Asymmetric oligopoly, international trade, and welfare: a synthesis

This paper analyzes the relationship between market shares and welfare under the assumption of Cournot-oligopolistic interdependence in production. The model is general enough to deal with multiple countries, oligopolists with different levels of marginal costs within each country, and any distribution of world demand across countries. It is found that the elimination of a minor firm harms the country if the country's total production is very little. However, such a policy always benefits the country if it exports the commodity. The welfare effect of production subsidies and the case of foreign ownership of firms are also discussed.     

Dynamic effects of externalities,optimal saving and economic growth

Conclusion Recognizing the fact that provision of mixed public goods can result in both consumption externalities of the Samuelsonian variety as well as production externalities we set out to extend the earlier results of Rao and Kalpagam (1977) on the effect of public goods on economic growth. In so doing, we considered three standard specifications of production externalities and enlarged the concept of consumption displacement. Our basic conclusion is that the results of our earlier paper remain valid under the more general conditions set out in this paper.     

Environmental Policy, Tax Incidence, and the Cost of Public Funds

This paper studies under what conditions a double dividend may occur in the sense that both environmental quality and employment rise. A simple static general equilibrium model is employed in which tax policy faces the dual task of internalising a negative environmental externality and raising revenue to finance public consumption. The model features a clearing labour market with both labour demand and supply and a fixed factor of production (e.g. capital). Hence, we can study tax incidence and its effect on employment, environmental quality, and the marginal cost of public funds. It is shown for the case of an upward sloping labour supply curve and less than full tax shifting by employers that a shift towards greener preferences cannot yield a double dividend, even if the fixed factor is important. However, if labour supply curve bends backwards, more environmental concern confers a double dividend.     

Ethanol Production, Food and Forests

This paper investigates the direct and indirect impacts of ethanol production on land use, deforestation and food production. A partial equilibrium model of a national economy with two sectors and two regions, one of which includes a forest, is developed. It analyses how an exogenous increase in the ethanol price affects input allocation (land and labor) between sectors (energy crop and food). The total effect of ethanol prices on food production and deforestation is decomposed into three partial effects. First, the well-documented effect of direct land competition between rival uses arises; it increases deforestation and decreases food production. Second, an indirect displacement of food production across regions, possibly provoked by the reaction of international food prices, increases deforestation and reduces the food sector’s output. Finally, labor mobility between sectors and regions tends to decrease food production but also deforestation. The total impact of ethanol production on food production is negative while there is an ambiguous impact on deforestation.     

Time-to-build, obsolescence and the technological paradox

The paper focusses on the technological paradox. To analyze the possible temporary negative effect of an innovation we make use of a flow representation of production. Our aim is to show that such phenomenon can be justified by a simple property of the production process: in real time costs strictly come before proceeds. Moving in the same direction of Amendola (1972), and extending an overlooked result in Belloc (1980), we analyze the obsolescence effect induced by a rise in the interest rate. Furthermore, we analyze the role of capital market stickiness on the timing of the technological paradox and on the distribution of the obsolescence effect among the different stages of a vertical integrated production system.     

FACTOR SUBSTITUTION,MECHANIZATION, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

This paper tries to explain the polarization of economic growth through mechanization. We derive a complementary relationship between capital accumulation and mechanization. While we assume an external effect that occurs as a result of mechanization, given the external effect, mechanization yields a constant‐elasticity‐of‐substitution production function in which the elasticity‐of‐substitution is greater than unity as the envelope of Cobb–Douglas production functions. When mechanization is difficult, which implies a low value for the elasticity‐of‐substitution, and the external effect is weak, there is potential for multiple steady states to exist.     

The unifying formalism of domination: Value,price, distribution and growth in joint production

Conclusion A broad range of economic questions, from the existence of a system of prices to the existence of balanced growth paths can be tackled with the same basic concept of domination which has been proposed. This theoretical tool was introduced as an algebraic device to account, within a unified framework, for a numbers of properties of a productive system. In fact, the case of the existence of a price system as related to the question of the choice of technology reveals the fundamental economic significance of the concept. From various points of view, a set of production processes can have a kind of internal inconsistency, which makes it incapable of functioning as an economic system. The domination relation which refers to the domination of one set of processes by another set provides a theoretical account of these inconsistencies in various situations and from various points of view. It thus points to economically significant hierarchic relations, such as the existence of prices of production or of balanced growth paths.This paper has been translated into English by Serge A. S. Demyanenko with the assistance of D. Foley. It is an extended version of a paper presented at the conference Production jointe et capital fixe (Nanterre, 1982).     

Population,land, and growth

This paper suggests a new explanation for changes in economic and population growth with a long run perspective, emphasizing the role of land in the development process. Starting from a pre-industrialization state called the “Malthusian regime”, land and labor are the main production factors. The size of population is limited by the quantity of land available for households and by incomes. Technical progress driven by a “Boserupian effect” may push the economy towards a take-off regime. In this regime, capital accumulation begins and a “learning-by-doing” effect in production takes over from the “Boserupian effect”. If this effect is strong enough, the economy can reach an “ultimate growth regime”. In the different phases, land plays a crucial role.     

Human Capital, Study Effort, and Persistent Income Inequality

The paper shows that if an individual's cost of human capital accumulation depends on his parents' human capital and there exists a "raw labor" sector of production, individuals with low parental human capital may devote little effort in study and become unskilled workers. Further, if an individual exerts little effort in study, the human capital he accumulated may be even less than his parents'. Consequently, his children will have even lower parental human capital than him and they will therefore also become unskilled. Thus, the model shows that even when education is free, income inequality can persist across generations.     

Relationship between ecological economics and circular economy, eco-industry, cleaner production, and other relevant categories

Eco-industry, circular economy, cleaner production, industrial ecology or industrial ecosystem and other subjects are all categories related to sustainable developinent. This paper studies the relations and differences between the four categories and sustainable development as well as ecological economics. Circular economy, eco-industry, industrial ecosystem and cleaner production were put forward during the revolution in “end treatment pattern” of traditional industrial society. Industrial ecology, eco-industry and circular economy theory are three content expansions of cleaner production. Ecological economics is of instructive function theoretically and methodologically for circular economy, eco-industrial, cleaner production and industrial ecology. Circular economy theory is easier to be accepted, compared with ecological economics theory. And circular economy in nature is the complete application of ecological economics theory.     

协同创新、区域一体化与创新绩效

协同创新是区域协同发展的内在动力。运用2002-2014年京津冀、长三角、珠三角三大区域省际或各地市数据,应用复合系统协同度模型与数据包络法度量协同创新度和创新绩效,构建了协同创新对创新绩效影响的计量模型;应用空间计量技术对区域一体化与创新绩效的关系进行分析。结果表明,除珠三角外,长三角和京津冀协同创新活动对创新绩效无显著影响;区域一体化程度越高,区域内部创新绩效分布越均衡;“企业自身投入”与“政府资助”等内生要素是促进区域一体化和提升创新绩效的主要动力。因此,应促进区域内部生产要素自由、合理流动,实现创新资源有效溢出,提升区域发展内生动力,加深区域一体化程度,提高创新效率。     

Decomposing the Changes in Production Prices into "Capital-Intensity" and "Price" Effects: Theory and Evidence from the Chinese Economy

This paper deals with the changes in prices of production inducedby variations in income distribution on the basis of a linearmodel of production with circulating capital and homogeneouslabour. It is shown that the total effect of income distributionon prices can be decomposed into a "capital-intensity" and a"price" effect and that, in actual economies, the former isexpected to dominate the latter. In order to obtain a concreteidea of the actual trajectories of the price movements and toquantify the relative strength of the two effects, we use input–outputdata of the Chinese economy.     

(S,s) inventory dynamics and self-organized criticality

This paper proposes a new model of self-organized criticality in order to explain large fluctuations of aggregate production in an (S,s) economy. It is shown that the inventory distribution in an (S,s) economy always converges to a unique steady state, and that aggregate production exhibits a peculiar instability at the steady state: the propagation effect of a demand shock on aggregate production follows a power law.The model differs from previous models of self-organized criticality in that it incorporates a global interaction in the network. The global interaction is interpreted as a representation of market transactions with which economists are familiar. The other novelty of the paper is that an intrinsic instability of (S,s) economies is found. Many small non-linearities in the (S,s) economy may not be cancelled out in aggregation. Instead, they play a key role in organizing the fluctuations of aggregate production.     

Public external debt,informality and production efficiency in developing countries

This paper proposes an alternative approach to investigate the non-linear effect of external debt on growth. In the theoretical part, we develop an endogenous growth model with formal and informal sectors to analyse the effect of the public external debt on the production efficiency. We show that an increase of the public external debt share increases the production efficiency through a positive externality effect. However, it generates an opposite effect via the reduction of the formal sector’s size in favour of a less efficient informal sector. The resultant effect becomes negative beyond an optimal level. Besides, we show that a large stock of public external debt reduces the production efficiency when it leads to a tight fiscal policy which reduces the formal sector size. Empirically, using a stochastic frontier technique with unobserved heterogeneity, for a panel of 27 developing countries for the period of 1970–2005, we confirm that the turning point associated to the effect of the share external public debt is apparent at 84%.     

Campaign War Chests, Entry Deterrence, and Voter Rationality

It is often claimed that the accumulation of "war chests" by incumbents deters entry by high–quality challengers in Congressional elections. This paper presents a game–theoretic analysis of the interaction between an incumbent, potential challengers, an interest group, and a representative (rational) voter, where the incumbent's "quality" (or "legislative effectiveness") is known to the interest group, but not to the voter or to potential challengers. Under certain conditions, a perfectly revealing equilibrium exists; the incumbent signals her quality by raising funds from the interest group to accumulate a war chest. The entry deterrence effect thus operates solely through the role of war chests in signaling incumbent quality.     

知识封锁、能力隔离、战略俘获与低端锁定效应形成实证研究

发展中国家以代工形式嵌入全球价值链生产体系，从事价值链低端环节的加工制造活动。中国代工企业在进行功能升级时，发包商会利用一切手段将中国代工企业锁定在全球价值链低端环节。实证研究了知识封锁、能力隔离和战略俘获对低端锁定效应形成的影响，结果显示：知识封锁导致技术升级能力缺失，从而形成低端锁定效应；市场隔离致使市场升级能力缺失，进而形成低端锁定效应；战略俘获引致升级意愿缺失，继而形成低端锁定效应。根据实证结果，从企业、集群和政府3个层面提出中国代工企业突破低端锁定效应的政策建议。     

Tradeable permits,missing markets,and technology

This paper examines the effects of missing markets, heterogeneous pollutants, and the pollution technology of firms on the efficacy of transferable pollution permits. Under the assumption of perfect competition in all markets, we show that if firms can substitute among pollutants, then setting the optimal number of permits for only one pollutant will not, in general, lead to an efficient outcome. The degree of the inefficiency will depend on the information set available to the regulator and the substitutability among pollutants by firms. When establishing transferable pollution rights regulators should, therefore, consider the technology of firms. If firms discharge pollutants in the same fixed proportions, then the regulator need only set a market for one of the pollutants to ensure an efficient outcome. Where firms can substitute among pollutants, however, establishing a market for only one pollutant provides an incentive for firms to substitute to unregulated ones. This is an important policy issue as substitutability among pollutants within and across production processes may dampen the dynamic advantages of a tradeable permit policy.     

Production,unemployment and wage flexibility in an ICT-assisted economy: A model

This paper presents a simple macroeconomic model in which a fall in money wages has contractionary effects on output and employment. As it is well known this argument in itself is not novel: the contractionary effect of a rise in the mark-up is a standard result in Kaleckian models of imperfect competition. The new contribution of this paper lies in the fact that the contractionary effect of a money wage decline is consistent with perfect competition and rationality of economic agents. This result depends on an original specification of the production side and the associated implications for pricing. This specification, which embraces many features of modern production (characterized by a massive use of ICT), represents the first attempt to use Georgescu Roegen's contribution to production analysis within a Keynesian macroeconomic framework.     

Tariffs,Offshoring and Unemployment in A Two‐Country Model

This paper develops a two‐country model that incorporates offshoring opportunities, and analyses the effects of tariffs under economic stagnation in a liquidity trap that causes unemployment. We find that a rise in tariffs on imports of outsourced goods contributes to an increase in employment by inducing a shift in production, but also leads to an appreciation of the real exchange rate that tends to reduce employment. The effect of real exchange rate appreciation dominates the effect of the production shift, and accordingly employment and consumption fall. The effects of tariff adjustments are reversed, however, when there is no liquidity trap and hence no unemployment.