A MACROECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE ON SKILL SHORTAGES AND THE SKILL PREMIUM IN NEW ZEALAND*

Qualification and occupation‐based measures of skilled labour are constructed to explain the skill premium – the wage of skilled labour relative to unskilled labour in New Zealand. The data exhibit a more rapid growth in the supply of skilled labour than the skill premium, and a very large increase in the real minimum wage over the period from 1986 to 2005. We estimate the rate of increase in the relative demand for skills and the elasticity of substitution. The data are consistent with skill shortages and a skill‐bias technical change. We examine the effects of the minimum wage, capital complementarity, and the exchange rate on the skill premium. We also test whether the demand for skills and the elasticity of substitution varied across industries and over time.     

中国钢铁行业能源内部的替代弹性分析

本文运用中国钢铁行业滞后一期的产出代替劳动和资本变量,把钢铁行业能源投入要素分解为煤炭、石油、天然气和电力的投入,建立了一个超越对数生产函数模型,用岭回归估算了中国钢铁行业各能源品种投入要素的产出弹性、替代弹性。结果表明:煤炭与石油、煤炭与天然气、煤炭与电力的替代弹性在1左右,中国钢铁行业可通过用石油、天然气、电力替代煤炭来实现其行业全要素能源效率的提高。     

Learning-by-doing and input demand of a rate-of-return regulated firm

The significance of learning by doing to input demand of a cost-minimizing rate-of-return-regulated firm is examined. Using a panel data, the results indicate that the firm's cost and input demand decisions are both influenced by learning-by-doing. The firm's cost and the rate-base (capital) input requirements decline as learning-by-doing measured by cumulative production expands. However, LBD may have different effects on the non-rate-base inputs (labor and fuel) considered in this study. While LBD ambiguously reduces fuel usage, it moderately increases labor employment. In addition to changing input intensity, LBD also influences returns to scale and elasticity of substitution.     

Openness to trade as a determinant of the macroeconomic elasticity of substitution

Several theoretical and empirical studies on economic growth consider the macroeconomic elasticity of substitution between capital and labor as a measure of economic flexibility that depends on technological as well as institutional aspects. One institutional aspect of economic flexibility is openness to trade. I examine in a Heckscher–Ohlin model with two large countries trading intermediate goods how openness affects the elasticity of substitution. If the technology has a constant elasticity of substitution in a closed economy, opening up to trade raises the elasticity of substitution only in the country that accumulates capital at a faster rate.     

Substitution elasticities between durable and nondurable goods in the United States: New evidence from the dynamic Laurent system

This paper uses the dynamic Laurent demand system to jointly estimate the service flows from durable and nondurable goods. The parameter estimates are used to obtain the Morishima elasticity of substitution between goods for the United States from 1960:1 to 1991:4. One of the significant results of this study is that the Morishima elasticities of substitution vary over time instead of being constant. This result implies that the use of the CES functional form gives a poor approximation of the demand system for the data used in this paper. Another important result is that consumers adjust to their long-run equilibrium holding of consumption goods slowly rather than quickly.     

Policy reform and labour demand in branches of Sri Lankan manufacturing industry

Many policy reforms in developing countries aim to remove factor market distortions. Whether such reforms reduce unemployment depends partly on the substitution possibilities between labour and other factors of production. This paper examines labour demand in seven branches of Sri Lankan manufacturing industry, using data on 4-digit industrial categories over the 1990 to 1997 period. The Box–Cox transformation is used to allow for flexible, and data-dependent, elasticities. The elasticity of capital–labour substitution varies widely across the branches of industry and is usually variable rather than constant. The average, long-run own-wage elasticity of labour demand for the manufacturing sector is estimated as ?0.80, so factor price policy should have an important effect on labour demand in this setting.     

垄断竞争、中间产品与城市规模

从分工经济与城市规模之间关系的角度,运用Dixit-Stiglitz模型框架下经济活动的规模收益递增原理,在城市内部最终产品生产企业利润最大化的条件下,系统讨论了投入的中间产品种类数与城市人口规模之间的关系、中间产品之间的替代性对城市均衡人口规模的反馈作用,以及城市内部中间产品专业化水平和互补经济程度之间的关系。在此基础上,利用广东省城市增长的部分数据进行了实证分析。认为:经济活动的集聚形成了城市;在城市体积增长和城市系统随产业的专业化与多样化发展而演进的过程中,城市规模经济的实现除了依赖生产要素流动外,最终产品生产企业对中间产品投入的需求也具有不可忽视的作用。     

Functional separability within a quadratic inverse demand system

In this paper, a quadratic inverse (almost ideal) demand system (IQUAIDS) is derived, that generalizes the inverse (almost ideal) demand system (IAIDS). Starting from a flexible parameterization of the distance function, this model allows a more flexible specification by overcoming the potential restrictiveness of linear scale curves. However, at a point of normalization, the IQUAIDS boils down to the IAIDS, thus the additional flexibility pertains only to the specification of scale elasticities away from the point of approximation. Previous work on functional separability is extended to the case of inverse demands, and necessary and sufficient conditions for weak separability of the direct and indirect utility function derived, in terms of the Antonelli elasticities of complementarity and of the scale elasticities. Their proper parametric representation within the inverse specification is also derived. An empirical application to fish demand in Italy is provided, mainly for illustrative purposes.     

Currency Substitution: A Multicurrency Study for Canada

In this paper we examine currency substitution in Canadian money demand ls-a-vis the currencies of seven industrialized countries. A multicurrency variant of the money demand function is estimated to test for the presence and extent of this substitution. The results (except for the British pound) conform to expectations and show complementarity between currencies. It is also found that the degree of currency substitution under flexible rates exceeds that under fixed rates. We also question the validity of the tests for the presence of currency substitution which do not distinguish between exchange rate regimes. [430]     

THE EFFECT OF REGULATION ON WAGES AND INTERMEDIATE PRODUCT PRICES UNDER BILATERAL MONOPOLY1

This paper seeks to determine whether, under bilateral monopoly, profit rate regulation induces an input price bias in addition to the well known Averch-Johnson capital intensity bias. Using a Nash-type employer-union, fixed bargaining power model, it is found that regulation may induce lower as well as higher wage rates. Similarly, when the two parties are respectively capital equipment supplier and user, regulation of the user's profit rate has an ambiguous effect on the equipment rental rate. In both cases the input price effect is shown to depend on the elasticity of factor substitution and on how demand elasticity varies with output.     

Measuring Price Responsiveness Under a Profit Maximization Framework

The distinguishing feature of the study is in using a globally flexible functional form that permits one to calculate different types of elasticities under both constant and variable output hypotheses. The Symmetric Generalized McFadden cost function alongwith the output supply condition form the basis of the econometric model. To measure inputsubstitutabilities, we used Alien-Uzawa, Morishima, and Shadow elasticities of substitution. Empirical results, based on 300 farm households from West Bengal, India, show that fertilizer is most price sensitive input. It is a gross substitute for manure and human labor but complement to bullock labor. Manure is a gross substitute for all the inputs whereas human labor is gross complement to bullock labor. Using the Morishima measure we find that the fertilizer and bullock labor are complements when the price of the latterchanges. Similar complementary relationship is found between bullock and human labor due to changes in the price of human labor. All other inputs are Morishima substitutes. The Shadow elasticity of substitution estimates indicate that all factors are substitutes. The estimate of returns to scale indicates the presence of diminishing returns to scale.

     

Women and Work: A Survey of Textbooks

The third Marshall–Hicks–Allen rule of elasticity of derived demand purports to show that labor demand is less elastic when labor is a smaller share of total costs. As Hicks, Allen, and then Bronfenbrenner showed, this rule is not quite correct, and actually is complicated by an unexpected negative relationship involving labor's share of total costs and the elasticity of substitution. The standard intuitive explanation for the exception to the rule presented by Stigler and referenced in many textbooks describes a situation rather different than the one described in the rule. The author presents an example that illustrates the peculiar negative impact of labor's share operating via the elasticity of substitution and then explains why the unexpected relationship between labor's share of total cost, the elasticity of substitution, and the elasticity of labor demand holds.     

中国区域要素替代弹性变迁及其增长效应——基于异质劳动视角的随机前沿生产函数分析

文章采用1996-2014年省际面板数据构建区域随机前沿生产函数模型,从劳动异质性视角拓展要素替代弹性分析;并首次联合运用协整方程和误差修正模型,从长期均衡和短期波动过程分析来揭示要素替代约束对经济增长的影响.结果发现:尽管三大区域各自的要素替代弹性变化显著不同,但要素替代弹性的增长效应却彼此具有一致性.其中,东部地区的资本-劳动替代弹性明显地存在着0.805的增长门槛,只有西部地区的资本-劳动替代弹性越过了门槛值,与区域增长具有尚不显著的正相关性而支持德拉格兰德维尔假说;三大区域的资本-技能互补性提高对经济增长的推动作用都不明显;劳动-技能替代弹性则表现为显著的正向增长效应,显示出各区域存在着人力资本红利.值得注意的是,与均衡增长路径上"资本-劳动替代弹性提高能够推动经济增长"的德拉格兰德维尔假说不同,在考虑劳动异质性和技术非效率的前提下,中国地区增长更支持"劳动-技能替代弹性提高能够推动经济增长"的结论.文章为甄别新常态下的区域增长潜力转变、剖析要素匹配合理性及产业结构调整可行性奠定基础.     

Substitution and output effects in the neoclassical theory of the firm under imperfect competition

Since 1938, it has been established that the effect produced by a variation in an input price on the use of another input can be decomposed into a substitution effect and an output effect (or scale effect). Nevertheless, this distinction is still denied today by many authors. Here, one tries to establish in which manner imperfect competition in the product market alters the respective importance of substitution and output effects. Some implications are then derived about alternative manners of defining substitutability and complementarity between inputs.     

Factor Substitution and Relative Factor Prices

This paper examines the effects of factor endowments on factor prices in a three‐factor, two‐commodity general‐equilibrium model with endogenous commodity demand and prices. Unlike the conventional small open‐economy model that assumes constant commodity prices, factor substitution influences the direction of these effects. When a factor endowment increases, complementarity with the expanding factor benefits an unchanged factor, but substitutability harms it. If the unchanged factors are complements, there is a possibility of a rise in the expanding factor's price. A comparison of this closed‐economy model with the small open‐economy model reveals the role of international trade, which dampens the effect on the expanding factor's price.     

Atoms,Bits, and Wits: A New Economics for the Twenty-First Century—Part II

Learning also affects the organization of economic activity as a “force locomotif” of growth. Bounded rationality opens a theory of planning horizons as an ordinal measure of wits. The realm of wits shines a novel light on the nature of interdependence, since the balance of substitution and complementarity is horizonal: longer and broader horizons shift this balance away from substitution in favor of complementarity, augmenting concerts of interest over conflicts in social relations. Atoms, bits, and wits are modeled to show why substitution only applies to short-run atoms; a case for complementarity rises from both increasing returns and bits, where wits strengthen the case for cooperation as efficient. With complementarity, competition—not collusion—stifles output. The social and institutional implications of this are addressed theoretically in this paper.     

The transactions demand for money in the presence of currency substitution: evidence from Vietnam

Currency substitution – the use of foreign money to finance transactions between domestic residents – is widespread in low income and transition economies. Traditionally, however, empirical models of the demand for money tend to concentrate on the portfolio motive for holding foreign currency, while maintaining the assumption that the income elasticity of demand for domestic money is invariant to the degree of currency substitution. A simple re-specification of the demand for money is offered which more accurately reflects the process of currency substitution by allowing for a variable income elasticity of demand for domestic money. This specification is estimated for Vietnam in the 1990s. Using a standard cointegration framework evidence is found for currency substitution only in the long-run but well-defined wealth effects operating in the short-run.     

Non‐Homothetic Multisector Growth Models

Multisector growth (MSG) models are dynamic versions of computable general equilibrium (CGE) models. Non‐homothetic preference (utility) functions are required for the evolution of factor allocations and industrial structures in accordance with consumption expenditure patterns implied by the non‐unitary income elasticities observed in all budget data since Engel in the 1850s. But comparative static general equilibrium solutions and particularly solving the dynamics of MSG models require explicit specifications of all demand and cost (price) functions. On the demand side, the constant differences of elasticity of substitution (CDES) non‐homothetic indirect utility functions and Roy's identity provide the explicit Marshallian demand functions and budget shares. Sectorial constant elasticity of substitution (CES) cost functions and Shephard's lemma provide the explicit relative commodity price functions and the sectorial cost shares and capital–labor ratios. Walrasian equilibria are given by one equation and the multisector dynamics by three differential equations. Benchmark solutions are given for three cost regimes of a 10‐sector MSG model. History patterns of industrial/allocational evolutions are recognized.     

Two‐level CES Production Technology in the Solow and Diamond Growth Models*

The two‐level CES aggregate production function—that nests a CES into another CES function—has recently been used extensively in theoretical and empirical applications of macroeconomics. We examine the theoretical properties of this production technology and establish existence and stability conditions of steady states under the Solow and Diamond growth models. It is shown that in the Solow model the sufficient condition for a steady state is fulfilled for a wide range of substitution parameter values. This is in sharp contrast with the two‐factor Solow model, where only an elasticity of substitution equal to one is sufficient to guarantee the existence of a steady state. In the Diamond model, multiple equilibria can occur when the aggregate elasticity of substitution is lower than the capital share. Moreover, it is shown that for high initial levels of capital and factor substitutability, the effect of a further increase in a substitution parameter on the steady state depends on capital–skill complementarity.