Upside/Downside spillovers between oil and Chinese stock sectors: From the global financial crisis to global pandemic

This paper examines the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak, recent oil price fall, and both global and European financial crises on dependence structure and asymmetric risk spillovers between crude oil and Chinese stock sectors. Using time-varying symmetric and asymmetric copula functions and the conditional Value at Risk measure, we provide evidence of positive tail dependence in most sectors using copula and conditional Value-at-Risk techniques. We can see the average dependence between oil and industries during the oil crisis. Moreover, we find strong evidence of bidirectional risk spillovers for all oil-sector pairs. The intensity of risk spillovers from oil to all stock sectors varies across sectors. The risk spillovers from sectors to oil are substantially larger than those from oil to sectors during COVID-19. Furthermore, the return spillover is time varying and sensitive to external shocks. The spillover strengths are higher during COVID-19 than financial and oil crises. Finally, oil do not exhibit neither hedge nor safe-haven characteristics irrespective of crisis periods.     

Estimation of output loss from allocative inefficiency: A comparison of the Soviet Union and the U.S.

This paper presents two different estimates of the output loss resulting from allocative inefficiency in the Soviet Union and the United States. Surprisingly, the evidence from our examination of nine industrial sectors during the period 1960–1984 shows only small differences in measured allocative inefficiency between the United States and Soviet economies. Instead of immediately rejecting this result as the product of unreliable data and insurmountable methodological difficulties, we present a plausible explanation for the unexpectedly strong performance of Soviet-type economies in the allocation of labor and capital across sectors. If true, the finding of relatively low levels of resource misallocation implies that the source of poor economic performance in Soviet-type economies must be due to technical inefficiency, slow technological change, and/or production of the wrong mix of outputs.     

Heterogeneous response of disaggregate inflation to monetary policy regime change: The role of price stickiness

This paper explores how a monetary regime change affects headline inflation via differential effects on various sectors in the economy. Using disaggregated CPI data for Canada, we find that the response to the adoption of inflation targeting (IT) was quite heterogeneous across sectors. While sticky-price sectors experienced a notable change in inflation dynamics following IT adoption, little structural change was observed in flexible price sectors. Our analysis based on a common factor model suggests that the structural changes in the sticky price sectors are driven by a decline in their responses to common aggregate shocks, including a monetary shock.     

Servitization across countries and sectors: Evidence from world input-output data

This paper uses the supply tables underlying WIOT data to explore the provision of services by manufacturing. The service shares differ substantially across countries and sectors, while they remain largely stable over time. A latent class analysis assigns broadly defined manufacturing sectors to economy-wide growth models, differentiating between service- and manufacturing-driven models in catching-up and developed economies. Servitization increases with labor productivity. The service intensities in the sectoral production mix are lower in countries with higher manufacturing shares. This holds for both catching-up and developed economies. However, servitization is largely unrelated to productivity and employment growth. We therefore argue that the degree of servitization is contingent on and an attribute of the respective economic model in which a sector operates.     

Over-education for the rich,under-education for the poor: A search-theoretic microfoundation

This paper studies the efficiency of educational choices in a two sector/two schooling level matching model of the labor market where a continuum of heterogenous workers allocates itself between sectors depending on their decision to invest in education. Individuals differ in working ability and schooling cost, the search market is segmented by education, and there is free entry of new firms in each sector. Self-selection in education causes composition effects in the distribution of skills across sectors. This in turn modifies the intensity of job creation, implying the private and social returns to schooling always differ. Provided that ability and schooling cost are not too positively correlated, agents with large schooling costs — the ‘poor’ — underinvest in education, while there is overinvestment among the low schooling cost individuals — the ‘rich’. We also show that education should be more taxed than subsidized when the Hosios condition holds.     

Trade and factor intensity,and the transmission of the global shock to labor: A panel analysis of the fall of the labor income share in the Mexican manufacturing sector

The paper studies the fall of the labor income share in Mexico, contrasting the role of trade and factor intensity as transmission channels of the China shock of 2001. It finds that, while the skill, technological and —more surprisingly— trade intensity of Mexican industries were largely irrelevant, capital intensity played a key role: in particular, the higher was the industries’ initial capital intensity, the more vulnerable they were to the transmission of the global shock to labor. The finding is consistent with the proposition that industrial integration, concentrated in industries that are capital-intensive from the perspective of developing countries, facilitated the transmission of the shock. Results come from the estimation of panel equations for the annual change in the labor share across Mexican manufacturing industries, where transmission is measured by the correlation between changes in the United States and Mexican industry labor shares.     

要素替代弹性、有偏技术进步对我国工业能源强度的影响

从要素替代弹性和有偏技术进步视角分析我国工业能源强度,通过采用标准化供给面系统方法,对1994~2008年工业行业数据进行实证估计,确定不同类型行业资本、能源与劳动的嵌套CES生产函数结构。结果表明,多数行业的技术进步是资本、能源偏向型技术进步,这是因为在多数行业内,资本和能源表现为互补关系。在此基础之上,进一步分析有效资本、有效能源和有效劳动在特定要素替代弹性条件下,通过影响能源份额进而影响能源强度的作用机制,并利用工业行业数据刻画这3种有效要素对能源强度的动态影响。     

价格因素对我国地区能源强度的影响

本文从能源价格和劳动力价格两个方面进一步分析价格要素对于能源强度的作用机理,分析了我国能源价格体系存在的问题,并针对存在的问题提出了相关政策建议,为更有效地控制能源强度提供一定的帮助,弥补了现有能源强度影响因素理论研究的不足。     

Wages and prices: Are workers fully compensated for cost of living differences?

This paper investigates the equilibrium relationship between wages and prices across labor markets. Of central interest is the extent to which workers receive higher wages to compensate for differences in the cost of living. According to the spatial equilibrium hypothesis, the utility of homogenous workers should be equal across labor markets. This implies that controlling for amenity differences across areas, the elasticity between wages and the general price level across areas should equal one, at least under certain conditions. I test this hypothesis and find that the predicted relationship holds when housing prices are measured by rents and the general price level is instrumented to account for measurement error. When housing prices are measured by housing values, however, the wage-price elasticity is significantly less than one, even using instrumental variables. Rents reflect the price paid for housing per unit of time and are arguably the superior measure. Thus, findings in this essay provide support for the full compensation hypothesis. These findings also have important implications for researchers estimating the implicit prices of amenities or ranking the quality of life across areas.     

Calvo vs. Rotemberg in a trend inflation world: An empirical investigation

This paper estimates and compares New-Keynesian DSGE monetary models of the business cycle derived under two different pricing schemes—Calvo (1983) and Rotemberg (1982)—under a positive trend inflation rate. Our empirical findings (i) support trend inflation as an empirically relevant feature of the U.S. great moderation; (ii) provide evidence in favor of the statistical superiority of the Calvo setting; (iii) point to a substantially lower degree of price indexation under Calvo. We show that the superiority of the Calvo model is due to the restrictions imposed by such a pricing scheme on the aggregate demand equation.     

The influence of insurance company earnings and dividends in establishing stock price floors and ceilings: Further evidence based upon industry sector classifications

Prior research regarding the influence of dividends and earnings on stock prices in the insurance industry is extended through comparison across insurance industry sectors. Dividends and earnings appear to have different impacts across sectors and at the high versus low levels of the annual stock price trading range.     

浅议工程项目影子价格理论

影子价格是为实现一定的经济发展目标而人为确定的、比市场价格更能反映出资源真实价值、能促进合理利用资源的经济价格,而非真正意义上的市场价格。它不仅能更合理地反映出产品价值,而且还能反映社会劳动消耗、市场的供求关系和资源的稀缺程度,有利于资源的优化配置。影子价格是分析计算项目对国民经济的净贡献,评价项目的经济合理性的重要的参数之一。本文主要阐释了影子价格的概念、类别、选取及计算方法。     

Price and Nonprice Competition with Endogenous Market Structure

This paper examines the effect of the intensity of short-run price competition and other exogenous variables that affect gross profit margins—such as the degree of product differentiation and the consumers' responsiveness to quality—on market structure and on advertising and R&D expenditure. A key result is that more intense short-run competition can lead to lower concentration in industries with high advertising or R&D intensity, unlike exogenous-sunk-cost industries. Also, price competition has a negative effect on advertising or R&D expenditure. A case study is also presented, which is consistent with the theoretical results of the paper.     

Local labor market impacts of energy boom-bust-boom in Western Canada

The impacts of energy price boom and bust are analyzed through the differential growth in employment and earnings between local labor markets with and without energy resources in Western Canada. The estimated differentials attributed to the boom-induced labor demand shocks show significant direct and indirect impacts on the earnings and employment within the energy extraction and other non-energy local sectors respectively. The local job multipliers indicate that job creation within the energy extraction sector leads to modest job creation within the non-energy local sectors during boom periods. For every ten energy extraction jobs created during a boom period, approximately three construction jobs, two retail jobs, and four and a half service jobs are created.     

Dependence dynamics of Islamic and conventional equity sectors: What do we learn from the decoupling hypothesis and COVID-19 pandemic?

The recent COVID-19 pandemic intensification generates a different set of challenges for global financial markets and portfolio management strategies. This paper uses network analysis to investigate the static and dynamic dependence within Islamic and conventional equity sectors. The study focuses on the decoupling hypothesis and how the dependence among sectors changes during COVID19. Empirical findings indicate a higher degree of spillover during the COVID19 sub-period. Islamic and conventional equities behave differently in terms of industry-level dependence during normal and crisis times, thus decoupling. Further, the dependence effect between conventional equity returns is stronger than Islamic equity returns during the COVID-19 pandemic. The finding of this paper has several significant implications for portfolio selection and risk management. Portfolios consisting of Islamic equity sectors including industrials, basic materials, consumer services, and technologies highlight low-diversification benefits across the entire sample period. Also, investment exposure to less connected Islamic and conventional equity sectors provides a good diversification strategy.     

On-the-job training and rigidity of employment protection in the developing world: Evidence from differential enforcement

This paper analyzes the causal effect between strict employment protection regulations and the firm incentive to invest in job training of their employees. We explore a large firm level data set across several developing countries and assume that the rigidity of labor regulations affects more the investment decision of firms that faces a rigid enforcement of labor regulations. Our findings show that differences across countries in the enforcement of more rigid employment protection regulation are associated with very small differences in the investment in job training across firms. This finding is robust across several specifications and samples.     

THE DETERMINANTS OF CAPITAL INTENSITY IN FOREIGN-OWNED MANUFACTURING ACROSS U.S. REGIONS

This paper empirically tests hypothesized influences on the capital intensity of foreign direct investment (FDI) among the 48 contiguous United States. A theoretical profit maximizing model of the firm is developed linking capital intensity to traditional variables (the prices of labor and capital services); the model also takes account of the price of energy, agglomeration effects, educational levels, the importance of labor unions, and state and local public capital. The main focus is on the effects of public capital on the capital intensity of FDI. Public capital is disaggregated as follows: highway, sewer and water, and other (primarily buildings). The operational model defines FDI as the 1986 gross value of property, plant, and equipment of manufacturing affiliates of firms with headquarters in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Findings are reported both for total manufacturing and for manufacturing disaggregated into five industry groups. Generally, the results emphasize that highway infrastructure and sewer and water public capital act as powerful incentives to attract capital-intensive FDI across the 48 contiguous United States.     

Firms' price and wage adjustment in Europe: Survey evidence on nominal stickiness

This paper presents new evidence on the patterns of price and wage adjustment in European firms and on the extent of nominal rigidities. It uses a unique dataset collected through a firm-level survey conducted in 17 European countries and covering various sectors. Several conclusions are drawn from this evidence. Firms adjust wages less frequently than prices, on average every 15 and 10 months, respectively. Price and, especially, wage adjustment exhibit a substantial degree of time-dependence. In particular, wage changes tend to cluster at a specific time of the year, mostly January in the majority of countries. The results of a multivariate analysis indicate that prices are more flexible when competitive pressures in product markets are strong and when labor costs account for a lower fraction of firms' total costs, whereas wages are more flexible when bargaining is decentralized and when the coverage of collective bargaining and the stringency of employment protection legislation are low. Price rigidities are higher in firms with a larger share of high-skilled/white-collar workers.     

An interregional policy model for energy-economic-environmental interactions

This article deals with conflicts between energy, pollution and economic issues in an interregional framework. On the basis of an interregional input output model extended with pollution and energy sectors a policy analysis aiming at finding compromise solutions forconflicting objectives is carried out. The rigid input output structure is adjusted by incorporating price effects of inputs via demand relationships based on a translog price possibility frontier. The analysis is illustrated by means of some empirical applications to the Dutch economy.     

Intersectoral efficiency between agriculture and industry in six C.M.E.A. countries: Introducing a simple equilibrium model

The purposes of this paper is to show how the long-run preferences for industry and agriculture of the planning bodies in six C.M.E.A. countries can be analyzed by using data on factor allocations in these sectors. Indicative results describing these preferences are obtained and existing inefficiencies in labor allocation and the relative domestic prices of industrial and agricultural goods are discussed. The conclusions suggest that the preferences of the planning bodies have stayed completely constant over 1950–1980 only in the case of the GDR, and that allocations of labor and domestic price ratios have mostly been far from optimal over that period in the countries that were analyzed.The author wishes to thank Prof. Paul Jones of the University of New Mexico Economics Department, Prof. R. E. Campbell of the Indiana University Economics Department and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on this paper.