Product market deregulation and the US employment miracle

We consider the dynamic relationship between product market entry regulation and equilibrium unemployment. The main theoretical contribution is combining a job matching model with monopolistic competition in the goods market and individual bargaining. We calibrate the model to US data and perform a policy experiment to assess whether the decrease in trend unemployment during the 1980s and 1990s could be directly attributed to product market deregulation. Under our baseline calibration, our results suggest that a decrease of less than two-tenths of a percentage point of unemployment rates can be attributed to product market deregulation, a surprisingly small amount.     

Firm heterogeneity and Ricardian comparative advantage within and across sectors

This paper incorporates Melitz’s Econometrica (71:1695–1725, 2003) heterogeneous-firm trade model in the Ricardian model of comparative advantage with a continuum of sectors introduced by Dornbusch et al. (Am Econ Rev 67(5), 823–839, 1977). In particular, we characterise the equilibrium outcomes when neither sectors nor countries are symmetric. We find that trade patterns can follow Ricardian comparative advantage, while wage rates are proportional to market size due to a home market effect. Interestingly, trade liberalisation hurts the large country but benefits the small one by reducing the number of sectors with two-way trade and expanding those with specialised (one-way) trade. I would like to thank Mike Artis, Richard Baldwin, Frederic Robert-Nicoud, Matthias Helble, Giovanni Facchini, Thierry Verdier and a referee for their helpful comments and suggestions. Also I would like to thank Mike Artis for his excellent proof reading.     

Unequal skill premiums and trade liberalization: Is education the missing link?

We examine the impact of increased trade on wage inequality in developing countries; whether higher human capital stocks moderate this effect. We find countries with a higher level of initial human capital experience less increased wage inequality following increased trade.     

Wage inequality between and within groups: trade-induced or skill-bias technical change? Alternative age models for the UK

According to recent econometric studies, technical progress is the main source of the increasing skill premium in the UK and the US. However, it is not yet clear if technical progress is skill-bias or sector-bias and, most importantly, if the use of foreign technology has a role to play. By using alternative AGE models for the UK economy, I show that both trade-induced sector-bias technical change and skill-bias technical change can explain the stylised facts of the UK economy: tertiarisation; deindustrialisation; openness to foreign markets; increased skill premium; rise in wage inequality within the skilled; and unskilled labour groups. However, the model with sector-bias technical change due to trade performs better, because it can also explain two other important stylised facts: the decline of the wage rate of unskilled workers; and the large increase of imported capital goods.     

Economic liberalization and wage inequality in the presence of labour market imperfection

This paper is purported to analyze the consequences of liberalized economic policies on the skilled–unskilled wage inequality in the developing countries using a three sector general equilibrium model reasonable for at least a few developing economies. The analysis of the paper has found that the wage inequality rises unambiguously due to a reduction of import tariff from the low-skill manufacturing sector. However, an inflow of foreign capital produces a favourable effect on the wage inequality under a reasonable factor intensity condition. Interestingly, contrary to the common wisdom, a policy of labour market reform may raise the competitive unskilled wage and improve wage inequality under reasonable condition.     

Wage differences between Austrian men and women: <Emphasis Type="Italic">semper idem?</Emphasis>

In most OECD countries, the wage gap between men and women has narrowed during the past two decades. Developments of the last 20 years, e.g., increased labour market attachment of women or the introduction of equal pay laws, may have reduced the gender wage gap. We investigate the extent, persistence, and socio-economic determinants of the gender wage gap in Austria, for the years 1983 and 1997. Using wage decomposition techniques, we find that the average gender wage gap was almost as high in 1997 as it was in 1983. Not accounting for differences, the gender wage gap dropped from 25.5 to 23.3% of men’s wages. Taking observable differences between men and women into account, we estimate that the mean gender wage gap that cannot be explained, i.e., discrimination against women, dropped from 17 to 14% of men’s wages. A decomposition of the gender wage gap over time indicates that both returns to human capital and less discrimination were responsible for the narrowing of the gender wage gap.

中国家具出口贸易的实证研究

家具是中国的一项重要出口产品,但频繁遭遇贸易保护,有必要对中国家具出口进行较深入的研究。为此,本文选择了出口贸易额、出口地理方向、可显示比较优势指数、贸易竞争指数和产业内贸易指数五个指标对中国家具出口情况进行分析。发现近年来中国家具出口增长迅速,但存在出口市场过于集中的问题。中国在家具生产上具有明显的比较优势,中国家具有较强的国际竞争力,家具贸易以产业间贸易为主。中国家具出口企业应该进一步降低对美国出口的比重,积极应对贸易壁垒,并发展一般贸易以替代加工贸易。     

Global inequality and international trade

The paper analyses the effect of widespread trade liberalisationon global income inequality. The analysis of the trend in globalinequality during 1981–97, presented in the first partof the paper, shows that the apparent growth of income inequalityamong countries conceals a process of convergence. Some developingcountries achieved significantly faster economic growth thanthe advanced industrialised countries and, though small in number,they actually account for a majority of the population of thedeveloping world. Thus international inequality (i.e., the inequalityof distribution of per capita incomes among the world's population)in fact declined even though the inter-country income inequalityincreased. The analysis in the second part of the paper shows(i) that while improved trade performance did have a stimulatingeffect on growth performance of countries, trade liberalisationhad extremely varied effects on trade performance across countries,and (ii) that the distribution of benefits and costs of tradeliberalisation across countries has been such as to reduce internationalinequality without affecting inter-country inequality.     

Dual Labor Markets and Trade Reform in China

This paper specifically models rigidities in the labor market in China and analyzes the effect of labor market liberalization on economic growth using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. Our results indicate that labor market reforms are essential to the realization of significant gains from China's accession in November 2001 to the World Trade Organization (WTO). In the absence of labor market reform, the gains to accession to the WTO are estimated to be minimal.     

Downsizing, wage inequality and welfare in a developing economy

This paper focuses on the cost cutting effects of firm downsizing in a developing economy. Using a dualistic production structure to depict a developing economy, the impacts of downsizing on wage inequality and social welfare are examined. Downsizing is revealed to not only narrow the wage gap between skilled and unskilled labor but also to raise the level of manufactured output and reduce the unemployment ratio in the urban sector. These effects improve the social welfare of the economy.     

Wage,income and consumption inequality in Japan, 1981–2008: From boom to lost decades

In this paper we document the main features of the distributions of wages, earnings, consumption and wealth in Japan since the early 1980s using four main data sources: the Basic Survey on Wage Structure (BSWS), the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES), the National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure (NSFIE) and the Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers (JPSC). We present an empirical analysis of inequality that specifically considers the path from individual wages and earnings, to household earnings, after-tax income, and finally consumption. We find that household earnings inequality rose substantially over this period. This rise is made up of two distinct episodes: from 1981 to 1996 all incomes rose, but they rose faster at higher percentiles; from 1996 to 2008 incomes above the 50th percentile remained flat but they fell at and below the 50th percentile. Inequality in disposable income and in consumption also rose over this period but to a lesser extent, suggesting taxes and transfers as well as insurance channels available to households helped to insulate household consumption from shocks to wages. We find the same pattern in inequality trends when we look over the life cycle of households as we do over time in the economy. Additionally we find that there are notable differences in the inequality trends for wages and hours between men and women over this period.     

Is inequality an inevitable by-product of skill-biased technical change?

This article examines trends in relative wages between high- and medium-skilled workers and between medium- and low-skilled workers in Finland, Germany, Italy, South Korea and the US over the period 1970–2005. It is found that there are large differences in the evolution wage inequality across the countries in our sample, with some countries showing a long-run upward trend in relative wages (such as the US, Germany and Italy) and others showing a long-run downward trend (such as Finland and Korea). The main conclusion from our results is that inequality is not an inevitable by-product of technological change.     

技能型技术进步、南北贸易与工资不平衡

本文试图将技能型技术进步与产业内贸易置于一个框架中对工资不平衡现象进行理论解释。自由贸易通过促使发达国家产品质量阶梯提升型的技术进步而加剧了该国的工资不平衡程度;同时,自由贸易通过促使发展中国家产品种类数增加型的技术进步而加剧了该国的工资不平衡程度。南北贸易在拉大相对工资差距的同时促进了技能型技术进步。     

外商直接投资、国际贸易与工资溢出——基于微观企业层面的实证分析

本文基于12180家企业面板数据估计了内资非出口企业与内资出口企业、外资出口企业、外资非出口企业之间的工资差距。研究结果表明,内资非出口企业与内资出口企业、外资非出口企业、外资出口企业之间存在显著的平均工资差距。进一步的分析发现,邻省外商直接投资对本省内资企业工资具有显著负效应;由于交易费用的存在,非相邻省份的外商直接投资对省内内资企业工资有显著正效应。同时,省内国际贸易对内资企业工资影响显著为正;由于区域间产业趋同现象的存在,相邻省份的贸易对省内内资企业的工资影响显著为负。因此,为缩小收入差距,要求我国消除区域壁垒,建立统一市场。