南北贸易、产权保护与技能偏向性技术进步——论产权保护是否存在门槛效应

技能偏向性技术进步是发达国家工资变化的主要原因,而发展中国家产权保护的强弱程度决定了南北贸易促进技能偏向性技术进步的方向,进而影响发达国家的工资变化,即产权保护具有门槛效应。文章通过建立内生技术创新模型研究了产权保护在南北贸易促进技能偏向性技术进步过程中的门槛效应。研究发现,当产权保护程度达到门槛值之前,南北贸易将促进高技能偏向性技术进步;当产权保护程度达到门槛值之后,南北贸易将促进低技能偏向性技术进步。利用1995-2007年的数据验证了理论模型中的门槛效应,结果表明,产权保护程度存在3个门槛值,随着产权保护程度的增强,南北贸易对促进技能增强型技术进步的影响先上升后下降,技能增强型技术进步在2002年之前表现为高技能偏向性,而在2002年之后则表现为低技能偏向性。因此,发展中国家提高产权保护程度有利于缓解发达国家的工资差距和南北国家间的贸易摩擦。     

技能偏向型技术进步必然加剧工资不平等吗?

劳动经济学界在20世纪90年代形成了共识:美国等OECD国家从70年代末到90年代末的教育升水(不同教育水平工人的工资差距)持续上升是由技能偏向型技术进步导致的。但90年代共识无法解释第二次世界大战后美国在技能偏向型技术进步下教育升水并非总是上升的事实。此外其理论基础在于技能偏向型技术进步下抑制低技能劳动力需求的腐蚀效应和提升高技能劳动力需求的市场规模效应会加剧工资不平等。本文指出其理论基础的缺陷,并将教育效率和劳动力市场的技能供求关系整合在一个技能偏向型技术进步与工资不平等都处于内生演化的动态模型中。本文证明技术进步率的提升在短期会提升工资不平等,但当教育系统的效率处于一定的区间时,技能偏向型技术进步在长期会降低工资不平等。因此,本文的研究挑战了90年代共识的悲观论点,并丰富了有关技能偏好型技术进步对于工资不平等影响的研究。     

劳动力市场需求分化和技能溢价源于技术进步吗

本文构建了区分技能与非技能劳动的内生经济增长模型,以技能偏向性视角考察技能需求增长、技能溢价和技术进步关系,模型验证技能需求增长和技能溢价源于技术进步技能偏向性,而技能偏向型技术进步的变化取决于技能型和非技能型劳动相对规模、技能型和非技能型劳动相对工资以及用于生产技能密集型产品和劳动密集型产品的相对资本投入的变化。结合我国宏微观经济数据检验并采用数值模拟方法分析技能偏向型技术进步大小及其波动规律。结果发现,欧美国家技能需求增长和技能溢价源于技术进步偏向性的结论在我国具有适应性,且技能偏向型技术进步率呈现出多头W形波动规律,W形走势的右底略低于左底表明技术进步出现惰性特征。     

经济制度安排、国际贸易与经济增长影响机理的经验研究

本文分析了经济制度安排和贸易流量之间的相互关系及其对该国经济增长以及影响经济增长的其他因素的影响。在九个经济制度安排变量中对一国贸易流量影响作用最大的经济制度安排变量是该国的贸易政策,对一国高技术产品出口影响最大的经济制度安排变量是该国的产权保护程度。从对影响经济增长的渠道分析发现,在所有的经济制度安排变量中,一国产权的保护程度对该国经济增长的影响作用最大;同时产权保护的程度和政府干预对技术进步和人力资本的影响最为显著。     

西方贸易理论中的贸易利益分配问题及其对贸易政策的影响

在西方贸易理论中,自由贸易理论虽然论证了国际贸易能够改善资源配置并提高各国福利水平,但对贸易利益的国际分配的局所得到的结论比较模糊,而保护贸易理论则明确了贸易利益在不同国家之间分配是不平衡的;另一方面,自由贸易和保护贸易理论都认为贸易利益在一国内部各部门之间分配是不平衡的。由于两类理论的侧重点不同,对贸易政策的影响也不同。总体上看,由于一国政府是根据本国的政治经济利益和发展目标来制定贸易政策的,因此必然要考虑贸易利益在国家间以及在本国内部的分配问题,所以保护贸易理论往往比自由贸易理论对一国贸易政策有着更大的影响力。     

高房价加剧了省际经济发展不平衡吗?——基于中心—外围视角的测算与经验分析

房价上涨通过财富效应和信贷效应加剧经济发展不平衡,但又会促使劳动力从中心城市向外围城市转移,起到缩小经济发展差距的作用,两者的综合效应决定了房价对经济发展不平衡的最终影响.本文基于2002-2012年中国23个省份的面板数据,借鉴中心—外围模型基本思想并采用加权变异系数法测算各省份的经济发展不平衡程度,考察了高房价是否会加剧省际经济发展不平衡的理论命题.结果显示,房价上涨不仅并未加剧省份内部经济发展不平衡,反而一定程度上有助于解决现有不平衡问题,这一结果与公众的普遍预期并不一致.     

碳关税可以有效解决碳泄漏和竞争力问题吗?——基于异质性企业贸易模型的分析

本文在Melitz(2003)异质性企业贸易理论框架下,研究南北国家不对称减排引致的"碳泄漏"和竞争力损失问题,并在此基础上分别讨论了发达国家征收碳关税以及发展中国家减排技术改善的贸易、气候及福利效应。本文发现:(1)不对称减排导致了碳泄漏,但是发达国家的贸易竞争力不会下降反而上升,表现为该国出口临界生产率的下降以及出口企业数目和收益占比的增加;(2)征收碳关税不仅同时降低了发达国家和发展中国家的贸易竞争力,还提高了碳泄漏率和各国的碳排放量,不利于贸易自由化和气候保护;(3)发展中国家的技术进步既降低了碳泄漏率,又减少了各国碳排放量,同时,发达国家出口企业临界生产率下降且贸易竞争力上升,而发展中国家出口企业临界生产率上升;(4)单边碳关税同时恶化了各国福利,而发展中国家的技术进步则使得各国福利均上升。因此相比较碳关税政策而言,发达国家更有必要通过技术转让或援助等手段,帮助发展中国家改善减排技术,从而能够实现双倍红利效果——改善经济福利和减少泄漏。     

贸易开放、劳动力流动与城镇劳动者性别工资差距——来自1992-2009年中国省际面板数据的经验证据

贸易开放给劳动力市场带来的经济后果是非常复杂的,而收入不平等就是其中一个重要方面.现有关于贸易开放影响收入不平等的文献大多着眼于总体收入不平等程度或技能工资差距,而对性别工资差距的关注则不多.文章利用1992-2009年国家统计局的城镇住户调查数据,系统地考察了贸易开放对不同部门、不同技能水平的城镇劳动者性别工资差距的影响.研究发现:(1)贸易开放对制造业的性别工资差距具有显著的正向影响;(2)分技能水平的分析结果显示,贸易开放对制造业中高技能劳动者的性别工资差距无显著影响,主要是拉大了低技能劳动者的性别工资差距;(3)贸易开放是通过影响劳动力流动和就业结构来影响性别工资差距的.因此,从保护女性的角度来说,政府应该通过提高女性的技能水平等政策措施来促进两性平等.     

技能溢价与工资不平等理论研究进展

尽管技能偏向性技术进步假说为理解技能溢价和工资不平等提供了一个较好的分析框架,但依然存在不一致的研究结果.争议主要集中在资本与技能之间的互补关系、劳动力市场制度变迁以及技术和贸易哪一个是造成收入差距拉大的主要原因等几个方面.未来的研究将会建立一个统一的理论框架,分析各因素在解释工资不均衡程度增加时的相互作用.     

中国制造业贸易模式变迁的工资差距效应

本文利用中国制造业27个细分行业的面板数据,采用固定效应不变系数的静态面板模型,考察了我国制造业从产业间贸易向产业内贸易的变迁对行业间工资差距的影响及其传导机制。研究结果表明：（1）在制造业贸易模式的变迁中,出口扩大了行业间工资差距,而进口缩小了行业间工资差距。（2）制造业贸易模式变迁主要通过价格机制扩大了行业间的工资差距,而技术机制和个体机制的影响则不显著。     

贸易自由化、有偏的学习效应与发展中国家的工资差异

本文构建了一个模型来研究贸易自由化对熟练劳动力与非熟练劳动力工资差异的影响,从而解释发展中国家工资差异之谜。在贸易自由化之后,发展中国家接触和学习到相对多的与熟练劳动力匹配的技术知识,因此,和生产与非熟练劳动力匹配的技术知识相比,生产与熟练劳动力匹配的技术知识的生产力水平上升相对较多。也就是说,学习效应是有偏的。因为技术知识的生产是熟练劳动力密集型的,所以学习效应会导致对熟练劳动力需求的增加,扩大工资差异。同时,有偏的学习效应会使技术进步更偏向于技能密集型,从而进一步导致对熟练劳动力需求的增加,扩大工资差异。     

Patterns of Skill Premia

This paper develops a model to analyse how skill premia differ over time and across countries, and uses this model to study the impact of international trade on wage inequality. Skill premia are determined by technology, the relative supply of skills, and trade. Technology is itself endogenous, and responds to profit incentives. An increase in the relative supply of skills, holding technology constant, reduces the skill premium. But an increase in the supply of skills over time also induces a change in technology, increasing the demand for skills. The most important result of the paper is that increased international trade induces skill-biased technical change. As a result, trade opening can cause a rise in inequality both in the U.S. and the less developed countries, and thanks to the induced skill-biased technical change, this can happen without a rise in the relative prices of skill-intensive goods in the U.S., which is the usual intervening mechanism in the standard trade models.     

Effects of North–South trade on wage inequality and on human-capital accumulation

This paper develops an endogenous growth model with technological knowledge directed towards high- versus low-skilled labour, augmented with North–South international trade of intermediate goods and with human-capital accumulation, to analyse how trade affects wage inequality and the inter-country human-capital gap. Trade is a vehicle for inter-country technological-knowledge diffusion and human-capital accumulation interacts with the intra-country direction of technological knowledge arising from trade. In contrast with the market-size effect, stressed in the skill-biased technological change literature, the operation of the price channel following openness to trade predicts, in line with the recent trends in developed and developing countries, an increasing technological-knowledge bias towards high-skilled human capital. This, in turn, decreases inter-country gaps of technological knowledge and human capital and increases intra-country wage inequality. Also in line with recent empirical evidence, inter-country wage convergence is induced by the trade-opening level effect.     

Trade Liberalization and Wage Inequality: Evidence from the U.S. States

This paper examines the relationship between trade liberalization and wage inequality for 50 U.S. states during the period from 1999 to 2008. The Difference-in-Differences and fixed effects methods are employed to evaluate the effect of trade liberalization on wage inequality in the U.S. states. Empirical results reveal that trade liberalization and de-unionization do increase the wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers. Evidence shows skill-biased technological change has no significant impact on rising wage inequality. As Difference-in-Differences estimation on time-series cross sectional data involves many years, the conventional standard errors often understate the standard deviation of the estimators. This paper employs the standard bootstrapping procedure and the clustering error procedure to correct the problem, and all sign patterns still hold.     

Economic growth, skill-biased technical change and wage inequality: A model and estimations for the US and Europe

In recent literature skill-biased technical change has been viewed as a major cause for wage inequality. Some modelling and presentation of stylized facts have been undertaken for US time series data. A preliminary study of wage inequality in a model with knowledge as input in an aggregate production function has been presented by Riddell and Romer [General Purpose Technologies and Economic Growth, 1998, MIT Press]. Although some important forces determining wage inequality are widely accepted we know little about the quantitative impact of each source and differences across countries. We present a growth model of the Romer type with innovation-based technical change and two skill groups where the growth of knowledge, the relative supply of the two skill groups, externalities and substitution effects among the two groups are the driving forces for wage inequality. We undertake estimates for US time series data and contrast those estimates with results from some European countries. In particular, we compare parameter estimations for US and German time series data. The paper concludes that there is less wage inequality across skills in Europe in contrast to the US on the macroeconomic level. But, considering disaggregated data we observe some increases in inequality for Germany, too. Although our model reveals important variables for the explanation of wage inequality there may, however, also be other factors, such as trade unions, which have impacted the wage spread.     

China wage inequality: the role of trade and technology

This article empirically investigates the impact of international trade and technical change on skill premia for a panel of 28 manufacturing sectors in China over the period 2002–2011. The results find that the effect of changes of the share of SOEs is twofold. First, the contraction of SOEs promoted productivity growth, and the promoting effect was skill-biased, which tended to increase the skill premia in China. Second, the drop of product prices resulting from falling SOEs share was more magnificent in skill-intensive industries, which helped to mitigate wage inequality through product prices. The accounted-for portion of price changes by productivity growth was skill-biased, significantly raising skill premia through product prices. However, the portion of price changes accounted for by foreign price was unskill-biased, and world price competition diminished the growing income disparity in China.     

Creative Destruction and the Rise of Inequality

Common wisdom interprets the rise in inequality of the last two decades as the result of a skill-biased labor demand shift. This explanation does not account for two important observations: (i) within-group inequality has also markedly risen, and (ii) the rise of inequality has been accompanied by a rise of the volatility of earnings. This paper argues that a dual labor market structure, where some workers are paid efficiency-wages can account for the empirical regularities, in the absence of skilled biased technological change. The analysis demonstrates that an unbiased innovation, as well as North–South trade, can contribute to the efficiency wage premium, and thus to wage inequality, by increasing labor turnover.     

Skill-biased technological change: Is there hope for the unskilled?

This paper presents a model in which perpetual skill-biased technological change does not lead to ever-increasing wage inequality.The model is consistent with the increase in wage inequality in the 1980s and the subsequent stabilization in the 1990s.     

Wage inequality in developing countries: South–South trade matters

The relationship between trade liberalization and inequality has received considerable attention in recent years. The major purpose of this study is to present new results on the sources of wage inequalities in manufacturing taking into account South–South (S–S) trade. Globalization has not only lead to increasing North–South (N–S) trade, but it has also changed the direction and composition of trade as more trade is carried out among developing countries. In this study, we find that increasing wage inequality is associated more with the South–South trade liberalization than with the classical trade liberalization with northern countries. A part of this increasing wage inequality due to S–S trade comes from the development of N–S trade relationship in S–S trade that increases wage inequality in middle-income developing countries. This study also seeks to shed some light on the link between the direction of trade and technological change. We explore the fact that S–S trade leads to a technological change biased toward skill-intensive sectors more than N–S trade. This indirect effect increases wage inequality for all developing countries, but it is more important in low-income countries.     

Can fiscal redistribution undo skill-biased technical change?: Evidence from the French experience

The inequality of labor earnings among working-age individuals has gone up in all western countries during the past 25 years, either through rising wage inequality (US, UK) or through rising unemployment (Continental Europe). Policy regimes did matter a great deal, however, as far as the inequality of disposable income is concerned. In a country like France, transfers to the unemployed were sufficiently massive to prevent income inequality from rising. This paper argues that the way fiscal redistribution has managed to counteract skill-biased technical change in countries like France is somewhat paradoxical. The same distributive stability could have been obtained at a lower cost by following a job subsidies strategy rather than an income maintenance strategy, simply because it is always less costly to have people at work producing something. We explore several potential explanations for this paradox.