Inflation and unemployment in the share economy

This note first interprets Weitzman's monopolistic competition analogy to the share economy and considers the implications of this for the nature of “excess demand” in such an economy. The discussion then focuses on the effects of the real wage flexibility induced by sharing schemes. It is observed that Weitzman's analysis is entirely in terms of real, not nominal, variables. The note concludes with remarks on possible distributional conflicts in a share economy.     

Can the share economy cure our macroeconomic woes? Probably not

This paper introduces the major ideas in Martin Weitzman's The Share Economy. It notes that a “share” economy is one in which the marginal cost of labor is less than the average cost of labor; moreover, this condition can be induced by sharing revenues or profits. According to share theory, such contracts will lead firms to create more vacancies and thereby lower the average unemployment rate. Weitzman proposes to induce more share arrangements by giving a tax preference to share-type income.     

Trade Unions and Consumerism

Public pension systems have long been a focus of special attention by neoclassical economics. In a context of intense aging processes, mainstream economists argue that the replacement of the pay-as-you-go pensions systems by unfunded individual savings accounts will have a positive impact, at a microeconomic and at a macroeconomic level, and will protect pension systems of the negative consequences of aging. However, these conclusions depend dramatically on the assumptions of rational expectations and perfect information. When we accept the existence of uncertainty, the presumed positive consequences of these reforms disappear, showing the advantages of pay-as-you-go over funded pension systems.     

Unions and Efficient Training

The paper examines the optimal level of training investment when trained workers are mobile, wage contracts are time-consistent, and training comprises both specific and general skills. The firm has ex post monopsonistic power that drives trained workers' wages below the social optimum. The emergence of a trade union bargaining at the firm-level can increase social welfare, by counterbalancing the firm's ex post monopsonistic power in wage determination. Local union-firm wage bargaining ensures that the post-training wage is set sufficiently high to deter at least some quits, so that the number of workers the firm trains is nearer the social optimum     

Computation and the Theory of Customs Unions

This paper reports on research that uses computational techniquesto assess whether or not various propositions that have beenadvanced as plausible in the literature on the theory of customsunions actually hold. This research blends theory and numericalsimulation to get insights into the likelihood that\ varioustheoretical propositions proposed in the customs union literaturehold. (JEL F10, F13, F15}     

中国A股与B股的市场分割性检验

本文以布莱克版CAPM(资本资产定价模型 )作为理论模型 ,修正国外先进的市场分割检验模式 ,运用较复杂的计量经济估计方法对我国A、B股市场的一体化 (或分割性 )进行实证研究。实证结果表明 ,中国A、B股市场在很大程度上是一体化的。     

Unions, monetary shocks and the labour market cycle

This paper provides a new growth model by considering strategic behaviour in the supply of labour. Workers form a labour union with the aim of manipulating wages for their own benefit. We analyse the implications on labour market dynamics at business cycle frequencies of getting away from the price-taking assumption. A calibrated monetary version of the union model does quite a reasonable job in replicating the dynamic features of labour market variables observed in post-war U.S. data.     

Inflation Aversion and Exit Probabilities in the Monetary Unions

The paper considers a monetary union composed of two representative countries characterized by different inflation aversions. The model derives Nash equilibria after a country-specific shock in which the countries have a costly option to abandon the common currency. The main results are that the higher the inflation aversion of the country affected by the shock, the lower its exit probability. The higher the inflation aversion in both countries, the lower the probability that the country not directly hit also abandons the monetary union (contagion).     

Incentives to Form Customs Unions and Quotas

This paper extends the well known Kemp–Wang proposition regarding customs unions and tariffs to the case of import quotas. It is shown that a customs union in the presence of import quotas will leave each country, whether a member of the customs union or not, not worse off than before the formation of the customs union. The partial-equilibrium approach is used in this study.     

Unions, government's preference, and privatization

By introducing the government's preference for tax revenues into the theoretical framework of unionized mixed oligopolies, this study investigates the efficiency of privatization. The results are twofold. First, regardless of the government's preference for tax revenues and the number of private firms, the government and the public firm do not always have an incentive to privatize the public firm even if the government places lesser emphasis on the tax revenues than on social welfare. Second, social welfare increases with an increased number of private firms regardless of the government's preference for tax revenues and decreases with the government's preference for tax revenues regardless of the number of private firms. Hence, the government can use tax more efficiently as a commitment device to control the union's wage demand so as to maintain lower wage level under unionized mixed oligopoly.     

规范和发展B股市场

截至2001年2月16日收盘,我国沪、深B股市场共有上市公司114家,其中在上海上市55家,深圳上市59家,历年来通过发行新股和配股共筹资49.59亿美元,B股市场流通市值约520亿元人民币,相当于两市A股流通市值的3.2％。     

寺院经济与社会经济关系疏议

当代佛教寺院在商品经济的浪潮中纷纷从事农林业生产、工商业经营以及宗教服务、旅游服务等活动,形成了多样化的形态,不仅解决了自养问题、改善了生活条件,也为社会积累了财富。寺院经济作为社会主义市场经济中的一个重要的特殊实体经济,不仅是社会经济的重要补充,而且还发挥着“经济水库”的调节作用。     

简析虚拟经济与实体经济的关系

进入21世纪后,随着经济全球化的不断深入,虚拟经济的规模日益扩大,虚拟经济与实体经济日益脱离,正确处理好虚拟经济与实体经济的关系成为现实经济快速、稳定、可持续发展的必要条件。通过运用单位根检验、协整检验、Granger因果关系检验,对我国的实体经济与虚拟经济关系进行了实证分析,结果表明,实体经济与虚拟经济的发展是不平衡的,不存在长期稳定的协整关系。     

Consumption Values of Trade Unions

The widening of the U.S. market following the adoption of the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution stimulated changes in methods of production and business organization. These changes required a radical change in finance that prompted the Supreme Court to adopt exchange value as the accepted principle of property rights. These rights did not rest on tangible material, but on incorporeal and intangible assets. This legalized the firm as a going concern instead of a bundle of things and enhanced the role of finance relative to production. These evolving business practices and supporting judicial decisions set the U.S. economy on the path that has resulted in our current financial economy. The steps along this path are discussed in this article and we conclude that an economic theory based on intangible property is needed.     

Assessing the relationship between the user-based market share and unit sales-based market share for pirated software brands in competitive markets

This article argues that in a competitive software market, in the presence of differential piracy and brand switching among the various brands within a software product category (e.g., spreadsheets), there may be no relationship between market estimates based on unit sales and the user base of a software brand (e.g., Lotus 1-2-3). Hence, marketing strategies developed for the software brand based on unit sales-based market share may be misleading. To support our argument and to quantify the relationship between unit sales-based market share and the user-based market share, we first extend a diffusion modeling approach for pirated software product categories to model the legal and illegal adoption dynamics of a software brand within a software product category. Second, to examine empirically the relationship between the user-based market share and the unit sales-based market share for a brand, we consider the diffusion of the major brands of two types of software product categories, spreadsheets and word processors, in the United Kingdom. Results indicate that in the product category of spreadsheets, for Lotus 1-2-3, the user-based market share was always less than the unit sales-based market share. On the other hand, in the product category of word processing software, the user-based market share for WordPerfect was always greater than the unit sales-based market share. Marketing implications of these results for Lotus spreadsheets, Novell WordPerfect, and the software industry are discussed.     

Efficiency and market share in the Hungarian corporate sector

This paper investigates the link between competition and efficiency for the Hungarian corporate sector during various phases of the transition process. We employ frontier production functions to explore differences among groups of firms, and to identify the typical adjustment process of each group separately throughout the transition period until 1997. The estimated production functions indicate a gradual improvement in efficiency and a shift from decreasing to increasing returns to scale due to the growing share of small firms. Market share can be explained by domestic and foreign competition and by the efficiency of the firm. JEL classification: C23, D21, D24.     

Perpetual growth,the labor share,and robots

ABSTRACT

The recent literature on the economic effects of machine learning, robotization and artificial intelligence suggests that there may be an upcoming wave of substitution of human labor by machines. We argue that these new technologies may lead to so-called perpetual growth, i.e. growth of per capita income with a non-progressing state of technology. We specify an exact parameter threshold beyond which perpetual growth emerges, and argue that ongoing technological change may bring the threshold in reach. We also show that in a state of perpetual growth, factor-eliminating technological progress reduces the role of labor in the production process and that this leads to a rising wage rate but ever-declining share of wage income. We present simulation experiments on several policy options to combat this inequality, including a universal basic income as well as an option in which workers become owners of ‘robots’.