Social Security Policy and International Labor and Capital Mobility

This paper studies the connection between social security policy and international factor movements within a two-country overlapping-generations model with production. Incentives for factor movements emerge because one country relies on private savings while the other country operates a social security system. The pattern of migration depends on the steady-state capital–labor ratios compared with the Golden Rule capital–labor ratios. Incentives to migrate do not vanish in the long run and one country might empty out. Capital always moves to the social-security country. Without compensation neither labor nor capital mobility represents a Pareto improvement for the economy.     

Eco-Dumping, Capital Mobility, and International Trade

A small open economy’s optimal environmental policy is studied in a model with international capital mobility and local pollution. The country produces traded as well as non-traded goods. Is it in the country’s interest to engage in ecological dumping by choosing generous pollution allowances for the traded-good sector? The answer depends decisively on the policy regime in use. Dumping is not optimal if the country ensures that the implicit rent on pollution is completely appropriated within the country. However, if the implicit factor reward on pollution leaves the country because it accrues to (foreign) owners of mobile capital, the local welfare maximizing government tends to discriminate against the traded-good sector, the opposite of ecological dumping.     

企业专用性人力资本与员工流动性

本文利用中国综合社会调查(CGSS)2006年的城市调查数据,分别用企业任期和在职培训时间作为企业专用性人力资本的替代变量,分析它们对员工流动性的影响,结果显示,企业专用性人力资本与员工辞职概率显著负相关,企业专用性人力资本水平越高的员工,主动离开企业的可能性就越小.同时还发现,作为通用性人力资本的工作经验与员工辞职概率之间的关系不明确;受教育年限和工资收入与员工辞职概率显著正相关;企业规模与员工辞职概率之间不存在显著的相关关系;相对于女性而言,在其他条件相同的情况下,男性辞职的可能性更大.     

International Capital Mobility and Free Trade Once Again*

Using a Heckscher–Ohlin model, this paper re‐examines Robert Mundell's famous thesis that free trade and unimpeded capital mobility are perfect substitutes. Under very general conditions which, according to many economists, have caused international convergence of factor rewards, we show that in a polluted environment free trade is inferior to free international investment. This happens even though commodity prices and factor rewards are the same with both policies. The practical side of our thesis is that the world will be better off by reducing the volume of trade while removing all barriers to foreign direct investment that at present hamper the service industries.     

Unskilled Labor Migration and Capital Mobility: A Diagrammatic Exposition

Conclusions about the effects of out-migration of unskilled labor on a country's wage rates and capital flows are illustrated with accessible diagrams. This article is of particular value in courses in international trade, economic development, and regional economics.     

Trade, Skills and Adjustment Costs: A Study of Intra-Sectoral Labor Mobility

The relationship between the ability of workers to change job, sector or industry and the short‐run adjustment costs associated with a reallocation of labor is the subject of lively debate among academics. This paper examines recent sector and industry level labor market adjustment in the UK using data from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey. We explore the link between the nature of UK trade patterns and labor adjustment within the manufacturing sector and employ a multinomial logit approach to examine the determinants of “within” and “between” industry mobility. By controlling for individual skill specificity we find some evidence of a link between intra‐industry trade and intra‐industry labor adjustment.     

Welfare Effects of Immigration Policies in the Presence of Skilled,Unskilled Labor and Capital Mobility

This paper investigates the welfare consequences of immigration policies in a model with two types of labor, skilled and unskilled, and international capital mobility. The paper examines the effect of government policies, which change the immigration cost and cause immigration of one type of labor, on the welfare of natives, when the other types of labor and/or capital are also mobile. It is shown, for example, in the absence of capital mobility, if skilled and unskilled labor are highly complementary in production, then a decrease in the immigration cost of the net fiscal contributor skilled labor that causes its immigration, decreases the welfare of natives.     

Trade and Inequality with Limited Labor Mobility: Theory and Evidence from China

Does globalization increase inequality in developing countries, and if so, how? In a theoretical model of a regionally heterogeneous economy, we show how different regional rates of technical progress due to trade and FDI interact with constraints to unskilled labor mobility. As favored regions benefit more from trade, their growing demand for skills drains skilled workers from disadvantaged areas, and average incomes in the former grow faster than in the latter. Moreover, this unbalanced regional growth may also raise inequality within each region. It could even reduce absolute income per capita in the less favored region. We test these predictions with Chinese data from the Open Door era. Results confirm that different regional growth rates have increased both interregional and intraregional inequality. Moreover, growth of skills‐based export industries in coastal regions is associated, other things equal, with lower incomes for the poor in inland provinces.     

Entrepreneurship,Saving, and Social Mobility

This paper examines entrepreneurship in order to analyze, first, the degree to which the opportunity to start or own a business affects the household's saving behavior and the implication of this behavior for the distribution of wealth and, second, the relationship between the extent of entrepreneurship in the economy and socioeconomic mobility, that is, the movement of families across wealth classes over time.First, a number of stylized facts based on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the Survey of Consumer Finances are outlined. They show relevant differences in asset holdings and wealth mobility between entrepreneurs and workers. Second, a dynamic general equilibrium model with an explicit formalization of the entrepreneurial choice is developed. Through the modeling of the entrepreneurial activities, the model generates a concentration of wealth similar to the one observed in the U.S. economy and it replicates the main patterns of wealth mobility in which entrepreneurs experience higher upward mobility than workers. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E21, D31, J23     

地区经济差距中的社会资本、交易费用分析

社会资本是和物质资本、人力资本相并存的一种资本形式,它是指在现实中可以为个体或组织带来更多增值收益的除了物质资本和人力资本之外的所有客观存在,它的核心在于信任、合作。社会资本的使用通过影响交易费用大小并进而影响经济发展。本文将运用社会资本理论借以分析中国的地区差距问题,文章认为地区差距问题的主要原因在于不同地区社会资本内容的差异。     

Urban Crime and Labor Mobility

Two municipalities within a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) determine the level of local law enforcement. Enforcement reduces and diverts crime. The former confers a spillover benefit; the latter a spillover cost. When labor is mobile, welfare necessarily declines: if enforcement is too high (low) under labor immobility, it is raised (reduced) further under mobility. If municipalities have different enforcement costs, mobility reduces welfare for the high‐cost municipality and for the MSA, but the effect is ambiguous on the low‐cost municipality. Finally, when residents choose between productive and criminal activities, enforcement is more likely to be overprovided.     

Saving, Investment, and Capital Mobility in LDCs

The Coakley, Kulasi, and Smith current-account solvency model ( Economic Journal , 1996, pp. 620–7) is used to investigate saving and investment in LDCs. This model implies that saving and investment cointegrate with a unit coefficient irrespective of the degree of capital mobility. Panel and conventional unit-root tests indicate that LDC current accounts are stationary. The Feldstein–Horioka cross-section regression coefficient for LDCs is lower than the corresponding OECD coefficient, indicating different policy responses in these countries rather than higher capital mobility. Finally, adjustment toward solvency is slower in LDCs, reflecting their vulnerability to external shocks and the impact of financial repression.     

Employment Flows,Capital Mobility,and Policy Analysis

This article extends Hopenhayn and Rogerson's analysis of firing taxes by introducing a flexible form of capital and considering transitionary dynamics. The article finds that capital is not important for understanding the long run and welfare effects of firing taxes. However, capital is crucial for determining the short run consequences of eliminating this type of policy.     

Devaluation,Capital Mobility,and Long-Run Equilibrium*

The paper considers a small, fully employed economy with non-tradeables, securities, and money. The paper first analyzes the effects of devaluation and financial controls in the short-run equilibrium on the trade balance, the capital account, and the overall balance of payments. Disequilibria in the capital account and the overall balance of payments cause changes in the stock of securities and money, shifting the short-run equilibrium. The paper investigates the condition for the- uniqueness and stability of the long-run equilibrium under this adjustment process (‘specie flow mechanism’). Finally, the long-run equilibrium effects of devaluation and monetary policies are examined.     

Equilibrium, Trade, and Capital Accumulation

The paper summarizes the author's principal contributions to economic theory: (1) one of the first rigorous proofs of the existence of competitive equilibrium; (2) existence of competitive equilibrium with weakened assumptions; (3) the minimum income approach to demand theory; (4) tatonnement stability with weak gross substitutes; (5) a general theory of comparative advantage; (6) factor price equalization with attention to factor supplies; and (7) turnpike theory allowing for von Neumann facets and neighbourhood convergence.
JEL Classification Number: B10     

International Labor Mobility,Redistribution, and Domestic Political Liberalization

Do international labor flows influence the prospects for democratization both in the countries that export their excess workers and in the countries that import them? This paper argues that emigration should have a positive effect on political liberalization in net source countries because it decreases the amount of redistribution that would occur in a more democratic regime. Conversely, immigration should have a negative effect on political liberalization in net destination countries through the same causal channel: by increasing the amount of redistribution that would occur in a more democratic regime. South Korea and Singapore are considered as illustrative examples, and the paper provides statistical evidence to support the hypothesis that emigration (immigration) has been positively (negatively) related to future political liberalization.     

劳动力流动、市场一体化与地区间产业转移

基于一般均衡理论分析框架,产业空间转移过程中劳动力要素流动与政府行为存在明显关联,劳动力空间流动成本和商品交易成本对市场一体化、劳动力市场和企业区位选择具有显著影响.一方面,满意工资水平的地区差异强化了劳动力市场的不完全性,从而阻碍了劳动力的空间流动,并引致资本回报率的下降,最终不利于资本形成.另一方面,任何不利于要素自由流动的障碍性措施,都将引起本地区企业数量的下降,并且产业转移对要素流动成本将变得更加敏感.     

Labor Mobility and East Asian Integration

East Asian economic integration is commonly analyzed in the context of trade in goods and services and capital flows, while labor flows have been very much neglected. Yet labor flows in the region are rapidly growing, given the diversity in levels of economic development, employment opportunities and wage levels, and the existence of labor surplus and deficit countries. Labor migration poses more benefits than costs for both sending and receiving countries, but there are more sensitivities toward labor flows than trade and capital flows. The characteristics and government policies are different for the unskilled and semiskilled foreign workers and for the professionals and highly skilled. Regional cooperation among countries is needed to manage the flows, reduce the incidence of illegal and undocumented workers, reduce the transaction costs of migration, and protect the rights of these workers.     

社会资本、人力资本与经济增长

笔者采用截面数据回归分析法及时间序列数据协整分析法对中国社会资本的不同维度——信任和民间组织与人力资本、经济增长的关系进行实证研究。结果表明,我国社会资本通过影响人力资本而影响经济增长,人力资本是我国社会资本作用于经济增长的机制之一。