant economic growth. The neoclassical development model assumes that growth makes it easier to achieve sustainable development and that wellbeing rises with per capita income. We question these assumptions, and find a theory of economic development in institutional economics that better explains and accommodates sustainability. We draw on the work of many original institutionalist economists (OIE), and others working in this tradition, to analyze the challenges of sustainable development in affluent countries, especially in the United States.     

中国与美国技术差距缩小了吗

首先对中国技术创新水平进行了跨国跨期比较分析,并探寻了中国技术创新水平现状以及与美国的技术差距;其次,构建了理论模型,从长期和短期视角剖析了后发国家的技术追赶机制,进而对中美技术差距的影响因素进行了计量分析。研究表明：①在技术追赶过程中,短期内,后发国家应积极发挥后发优势,根据自身技术水平权衡模仿创新和自主创新,而在长期,随着技术差距逐渐收敛于稳定值,后发国家应加强自主创新;②相对于美国,尽管中国技术水平仍较滞后,但中美技术差距呈缩小态势;③当前,自主创新、FDI的溢出吸收以及劳动力资本和生产性投资有助于缩小中美技术差距,但高科技产品进口却导致了技术差距的扩大;④随着“刘易斯拐点”的到来和中国工业化进程的深入,劳动力、资本等传统要素对缩小中美技术差距的作用正在逐渐减弱。     

Income Inequality and Income Mobility in the Scandinavian Countries Compared to the United States

This paper compares income inequality and income mobility in the Scandinavian countries and the United States during 1980–90. The results suggest that inequality is greater in the United States than in the Scandinavian countries and that this inequality ranking of countries remains unchanged when the accounting period of income is extended from one to eleven years. The pattern of mobility turns out to be remarkably similar, in the sense that the proportionate reduction in inequality from extending the accounting period of income is much the same. But we do find evidence of greater dispersion of first differences of relative earnings and income in the United States. Relative income changes are associated with changes in labor market and marital status in all four countries, but the magnitude of such changes are largest in the United States.     

Trade,aid and migrations: some basic policy issues

The link between trade policy and international migration is explored using data from the United States and Europe. "We conclude that restrictive trade policies in industrialised countries have most likely added to migration pressures. We then turn to the broader question of the effects of income growth in the sending countries on the propensity to migrate. We argue that, in relatively poor countries, an increase in income will be associated with higher migration flows. For middle income countries, however, income growth will lead to lower migrations. In the medium run, therefore, the relationship between development levels, as measured by GDP per capita, and the propensity to migrate follows an inverse-U pattern. Econometric analysis of aggregate migration flows from Southern Europe provides considerable support for such conjecture."     

ACCOUNTING FOR THE TIMING OF FIRST MARRIAGE*

Among first marriages in the United States, grooms are on average 1.7 years older than their brides. Traditionally, this fact is explained by sex differences in income. We use a general equilibrium, overlapping generations search model economy to show instead that sex differences in fecundity are essential to account for the age gap at first marriage, whereas sex differences in income play a secondary role. Our model economy also accounts for other facts on the timing of first marriages that the literature has overlooked.     

Globalization and Income Gap from the Perspective of Developing Countries

Using political economic theory, this paper analyzes the impact of economic globalization on international income distribution, including the income gap between developed countries and developing ones, the income gap among the developing countries. The paper states that because the economic globalization is the globalization of capitalism manufacture style and developed countries dominates the process, the income gap between developing countries and developed one is difficult to be narrowed, and the income gap in developing countries will enlarge.     

海洋战略性新兴产业基础研究竞争力发展态势研究

以海洋生物医药产业为研究样本,采取文献计量和基础研究竞争力指数对海洋生物医药研究领域整体发展现状及主要国家的基础研究竞争力进行分析发现,该研究领域经历了3个发展阶段,并引起世界各国的广泛关注,尤其是美国已经成为该领域的一个研究重地。海洋生物医药产业作为一个外延性较广的跨学科研究领域,大学和科研机构是该研究领域的主力,很多研究成果发表在化学、医学和生物学领域重要SCI期刊（JCR1区或2区）上。此外,我国在海洋生物医药研究领域的活跃度呈不断上升态势,与4个标杆国家（美国、日本、西班牙和英国）的差距不断缩小;但是我国很多研究成果影响力较低,论文发表量、被引量匹配性（效率指数）与美国、日本、英国和西班牙等发达国家相比仍然存在着较大差距,要追赶它们尚待时日。研究成果对把握各国在海洋战略性新兴产业基础研究领域的竞争态势并明晰我国与海洋科技强国在该领域的差距具有现实指导意义。     

Taxation base in developing countries

Informal sectors are larger in developing countries than in rich countries. This is a result of higher fixed costs of entry into the formal economy in developing countries. We show that raising barriers to entry is consistent with a deliberate government policy for raising tax revenue. By generating market power, and hence rents, for the permitted entrants, market entry fees foster the emergence of large taxpayers. The rents can be readily confiscated by the government through entry fees and taxes on profits at a low administrative cost. The relevance of the theory is assessed with a sample of 64 countries. Empirical analysis supports the results of the paper.     

Opening the Farm Gate to Women? The Gender Gap in U.S. Agriculture

Abstract:

This article provides an empirical analysis of the gender gap for farming in the United States. Using the 2012 U.S. Census of Agriculture we show that farms operated by women earn forty percent less farm income than farms operated by men after controlling for farm and operator characteristics. These findings indicate that farming is one of the most unequal professions in the United States today. Further, we investigate whether three forms of sustainable agriculture improve incomes for women farmers. We find that only farms engaging in Community Supported Agriculture experience a marked decline in the gender income gap.     

Neighbour-Immiserizing Growth: The Asian Crisis

This paper investigates the effects of population growth and China's entry into the world trading regime on the North and the South. In the absence of the terms of trade effect, population growth reduces the standard of living and causes a decline in welfare. Unilateral trade liberalization of China will worsen the terms of trade for other countries in the South, but will improve those for the North. Thus, population control is an important means to close the gap in per capita income between developing and developed economies. Trade liberalization by developing countries may not necessarily induce income convergence. JEL Classification Number: F1.     

IRELAND's INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

There are concerns that the unprecedented economic boom which Ireland experienced in the second half of the 1990s has raised only some living standards and has widened income gaps. This paper analyzes Ireland's income distribution in comparative perspective, to understand how Ireland's distribution changed and how it compares to other rich countries. We begin with OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) data to compare Ireland's degree of well-being and inequality with other advanced countries. We also look in some detail at alternative sources of Irish income and their implications for the trends in income inequality in Ireland from 1994 to 2000. For instance, we examine the top of the distribution using data from the administration of the income tax system. We conclude that the spectacular economic growth in the past decade has seen the gap in average income between Ireland and the richer OECD countries narrow dramatically. However, this growth has not greatly affected the Irish ranking in terms of income inequality. Ireland remains an outlier among rich European nations in its high degree of income inequality, though still falling well short of the level seen in the United States. In the end, we find that Ireland's new-found prosperity provides a "social dividend," and choices about how it is used will fundamentally affect whether the current high level of income inequality persists into the future.     

Level of development and income inequality in the United States: Kuznets hypothesis revisited once again

This study revisits the well-known Kuznets hypothesis that postulated an inverted-U relation between the level of development of a country or region and its degree of income inequality. We address the widely-shared view that, in recent years, a regular-U, and not a Kuznets-type inverted-U, has characterized the relation between income and inequality in the United States and some other developed countries. The paper works with data for the US states and has two main distinguishing features. First, it permits cross-state spillovers, which seem conceptually relevant and statistically significant, but, to our knowledge, have not been included in the fairly extensive literature on the topic. Second, we use the most reliable recent annual panel covering the period 2006–2016, which has also not been included in any existing research. The pooled-OLS, as well as the two-way fixed-effects panel estimates, indicate the existence of a significant regular-U pattern which is consistent with the influential view in the literature. However, the estimates that adjust for cross-state spillovers indicate a weak regular-U pattern in which the (log) linear and quadratic terms lack statistical significance at the usual levels. We conclude that when cross-state spillovers are appropriately accounted for, statistically significant evidence is lacking to support the view that a regular-U pattern describes the relation between income and inequality in the United States in recent years.     

Biosimilars in North America

ABSTRACT

The United States (US) is the world leader in the development of biopharmaceutical products. These new drugs, numbering about 200, are now losing patent protection and imitators are entering the market of comparable drugs, called biosimilars. According to a popular belief, these producers of biosimilars (erroneously called copycats) are everywhere, except in the United States. In North America, on both sides of the US border, the increase in the number of biosimilar producers is evident. In addition, although the US federal government tries to erect barriers against the entry of foreign-made biosimilars in the country, many states are lobbying the federal government and allowing the use of biosimilars. And biosimilars represent a very convenient ladder for emergent and industrial countries to learn the enigmatic routines of the pharmaceutical industry. Where this segment of the industry will be located is another matter.     

Determinants of offshore production in developing countries

The factors that discourage or block ordinary exports and thus promote the use of offshore production as an alternative for developing countries are examined. They prove to be barriers to entry related both to production and marketing, in contrast to those for developed countries, which are limited to marketing-related barriers to entry.     

Modelling the housing market in OECD countries

Recent episodes of housing bubbles, which occurred in several economies after the burst of the United States housing market, suggest studying the evolution of housing prices from a global perspective. We utilise a theoretical model for the purposes of this contribution, which identifies the main drivers of housing price appreciation, such as, for example, income, residential investment, financial elements, fiscal policy and demographics. In a second stage of our analysis, we test our theoretical hypothesis by means of a sample of 18 OECD countries from 1970 to 2011. We employ the vector error correction econometric technique in terms of our empirical analysis, which permits us to model the long-run equilibrium relationship and the short-run dynamics, which also helps to account for endogeneity and reverse causality problems.