Workplace Characteristics and Their Effects on Wages: Australian Evidence

Using data, from the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, which match individual employees to the firms and workplaces at which they are employed, this paper examines the relative importance of both individual and workplace characteristics for wages. Results from the estimation of 'effects' models indicate that workplace-specific effects are important, explaining 39 per cent of the variation in individual log hourly wages. Estimation of a model including both individual-level and workplace-level variables (and using a random effects approach) identified workplace size, foreign ownership, the significance of export markets, the gender composition of the workforce, workplace union organisation, the incidence of shift work, and location as the most important workplace-level influences on wages.     

Persistence of Nominal and Real Variables under Fixed and Floating Exchange Rates: Evidence from Greece, 1954–1992

This paper examines the persistence of Greek nominal and real variables under the Bretton Woods system and the post-1975 floating rate system. Two non-parametric measures of persistence are employed. The first is Cochrane's variance ratio test, put forward in 1988, which allows the decomposition of a series into a random walk and a stationary component; and the second is the modified rescaled range statistic, put forward by Lo in 1991, which tests for the existence of long-term dependence. Empirical findings suggest that some of the variables under consideration exhibit a higher persistence under floating while for the rest of them the tests do not indicate any significant change.     

Incentives and Transactions Costs Within the Firm: Estimating an Agency Model Using Payroll Records

We estimate an agency model using the payroll records of a copper mine that paid a production bonus to teams of workers. We estimate the cost of incomplete information due to insurance and incentives considerations and the inefficiency caused by the simple form of the incentive contract itself. At the estimated parameters the cost of worker risk aversion (insurance) is of similar magnitude to moral hazard (incentives). Overall, incomplete information accounted for one-half of the bonus system's inefficiency relative to potential full information profits. The other half is attributed to the bonus system's inefficient generation of incentives and insurance relative to the optimal incentive contract.     

Cartels and the Incentive to Cheat: Evidence from the Classroom

Several points about cartel behavior are illustrated, using the curve on an exam.     

Convergence within the EU: Evidence from Interest Rates

The economic and political changes which are taking place in Europe affect interest rates. This paper develops a two-factor model for the term structure of interest rates specially designed to apply to EMU countries. In addition to the participant country's short-term interest rate, we include as a second factor a 'European' short-term interest rate. We assume that the 'European' rate follows a mean reverting process. The domestic interest rate also follows a mean reverting process, but its convergence is to a stochastic mean which is identified with the 'European' rate. Closed-form solutions for prices of zero coupon discount bonds and options on these bonds are provided. A special feature of the model is that both the domestic and the European interest rate risks are priced. We also discuss an empirical estimation focusing on the Spanish bond market. The 'European' rate is proxied by the ecu's interest rate. Through a comparison of the performance of our convergence model with a Vasicek model for the Spanish bond market, we show that our model provides a better fit both in-sample and out-of sample and that the difference in performance between the models is greater the longer the maturity of the bonds.
(J.E.L.: E43, C510).     

Royalty Rates and Upfront Fees in Share Contracts: Evidence from Franchising

This article provides evidence on the determinants of royaltiesand upfront fees in share contracts by examining how state franchisetermination laws affect franchise contracts. The results areconsistent with the joint hypothesis that the two-sided moralhazard model explains the terms in franchise contracts and thattermination laws increase the relative importance of franchisoreffort (due to the extra effort that is required to controlsystem quality). I find that franchise companies that are headquarteredin termination-law states charge significantly higher royaltyrates than companies headquartered in other states (around 1%higher). Correspondingly, the initial franchise fees are lowerfor companies headquartered in termination states. Overall,franchisees appear to pay a higher price for franchises in stateswith protection laws. Consistent with a basic tenet of law andeconomics, price adjustments appear to offset at least someof the transfers that would otherwise be implied by the laws.     

Training, Wages, and Sample Selection: Estimating Sharp Bounds on Treatment Effects

This paper empirically assesses the wage effects of the Job Corps program, one of the largest federally funded job training programs in the U.S. Even with the aid of a randomized experiment, the impact of a training program on wages is difficult to study because of sample selection, a pervasive problem in applied microeconometric research. Wage rates are only observed for those who are employed, and employment status itself may be affected by the training program. This paper develops an intuitive trimming procedure for bounding average treatment effects in the presence of sample selection. In contrast to existing methods, the procedure requires neither exclusion restrictions nor a bounded support for the outcome of interest. Identification results, estimators, and their asymptotic distribution are presented. The bounds suggest that the program raised wages, consistent with the notion that the Job Corps raises earnings by increasing human capital, rather than solely through encouraging work. The estimator is generally applicable to typical treatment evaluation problems in which there is nonrandom sample selection/attrition.     

基于产业链整合的并购与企业创新激励——来自中国上市公司的证据

基于中国市场上的并购案例,本文分析了并购前后企业创新激励的变化情况,我们发现并购显著提高了企业创新激励。我们认为,这反映了产业链整合对企业创新激励的提升作用。根据这一结果,产业链整合可以通过加速创新来提高企业的产品附加值,因而可能是改变我国企业在全球产业链利润分配当中不利地位的可行之道。     

Adjustment Costs, Firm Responses, and Micro vs. Macro Labor Supply Elasticities: Evidence from Danish Tax Records

We show that the effects of taxes on labor supply are shaped by interactions between adjustment costs for workers and hours constraints set by firms. We develop a model in which firms post job offers characterized by an hours requirement and workers pay search costs to find jobs. We present evidence supporting three predictions of this model by analyzing bunching at kinks using Danish tax records. First, larger kinks generate larger taxable income elasticities. Second, kinks that apply to a larger group of workers generate larger elasticities. Third, the distribution of job offers is tailored to match workers' aggregate tax preferences in equilibrium. Our results suggest that macro elasticities may be substantially larger than the estimates obtained using standard microeconometric methods.     

Female Earnings and Divorce Rates: Some Australian Evidence

The purpose of this article is to examine whether female earnings have influenced divorce rates in Australia, using state‐level data for the past four decades. Following a recent study by Ressler and Waters (2000), which concludes from comparable US data that female earnings and divorce rates may be jointly endogenous, initial testing is performed to identify whether female earnings can be treated as exogenous. A Hausman specification error test finds no evidence of a simultaneous relationship in the Australian data, in contrast to the findings of Ressler and Waters. The test result supports the hypothesis that other underlying factors affect female earnings, of which higher divorce rates are merely another symptom. A divorce rate equation is estimated. In accordance with much of the literature, the rise in female earnings over the past four decades is found to have increased Australian divorce rates.     

Breaking Trend Functions in Real Exchange Rates: Evidence from Seventeen OECD Countries

This paper tests for unit roots in dollar-based and DM-based real exchange rates using quarterly data (from 1957:i to 1995:iv) for seventeen OECD countries. The results show that the unit root hypothesis cannot be rejected even if allowance is made for the possibility of a one-time change in the mean of the series at an unknown point in time. This is evidence against the hypothesis of absolute long-run purchasing power parity over this period.     

汇率、利率、税率：名义和实际

当前我国经济运行情况以及面临的问题 过去的一年里,我国经济保持了稳定增长的态势,在全球经济特别是关、日和欧三大经济体同时陷入衰退的情况下,2001年我国国内生产总值达到95800多亿元,同比增长率为7．3％。更令人感到鼓舞的是,中国在2001年加入WTO,正式成为世界贸易组织的一员,中国的对外开放进入了一个新的阶段。 但在成功数字的外表下,我们还应该看到中国经济的一些问题以及在2002年可能遇到或者已经遇到的一些难题。2001年中国经济增长前高后低,四个季度的经济增长一路滑坡,前3个季度的增长速度分别是8．1％、7．8％和7％,第4季度GDP增长也很难达到7％,11月份居民消费价格总水平比去年同月下降3％,又面临通货紧缩的威胁。2001年的经济增长,主要是由国内投资和消费需求的增长拉动的。由于国际经济严重衰退,一方面,我国出口增速下降,大约在6％左右,净出口减少,对经济增长的贡献度为负值;另一方面,促使外资流入加快,实际利用外资增长近20％,减弱了出口下降的影响。……     

The Impact of Company Human Resource Policies on Social Skills: Implications for Training Sponsorship, Quit Rates and Efficiency Wages

The concept of a firm's human capital is reconsidered to include both the technical and the social skills of its workforce. Technical skills are defined by the ability to turn inputs into outputs, and measured by the productivity of unit labour effort. Social skills are defined by the propensity to behave in a manner conducive to the firm's objectives. In other words, social skills are constituted as the norm of effort contribution to which an individual assents, and are measured by observed motivation and behaviour. The existence for firms of a labour management function is proposed and supported, relating social skills to human resource policies. Implications for the labour market are that: (i) firms pay for general training and, at the same time, wages do not necessarily increase with training; (ii) human capital acquisition may not lead to an increase in quitting, even controlling for wages; (iii) human resource policies substitute for efficiency wages or for employee monitoring; and (iv) economies with high organisational commitment have low equilibrium unemployment rates.     

The Effects of Health, Wealth, and Wages on Labour Supply and Retirement Behaviour

This paper estimates a life cycle model of labour supply, retirement, and savings behaviour in which future health status and wages are uncertain. Individuals face a fixed cost of work and cannot borrow against future labour, pension, or Social Security income. The method of simulated moments is used to match the life cycle profiles of labour force participation, hours worked, and assets that are estimated from the data to those that are generated by the model. The model establishes that the tax structure of the Social Security system and pensions are key determinants of the high observed job exit rates at ages 62 and 65. Removing the tax wedge embedded in the Social Security earnings test for individuals aged 65 and older would delay job exit by almost one year. By contrast, Social Security benefit levels, health, and borrowing constraints are less important determinants of job exit at older ages. For example, reducing Social Security benefits by 20% would cause workers to delay exit from the labour force by only three months.     

Lottery Incentives and Resource Management: Evidence from the Agricultural Data Reporting Incentive Program (AgDRIP)

Environmental and Resource Economics - To manage resources effectively in an agri-environmental context, policymakers need information about on-farm management practices and ecological conditions....     

Wages,minimum wages,and income distribution in Brazil: Results from the construction industry

Critics of post-1964 economic policy in Brazil have argued that the decline of at least 25% in the real value of the government-determined minimum wage between 1964 and 1974 was an important factor accounting for increasing inequality in the size distribution of personal income observed during this period. This paper reports the results of a new test of this proposition, using cross-section and time series wage rate statistics for the Brazilian construction industry. The results suggest that the official minimum wage plays an important signalling role in wage-determination, acting as a standard of reference for the setting of the wage-rates of the least skilled manual workers in the Brazilian construction industry. The results, therefore, confirm the view that minimum wage policy in Brazil is influential in determining the size distribution of earned income.     

我国中小上市公司规模及成长率密度分布研究

文章以82家中小上市公司为实证样本,通过相关统计分析发现,我国中小上市公司标准化规模服从正态分布,且具有相对稳定性;中小上市公司标准化规模逐年递增,而成长率轻微递减,且都具有过原点性;中小上市公司成长率服从拉普拉斯分布;而且中小上市公司的成长性具有较强的行业特色.这些结果表明我国中小上市公司的整体发展比较健康,但要特别注意所出现的衰退迹象.