Adam Smith and the division of labour: is there a difference between organisation and market?

The paper claims that, in The Wealth of Nations, the divisionof labour refers simultaneously to two different things: a socialdivision of labour and an organisational division of labour.The central point is that the organisation of work (the organisationaldivision of labour) in the firm is the logical counterpart ofthe social division of labour, and that these reflect two inseparableaspects of the process of the division of labour. Smith is thusconcerned with organisations as well as with markets, each functioningaccording to the same principle. Hence, Smith does not believethat the organisational and the social divisions of labour arefundamentally different, although he does recognise some variationbetween them and describes different states of the divisionof labour within the firm, liberal and capitalist.     

Agglomeration Economies,Division of Labour and the Urban Land‐rent Escalation: A General Equilibrium Analysis of Urbanisation

A general equilibrium model with increasing return to labour specialisation and economies of transaction agglomeration is developed to address the residential land‐rent escalation associated with the urbanisation process, which is in turn endogenised as a result of the evolution of the division of labour. The interplay among the geographical pattern of transactions, trading efficiency and the network size of the division of labour plays a crucial role in our story of urbanisation. We show that: as transaction conditions are improved, the equilibrium level of division of labour and individuals specialisation levels increase; the urban land‐rent increases absolutely as well as relative to that in the rural area, the relative per capita lot size of residence in the urban and rural areas decreases; the diversity of occupations in the urban area and the population share of urban residents increase; and the productivity of all goods and per capital real income increase.     

信用危机下重塑中国现代信用体系

市场交易频率及规模、产权的明析、社会分工链的长短、现代的技术、政府的管理等是建立现代信用机制的必备条件 ,本文依此分析了中国目前信用危机内在的体制原因 ,进而从 7个方面探讨了重塑中国现代信用体系的对策     

Theories of the Firm and the Relationship between Different Perspectives on the Division of Labour

This paper explores the tension between the organisational learning, market and hierarchies rationales for the firm. It is not clear, from the organisational learning and market-hierarchies literatures, what role exists for the different approaches. The paper suggests that this reflects the fact that each paradigm is premised on a particular notion of the division of labour but, at the same time, does not recognise that the division of labour is multifaceted. The paper suggests one possible approach to reconcile the various rationales for the firm. To do this, the different paradigms are placed in the context of different growth patterns that support different conceptions of the division of labour.     

交易效率视角下的高校学生管理

高等学校的学生培养目标是要使其成为能独立自主发展的社会专业人才。学生个体的发展原动力并不是来源于通常意义上管理教育,而是来自学生所在大学的整体学习环境与这环境中个体间及群体间的交往水平。这种交往水平类似于经济发展中的分工水平,它既是增长的原动力,也是衡量最终个体水平的标志。交流交往的产生,一般认为是个体间各种差异的结果。实际通过超边际比较静态分析方法可以得出,这种水平的提升应为交流障碍的消除也就是制度经济学中的交易成本下降或交易效率的提升。通过不断减少交流交往的阻碍,才能真正提升学生自发交流的水平,也才能使学生在这样的交流交往中获得原发的进步。高等院校的学生管理的目标是力求学生成才,则着力点就应该是努力提升学生个体间的交流交往水平,形成群体间的交流氛围,促进学生的自我发展。     

A Ricardian Model with Endogenous Comparative Advantage and Endogenous Trade Policy Regimes

This paper develops a Ricardian model with transaction costs and endogenous and exogenous comparative advantages. It shows that the level of division of labour and trade increases as transaction conditions improve. It identifies the conditions for trade negotiations that result in zero tariff rates and the conditions for the coexistence of unilateral tariff protection and unilateral laissez faire policies. The model may explain the policy transformation of some European governments from Mercantilism to laissez faire in the 18th and 19th century and policy changes in developing countries from protection tariff to trade liberalization and tariff negotiation.     

企业兼并中的人际关系磨合成本研究

兼并会造成企业内社会资本的损失,兼并中的人际关系磨合成本是一种交易成本,磨合过程可以视为"交易成本资本化",从而形成新的社会资本的过程.本文重点分析了影响企业兼并中磨合成本的主要因素:兼并者与被兼并者的相对规模,相对绩效和相对市场竞争力,各自所属产业或行业及产业或行业关系,兼并前的业务与人员往来,兼并方式及政府在兼并中的作用,兼并后对被兼并者管理人员的安排,以及兼并后兼并者对被兼并者实行控制的方式.本文还比较了东亚与西方企业的兼并,在其他情况相同的条件下,东亚企业兼并中的人际关系磨合成本较高,磨合期较长,并在实际上减少了兼并,介于企业与市场之间的组织形式更为发达.     

Endogenous Specialisation and Endogenous Principal-agent Relationship

The paper develops a general equilibrium model with endogenous principal-agent relationship within a framework of consumer-producer, economies of specialisation, and transaction costs. It is shown that if transaction efficiency is low, then autarky is chosen as the general equilibrium where no market and principal-agent relationship exists. As transaction efficiency is improved, the equilibrium level of division of labour increases, comparative advantage between ex ante identical individuals emerges from the division of labour, and the number of principal-agent relationships increases. The following features of the model distinguish it from other principal-agent models in the literature. The principal-agent relationships are not only endogenous, but also reciprocal between different specialists. In a general equilibrium environment, choice between pure pricing and contingent pricing is endogenised. In the paper, the implications of endogenous transaction costs caused by moral hazard for the equilibrium extent of the market and related degrees of market integration, production concentration, trade dependence, diversity of economic structure, and productivity are explored. The model predicts two interesting phenomena: a man might work harder for the market with moral hazard than working for himself in the absence of moral hazard; a market with moral hazard might be Pareto superior to autarky with no moral hazard.     

Infrastructure and Evolution in Division of Labor

This paper studies the relationship between infrastructure expenditure and endogenous growth generated by spontaneous evolution of division of labor. It identifies the necessary condition for infrastructure expenditure to take place and its equilibrium time path. Dynamic equilibrium shows that the optimal infrastructure expenditure, the size of the market network, and the level of division of labor increase concurrently. While infrastructure can promote the evolution of division of labor through reducing the unit transaction cost, the total transaction cost each consumer-producer incurs rises as the optimal share of the infrastructure expenditure increases with economic development.     

Entry Deterrence in a Unionized Oligopoly

We investigate wage determination between an incumbent firm and its labour union under threat from another firm entering its product market. In equilibrium, it may be optimal for a labour union of the incumbent firm to lower its wage demand. This may make it possible for the incumbent firm to maintain a higher employment level, in that the lower wages can help the firm deter the entry of a rival firm. This will yield a higher profit for the incumbent firm and a lower utility level for the labour union compared with those in an equilibrium with no threat of entry.
JEL Classification Numbers: J51, L10     

Labour Utilization and Wage Inflation in Australia: An Empirical Examination*

This paper tests the hypothesis that the level of labour utilization within the firm should be substituted into the Phillips Curve in place of traditional measures of excess demand. Gregory and Smith (1983) proposed overtime hours as a proxy for labour utilization within the firm. For various reasons we prefer the deviation from trend in hours worked. The results support the underlying hypothesis, and add strength to the view that to understand the process of wage inflation at the macro level we must examine the utilization of labour at the micro level of the firm.     

Uncertainty, Insurance, and Division of Labor

This paper develops an equilibrium model to investigate the relationships between transaction uncertainties, risk aversion, insurance, specialization, per capita real income, and productivity progress. It is shown that transaction uncertainties can restrict the division of labor; the level of division of labor decreases with the degree of risk aversion; insurance will promote the equilibrium level of division of labor, per capita real income, and productivity.     

Labor taxation, public finance, and wage determination: evidence from OECD countries

This paper analyzes the relationship between unemployment, average effective labour tax rates and public spending in 17 OECD countries. The focus is on the degree of centralization and cooperation in wage setting. Estimation results from a dynamic time-series-cross-section model suggest that the countries where wage setting takes place at the firm level have used labour taxes less extensively in financing welfare spending, compared to countries with centralized or decentralized bargaining. This is consistent with another finding, according to which labour taxes distort the labour demand the least in the countries with firm level bargaining.     

PRECAUTIONARY DEMAND FOR LABOUR AND FIRM SIZE

This paper studies firms' job creation decisions in a labour market with search frictions. A simple labour market search model is developed in which a firm can search for a second employee while producing with a first worker, and this creates the equilibrium size distribution of firms. A firm expands employment even if the instantaneous payoff to a large firm is less than that of staying small – a firm has a precautionary motive to expand its size. In addition, this motive is enhanced by a greater market tightness. Because of this effect, firms’ decisions become interdependent – a firm creates a vacancy if it expects other firms to do the same, creating strategic complementarity among firms and thereby self‐fulfilling multiple equilibria. An increase in productivity can cause a qualitative change in labour market tightness and the rate of unemployment.     

基于DMI模型的我国产业集群升级——以WAPI为例

本文以分工为逻辑起点,构建分工——市场——制度(DMI)模型分析我国产业集群升级的机理,指出当前产业集群升级面临的问题是:分工价值链低端状态与国内区域分工趋同导致分工锁定;国内市场分割与无序竞争导致市场锁定;社会资本价值的低端化、企业家创新功能缺失与政府职能错位等导致制度锁定等。必须进行技术创新、市场创新和制度创新,培育分工优势、市场优势与制度优势,分别进行产业组织升级、产业结构升级、制度框架升级,是我国产业集群升级的必然选择。     

分工、协作与古典企业理论的再造

现代企业理论自创立以来,一直都未能摆脱新古典思想的束缚,从而降低了它的解释力。本文将古典经济学关于分工与协作的思想应用于对企业的解释,并得出以下结论:分工不仅要受到市场容量的限制,更重要的是,还要受市场不确定性的限制,企业内分工协作与市场分工协作的差异才是企业利润的真正来源。企业的性质可以概括为:企业是追求分工经济与协作经济的要素所有者结合的产物。降低交易成本是企业出现后的结果,而不是企业出现的原因;当在企业内组织生产的边际利润等于在市场内组织生产的边际利润时,企业便会停止扩张。     

The competitiveness of the UK aerospace industry

Porter's five competitive forces model provides an analytical framework for assessing the UK aerospace industry's competitiveness in this article. Various statistical indicators are used to measure competitiveness, based on published data at the industry and firm level, supplemented with information from company interviews. The indicators include productivity, output, firm size, development time-scales, labour hoarding, exports and profitability. The empirical results of this article suggest that, over the period 1980 to 2000, the UK aerospace industry improved its competitiveness compared with the USA and the EU.     

A discriminant analysis of factors affecting the employment of urban youth

While the issue of youth unemployment has received a great deal of attention by policy makers, there has been little empirical research on factors which affect the demand for young workers at the micro level of actual labour market settings. This paper offers some evidence on entry level wages, unskilled job characteristics, and recruitment practices as factors affecting the employment of urban youth. A bivariate discriminant analysis is applied to survey data on employers located in five, centralized urban labour markets and shown that firm size, turnover, number of unskilled job slots, school referrals and employee–friend referrals are significant, differentiating factors between firms who have young workers on their payroll and firms who do not employ youth. These differentiating factors are related to the structure of youth labour markets.     

Adam Smith on Relations of Subordination, Personal Incentives and the Division of Labour

In elaborating his stadial approach to economic and social progress, Smith placed special emphasis on the evolution of the conceptual pair authority/subordination. The aim of this paper is to analyse the reciprocal relations which link together the evolution of the relations of subordination, personal incentives, and the division of labour with special reference to the agricultural and the commercial stages. In the former case, Smith pointed out the exclusive role performed by personal incentives in increasing labour productivity, a role which is consistent with his manifest preference for the figure of the 'independent small-scale proprietor'. In the latter case we note a change of emphasis due both to the pervasive role of the division of labour in increasing labour productivity, and—as a by-product of this change—to the emergence of a new form of relation of subordination. In this new context the division of labour engenders a new form of property polarisation, one connected no longer to land but to capital accumulation. Moreover, because of its harmful effects on the mental capacity of manufacturing workers, the division of labour appears to act as an obstacle against social mobility, and this in turn further reinforces the process of property polarisation.     

R&D INVESTMENTS AND SEQUENTIAL WAGE NEGOTIATIONS*

This paper analyses how the structure of wage bargaining affects R&D investment by firms that increases the productivity of labour in a Cournot duopoly. We find that total expenditure on R&D is greater when wages are set simultaneously than when they are set sequentially. Thus sequential wage negotiations reduce the incentive for firms to innovate and affect the productivity of labour. When wage negotiations are sequential the productivity of labour is greater (lower) in the follower (leader) firm than when negotiations are simultaneous. We also obtain that for same parameter values it is possible for the firm with the lower productivity to end up paying a higher wage than the firm with the higher level of labour productivity.