Establishment Level Earnings,Technology And The Growth Of Inequality: Evidence From Britain

It is often argued that technical change is responsible for the increase in wage inequality in Britain and the United States in the 1980s and 1990s. In this paper we examine this argument using data from individuals and establishments. It is found that the presence of micro-electronic technologies in workplaces is associated with higher earnings, especially for skilled workers. Decompositions suggest that technical change could have been a cause of the increase in skills premium for highly skilled workers. Nevertheless, our view is that the correlation between wages and plant-level technology is mainly driven by the effect of high wages on the propensity to introduce new technologies rather than vice versa. This view is supported by simultaneous models of the wage-technology relationship.     

Exploring The Determinants Of Unhappiness For Ethnic Minority Men In Britain

This paper explores the determinants of unhappiness for ethnic minority men living in Britain, and compares these findings with those for White males. Data is drawn from the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities conducted in 1994, which has the advantage of over–sampling members of Britain's ethnic minority population. Using this unique data source we are able to provide some of the first evidence of the psychological impact of unemployment, low levels of household income, residing in an ethnic enclave and living in fear of racial harassment for Black Caribbean and South Asian men.     

The Early Careers Of Engineers And The Accumulation Of Skills In The Canadian Economy

In this paper we use world cycling records to study the pattern of technological development of the track bicycle. We find that there is a strong evidence of ‘contagious’ effects among cycling records which in turn provides indirect evidence of ‘contagious’ effects among technological innovations. Interestingly, the ‘contagiousness’ of records is not a salient characteristic of track and field competitions where, arguably, technology plays a smaller role.     

Habits And Durability In Consumption And The Effects Of Exchange Rate Policies

The effects of exchange rate policies are worked out in a model in which consumption goods are durable, and money enters the utility function. The interaction of habits and durability results in a non-monotonic adjustment of consumption expenditures, and the current account. As money does not exhibit durability, its dynamics are montonic, and determined mainly by habits effects. Hence, an increase in the rate of depreciation of the domestic currency will very likely lead to a nomonotonic adjustment of consumption and the current account, while the adjustment of real money holdings will be monotonic [F31, F32, F41]     

企业集群发育形成过程中的创业机制分析

本文探讨了创业机制内涵,并从微观角度分析了创业机制在集群发育、成长、升级过程中的作用,以及在企业集群发育形成过程中的创业决策。最后,指出了企业集群战略的基点和要旨是建立完善有效的创业机制。     

余秋雨：中华文化与海洋文明的千年悲壮

策划前言对于扑面而来的海洋世纪,和当下中国如火如荼的海洋经济发展战略,我们该有怎样的立意、怎样的思维、怎样的行动？在刚刚结束不久的2012中国（青岛）国际海洋节期间,我国及国际著名的文化学者余秋雨先生,以＂中华文化与海洋文明的千年悲壮＂为题的主旨演讲,回答了上述疑虑。     

Small Sample Properties Of Existing And New Estimators Of The Autocorrelation Coefficient And Regression Coefficients In The Context Of Ar(1) Errors

This study systematically and comprehensively investigates the small sample properties of the existing and some new estimators of the autocorrelation coefficient and of the regression coefficients in a linear regression model when errors follow an autoregressive process of order one. The new estimators of autocorrelation coefficient proposed here are based on the jackknife procedure. The jackknife procedure is applied in two alternative ways: first to the regression itself, and second to the residuals of the regression model. Next, the performance of the existing and new estimators of autocorrelation coefficient (thirty-three in total) is investigated in terms of bias and the root mean squared errors. Finally, we have systematically compared all of the estimators of the regression coefficients (again thirty-three) in terms of efficiency and their performance in hypothesis testing. We observe that the performance of the autocorrelation coefficient estimators is dependent upon the degree of autocorrelation and whether the autocorrelation is positive or negative. We do not observe a direct link between the bias and efficiency of an estimator. The performance of the estimators of the regression coefficients also depends upon the degree of autocorrelation. If the efficiency of regression estimator is of concern, then the iterative Prais-Winsten estimator should be used since it is most efficient for the widest range of independent variables and values of the autocorrelation coefficient. If testing of the hypothesis is of concern, then the estimators based on jackknife technique are certainly superior and are highly recommended. However, for negative values of the autocorrelation coefficient, the estimators based on Quenouille procedure and iterative Prais-Winsten estimator are comparable. But, for computational ease iterative Prais-Winsten estimator is recommended.

     

Governance And The Implementation Of Technology Policy In Less Developed Countries

This study discusses key issues of technology policy in less developed countries from a governance perspective. In particular, it analyzes critical problems of policy implementation and looks for general principles which may be suitable as guideposts in making the state more effective regardless of the particularities of its technology policy. The main argument is that governments need to assume a market-enhancing role and must enhance the state's capabilities and capacities for implementing public policies. Crafting public institutions which ensure accountability, transparency, and predictability of policy making and involve the private sector in political decision-making processes is critical for successful policy implementation. Besides institutional arrangements which help governments to credibly precommit to policies, the quality and institutional design of the public administration and the public-private interface are crucial ingredients of an effective governance structure.     

Adoption Of Advanced Manufacturing Technology And Firm Performance In The Netherlands

This paper presents characteristics of firms that employ advanced manufacturing technology (AMT), explores the pattern of adoption of such technology, and traces the effects of adoption on the evolution of employment and productivity. The study uses linked firm-level data on production, factor inputs and on advanced manufacturing technology. It is found that the percentage of firms that employ advanced technology increases with higher labor productivity, higher export-sales ratios, and especially larger firm sire. Corrected for interactions, however, only initial size and the initial capital-labor ratio aid in predicting adoption of AMT. Conditional on adoption of AMT it is seen that intensity of advanced technology inputs decrease with firm sire and with labar productivity. Finally, firms which employed AMT in 1992 show higher average growth rates of (toral factor) productivity and employment between 1985 and 1991.     

An Anatomy Of Racial and Ethnic Trends in Male Earnings in the U.S

Progress in narrowing black–white earnings differences has been far from continuous, with some of the apparent progress resulting from labor force withdrawal among lower‐skilled African Americans. This paper documents racial and ethnic differences in male earnings from 1950 through 2010 using data from the decennial census and American Community Surveys. Emphasis is given to annual rather than weekly or hourly earnings. We take a quantile approach, providing evidence on medians and other percentiles of the distribution. Treatment of imputed earnings greatly affects measured outcomes. Hispanic men have exhibited earnings growth similar to white men over several decades. Black men have been left behind economically due in large part to increased joblessness, a process exacerbated by weak labor market conditions. By 2010, joblessness had risen to over 40 percent and the median black–white earnings gap was the largest in at least 60 years.     

中国零售市场竞争现状与发展趋势

WTO后过渡期内,我国零售市场竞争日趋激烈化和复杂化,主要集中在中外资零售业竞争、不同业态的竞争、不同规模企业的竞争以及不同区域的竞争等。对于上述竞争格局的态度,尤其是中外零售业竞争格局的忧虑,已成为困扰企业和学者以及政府的一个重要问题。深入研讨我国零售市场的现状及趋势,从理论与实际相结合的角度分析解决这些问题,对于深化改革和开放;对于积极确定外商政策和推动我国零售企业加速国际化,在国内和国际两个市场更好地生存和发展;对于优化零售业市场结构、规范企业行为和提高市场绩效具有重要的意义。     

The Performance Of A Consumption Augmented Asset Index In Ranking Households And Identifying The Poor

Asset ownership indices are widely used as inexpensive proxies for consumption. We show that these indices can be augmented using dichotomous indicators for consumption, which are equally easy to obtain. Using multiple rounds of Living Standards Measurements Study surveys from Malawi, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Ghana, we construct indices using different item subcategories and perform a meta‐analysis comparing the indices to per capita consumption. The results show that the standard asset indices, derived from durable ownership and housing characteristic indicators, perform well in urban settings. Yet, in rural samples and when identifying the extreme poor, household rankings and poverty classification accuracy can be meaningfully improved by adding indicators of food and semi‐durable consumption. We find small improvement from using national weights in urban samples but no improvement from using alternative construction methods. With most of Africa’s poor concentrated in rural areas, these are important insights.     

Employment And Mobility Of Workers In Industries With Different Intensity Of Innovation: Evidence On Italy From A Panel Of Workers And Firms

In this paper a panel of workers and firms is used to investigate employment composition and dynamics in industries which differ by innovation intensity. To define the latter industry-wide statistics were used (for a subset of 2,800 firms, individual data on R&D expenditures and investments in innovative processes were available from a survey on manufacturing). Firms and workers are observed over the period 1985–1991. The paper document an high rate of labour turnover. Annual separation rates are high in all size-classes, but they decline from 50% in small firms (less than 20 employees) to 13% in large ones (with more than 1,000 employees). Separations are inversely related to an industry's innovative intensity (from 18% in the highly innovative industries to 31% in the traditional industries). A logit model, which controlled for the characteristics of workers and firms, showed that the probability of separation is higher among manual and young workers and decreases monotonically with the firm size. The probability of separation declines as job tenure and, perhaps more importantly, the individual's wage increases. After controlling for these factors, the evidence suggests that the highest probability of separation is in traditional industries, the lowest is in the more innovative industries. The result is strengthened when firm-level data on R&D and other innovative expenditures are used. Other things being equal, firms that invest in R&D have a more stable labour force, and firms that invest in non-innovative processes have a less stable labour force. We therefore find empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that more innovative firms cultivate more durable employer-employee relationships. The fraction of job-to-job moves (with no intervening period of unemployment) on total separations qualifies the turnover of workers. Controlling for firm size, the percentage of job-to-job moves increases fairly regularly with worker's skills and with the industry's innovative intensity. Thus the innovative intensity of he industry appears to have a positive effect on the share of job-to-job moves, while there is some evidence that it lowers the chances of separation. This result may be linked to the skills and specialisations of the workforce; it is certainly related to the higher demand for labour in the High Tech Sectors (where employment is growing) relative to the less innovative sectors.     

Asymptotic Properties Of The Estimator Of The Long-Run Coefficient In A Dynamic Model With Integrated Regressors And Serially Correlated Errors

In this paper we examine the asymptotic properties of the estimator of the long-run coefficient (LRC) in a dynamic regression model with integrated regressors and serially correlated errors. We show that the OLS estimators of the regression coefficients are inconsistent but the OLS-based estimator of the LRC is superconsistent. Furthermore, we propose an alternative consistent estimator of the LRC, compare the two estimators through a Monte Carlo experiment, and find that the proposed estimator is MSE-superior to the OLS-based estimator.     

Efficiency And Equity Aspects Of The

The joint impact of long term structural features, on the one hand, and of recent market-oriented reforms in the macroeconomic incentive regime, on the other, are inducing major changes in social and production organization throughout the Latin American region. The new economic model is quite different in structure and performance from the one Latin American countries exhibited during the Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) period. Non tradable activities such as telecommunications, energy or transport services, natural resource processing industries producing low value added industrial ‘commodities’ and assembly industries (‘maquiladoras’), producing computers, TV and Video sets and garments for the US market, together with the vehicle industry, which has managed to receive preferential treatment from the part of the various governments in the region, have performed much better than average, both in terms of labor productivity growth as well as in terms of ‘catching up’ with the international productivity frontier. Contrary to the above, unskilled labor, and engineering and knowledge intensive industries, have performed worse than average and are ‘falling behind’ international standards. Domestic subsidiaries of multinational corporations and large local conglomerates are gaining ground within GDP, while SMEs and public enterprises have been losing it. The paper examines some of the macro-to- micro relations underlying the above mentioned process of structural transformation and the interdependency between economic, technological and institutional forces inducing it. It argues that ‘main stream’ economics fails adequately to capture the role played by such interdependencies and offers a policy advice which can not deal with the new efficiency and equity problems resulting from recent structural changes.     

解决东北不良贷款的“迫切之举”与“长久之治”

在复兴东北的宏伟战略中,不良贷款的存在使得国有企业债务负担沉重,国有商业银行举步维艰。文章从东北三省的实际情况出发,从商业银行、国有资产管理公司、其他解决渠道三方面提出了解决不良贷款的“迫切之举”,并从体制入手阐述了真正解决这一问题的“长久之治”,即国有商业银行的股份制改造、国有企业的深入改革和政府机构的职能转变。     

我国企业并购整合风险管理研究

企业并购已成为企业快速发展壮大的一种有效途径,如何有效防范并购后的整合风险是决定企业并购活动能否成功的关键所在.本文根据我国企业并购的实际情况,就加强企业并购后整合风险的管理提供一些建议.     

我国网上技术市场现状及发展模式

本文通过对我国网上技术市场现状的论述 ,分析了网上技术市场生存发展的合理性及其存在的问题 ,并提出优化市场环境 ,制定数据标准 ,提高信息挖掘能力的发展模式。     

企业剩余分配的演变与剩余指标的选择

马克思认为,活劳动创造的剩余价值被资本家独占。本文指出,在马克思时代考察的古典企业,所有权与控制权合二为一,其剩余价值是由资本家独占的。但随着企业规模的扩大,企业发生了管理革命,所有权与控制权分离,资本家为解决随之而来的委托代理问题,企业的剩余必然会由资本家独占演变为在资本家、职业经理人和中低层员工之间进行分配。本文在分析了职业经理人的效用函数的基础上,比较了几个考核剩余的指标,认为可控边际贡献是较好的选择。