Some considerations on a class of macro-economic production functions

Summary It is demonstrated that dimensional analysis can be a tool in investigating the properties of a production function. First, the economic implications of the CES Function are shown. Secondly, endorsing the statements made by the SMAC Group that the Leontief and the Cobb and Douglas types of the production function arise as limiting cases of the CES production function, detailed proofs of these statements are given that maintain the dimensional homogeneity in proceeding to the limits. It is shown that certain dimensional constants of the CES production function become dimensionless entities in the limit.Finally, an expression for the curvature of the isoquants is derived. A dimensionally homogeneous relation is presented between the elasticity of substitution, the slope, the curvature and the factor endowments. This relation can be used to derive a general Variable Elasticity of Substitution production function.1970-71 Visiting Professor, Department of Economics, F.S.U. (Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A.).The authors thank Professor Th. van de Klundert, Dr. H. de Haan and Dr. S. K. Kuipers for their useful comments on the first draft of this paper.     

差距指数与后发优势指数研究

后发优势是发展中国家因为落后而具备的一种快速发展的潜能,许多学者从定性方面对后发优势进行了分析。本文试图从定量这一全新的视角来审视后发优势,提出了差距、差距优势、差距优势指数、后发优势指数的概念,对决定这些指数的相关函数的自变量因子进行分析,在此基础上,提出了差距优势是普遍存在的,差距优势是一种潜在的后发优势,这种潜在的后发优势转化为现实的后发优势需要3个方面的必要条件,并对这些必要条件进行了简要的分析归纳。     

A note on black-white wage disparity

Conclusion The evidence in this article helps to explain the black-white earnings differential in 1970, six years after the passage of Fair Employment Legislation, in terms of traditional measures such as experience and education along with a public policy measure that has of late come under fire. And contrary to the notion that the gains from such government policy have not benefited the less fortunate workers but simply accrued only, or mainly, to upper- or middle-class blacks, the results presented here indicate that enforcement, such as it is, has had beneficial effects for black men and women in virtually all major occupational categories. When a distinction is made between the various major occupational categories, the importance of education and experience as factors that contribute toward explaining black-white earnings differentials is generally supported by this study. However, neither education nor experience shows a consistent explanatory power across occupational categories and especially across the sexes. For example, experience is more frequently found to be a significant factor for black men than it is for black women. Education, on the other hand, was found to have no statistically significant relationship with wage differentials in major blue-collar job categories for both men and women, thus lending some credence to the dual labor market thesis regarding returns to education. By far the factor we have found to be the most consistent with respect to its impact upon racial wage differentials for both men and women is the fair employment variable. Indeed, across major occupational groups the existence and enforcement of fair employment laws seems to have had, generally, a more significant effect on reducing racial wage differentials than each of the other independent variables.     

Regional disparity,transitional dynamics and convergence in China

Most of the earlier studies on the convergence of income in China are based on provincial level data with a few papers focusing on intra-provincial units’ transitional dynamics. The objective of this study is to fill the void in the literature by using county-level data which cover 1485 counties and county-level cities in 22 provinces for the period of 1997–2007. This paper makes several contributions to the literature. The findings in this paper show high persistence in income distribution among many spatial groupings. Thus the poor county-level units may remain relatively poor over time. This study provides very little evidence of convergence to the mean income in various spatial groupings. Furthermore, the empirical analysis highlights differences in transitional dynamics between cities and counties.     

Racial disparity in the atlanta housing market

Atlanta has the reputation of being a city of opportunity for blacks. However, in Atlanta, as well as in other cities across the nation, the nexus of racism and economic discrimination has resulted in disparities between the housing status of blacks and whites. This article examines racial disparities in the Atlanta housing market. It begins by tracing recent trends in the Atlanta-area economy and by providing background information on the local housing market. It then discusses the roles of the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 and Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 in the efforts of local groups to reduce racial disparities in the housing market. The final section discusses recent local developments that might lead to improvements in the housing status of black Atlantans.     

中外零售业的差距分析

通过分析中外零售业存在的差距及差距形成的原因,提出了中 国零售业的应对策略,以提高中国零售业的国际市场竞争力。     

Tracing the regional dual value chains: Measurement on the production position and evidence from China

When there is insufficient internal and external impetus for developing countries’ economy, building a domestic and international dual circulation is conducive to promoting the regional industrial growth. On the basis of regional embedded international input-output tables, this paper extends the measurement framework of production position and proposes the concept of the dual value chain, which measure production position that unifies the national and global value chains from forward and backward industrial linkages. We decompose the national and global value chains into three categories and investigate the production position characteristics of China with a multi-dimensional perspective. Consistent evidence shows that a feasible path of technological progress in optimizing the production in value chains in which technological progress plays a crucial role on the pure national value chain across the high-tech manufacturing sector, the eastern and central regions. Their posterior probabilities are 0.96, 0.21and 0.86, respectively. Moreover, the impact on the dual production is nonnegligible that the posterior probability of technological progress on the eastern and central regions is 0.40 and 0.92. In addition, the impact of the Chinese economic stimulus program and technological progress on the economic crisis has a certain moderating effect. Our proposed evaluation framework sheds new light that national value chain production can boost economic growth,and further promote the coordinated of regional industries for developing countries.     

Heterogeneous workers and international trade

In this paper, I survey the recent theoretical literature that incorporates heterogeneous labor into models of international trade. The models with heterogeneous labor have been used to study how talent dispersion can be a source of comparative advantage, how the opening of trade affects the full distribution of wages, and how trade affects industry productivity and efficiency via its impact on sorting and matching in the labor market. Some of the most recent contributions also introduce labor market frictions to study the effects of trade on structural unemployment and on mismatch between workers and firms.     

Heterogeneous Popularity and Exporting Uncertainty

Empirical work shows that a considerable fraction of firms quit the export market soon after entrance. A natural interpretation to this quick exit from the export market is that firms did not predict the profitability of their variety correctly before entry. In this paper a firm heterogeneity model is put forward to account for this type of exporting uncertainty due to lack of information. Firms are heterogeneous with respect to the popularity of their good, technically the CES weight, and the popularity of a good varies across markets. Therefore, firms are uncertain about the profitability of their good in the export market. Upon payment of sunk export costs the popularity of the good is revealed and some firms stay in the export market while others leave. Comparative statics show that lower sunk export costs lead to higher probability that firms start to export, but to lower probability of export success. Lower fixed export costs instead lead to both a higher probability to start exporting and to be successful in exporting.     

生产函数异质性与地区差距

经济学在研究地区差距形成的原因时,强调了地区之间要素积累的差异,但忽略了不同地区的生产函数可能存在的差异。本文首次允许不同地区具有不同的生产函数,并以此来解释地区差距扩大:即如果不同地区的要素份额不同,那么它们的生产函数就是不同的,从而人均产出也不同,因此地区差距会不断扩大。本文以索洛模型为基础,用中国的省级数据进行了实证研究。结果表明,资本份额对实际人均产出有非常显著的正的影响,即资本份额越高的地区,实际人均产出也越高,因此地区之间的差距会不断扩大,生产函数差异能够解释地区差异的16%。不仅如此,资本份额的差异性会引起各地区经济增长收敛速度的下降,从而也扩大了地区差距。最后,应用中国工业企业的微观数据,进一步说明了产业结构和行业构成是造成地区生产函数异质性的一个原因,由于不同产业和行业之间的要素份额不同,而不同地区具有不同的产业结构和行业结构,因此地区之间会有不同的生产函数。     

Agglomeration and Welfare with Heterogeneous Preferences

This paper constructs a model of endogenous location of entrepreneurs with preference heterogeneity between individuals. Two main results are found. First, agglomeration and partial dispersion can be simultaneously stable but preference heterogeneity reduces the possibility of multiple equilibria. Secondly, measuring individual welfare in terms of equivalent income we show that in the case of agglomeration, the worst-off workers would prefer a dispersed equilibrium.     

A new class of production functions and an argument against purely labor‐augmenting technical change

This paper derives the macro‐level production function from idea‐based microfoundations. Labor‐augmenting and capital‐augmenting developments are assumed to be Pareto‐distributed and mutually dependent. Using the Clayton copula family to capture this dependence, a new “Clayton–Pareto” class of production functions is derived that nests both the Cobb–Douglas and the constant elasticity of substitution. In the most general case, technical change is not purely labor‐augmenting over the long run, but it augments both capital and labor. Under certain parametrizations, the derived elasticity of substitution between capital and labor exceeds unity and, therefore, gives rise to long‐run endogenous growth.     

异质信念研究述评与展望

通过对国内外已有研究的梳理和述评,对异质信念的理论内涵与实证影响进行了具体阐释,在区分外部投资者之间以及内外部人之间这两种不同异质信念的基础上,分别重点解析了外部投资者异质信念如何影响资产价格、内外部人之间异质信念如何影响企业投融资决策的理论机理和实证异同。研究表明,无论是在理性框架下,还是在非理性框架下,由于信息或个体的异质性,异质信念可能普遍并持续存在,而结合具体的市场环境、投资者结构、公司治理结构等进行更为深入的异质信念研究探讨将是未来进一步的研究方向。     

Migration and regional wages

"This paper presents a new method of using wage data in a model of U.S. interregional migration. This method makes better use of human capital theory than has been done in previous studies. By restricting the variability of real predicted individual regional wages, more satisfactory estimates of a migration model are obtained using microdata than when no restrictions are imposed. A multiple choice conditional logit model is applied to migration as a choice among the four U.S. census regions. Two U.S. microdata sets are used to estimate the model."     

试析异体问责制

有人把2008年称为“官员问责年”。目前,在我国,行政问责制的推行与实施,还存在较大的困难与阻力,其中异体问责的种种不完善是其重要原因之一。因此,我们要从加强人大的问责,保障和维护公开参与问责的机制,加强新闻媒体的舆论问责等方面来完善异体问责。