Labor market segmentation by industry sectors and wage gaps between migrants and local urban residents in urban China

This paper explores the influence of labor market segmentation by industry sectors on the wage gap between rural-to-urban migrants and local urban residents in China in the 2000s. Using Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) survey data and the results based on the Brown decomposition method, the results indicate that the influence of intra-industrial differentials is greater than the influence of inter-industry differentials in both 2002 and 2013. The influence of the explained component of the intra-industry differentials is larger in both 2002 and 2013, and the influence of the unexplained component of the intra-industrial differentials rises steeply from 2002 to 2013. These results show that the individual characteristic differentials (e.g. human capital) in the same industry sector is the main factor causing the wage gap in both 2002 and 2013, and the problem of discrimination against migrants in the same industry sector became more serious from 2002 to 2013.     

信仰与捐赠:宗教让人更加慷慨了吗?

文章拟从慈善捐赠的角度分析宗教信仰对个体经济行为的影响。文章基于CGSS2012全国微观调查数据，使用线性回归模型、受限因变量回归模型以及工具变量法，发现宗教信仰在个体捐赠决策中扮演着重要角色。研究结果表明，相对于无宗教信仰者，有宗教信仰者进行货币性捐赠的概率以及额度更大，这种慷慨不仅表现在宗教捐赠，还表现在世俗捐赠。此外，文章还发现不同宗教信仰者之间的货币性捐赠也差异迥然，总的来看，相对于低救赎性宗教信仰，高救赎性宗教信仰对捐赠行为的促进作用更为明显。     

Sibling Similarity in High School Graduation Outcomes: Causal Interdependency or Unobserved Heterogeneity?

This paper uses data on age-adjacent sibling pairs from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to test for causal interdependencies between the high school graduation outcomes of older and younger siblings. Even after controlling for observable background characteristics, the graduation probability of an individual whose sibling graduated from high school exceeds the graduation probability of an individual whose sibling did not graduate by a large amount. However, this difference does not measure the causal effect of sibling graduation because of unobserved family factors and genuine simultaneity in the determination of all siblings' graduation outcomes. To measure the causal effect of sibling achievement on own achievement, I specify models in which sibling achievement is endogenous and estimate these models by two-stage methods using sibling-specific background characteristics as instruments. The evidence indicates that older sibling achievement has a positive causal effect on younger sibling achievement but that younger sibling achievement has no significant influence on older sibling achievement. These results are consistent with a model of intrafamily allocation in which parents learn about child endowments sequentially.     

Beauty premium in China's labor market: Is discrimination the main reason?

Based on data from the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS), this paper analyzes the effects of the height as well as other appearance characteristics of workers on their wages. Regression results show that after controlling for social network, human capital, and other endowment characteristics, the effects of the appearance characteristics become smaller and statistically insignificant. The decomposition results of the wage-appearance differentials show that higher wages for good-looking workers are mainly attributable to differences in individual characteristics. Among them, the lower wages for shorter males and higher wages for thinner females are mainly attributable to the unexplained parts of discrimination. Males suffer more from “shortness penalty”, whereas females may earn from “pretty face”. Further results showed that height may influence blue-collar workers’ wages through the effect on physical strength. Empirical evidence also demonstrates that there are strong correlations between appearance and working ability (social network and human capital). Thus, our results confirmed the little beauty premium in the Chinese labor market and the relatively wages differentials are not mainly due to discrimination from consumers or employers, instead attributable mainly to differences of individual endowment characteristics.     

Systemically important banks: an analysis for the European banking system

In this paper we perform an empirical analysis to identify systemically important banks by a few individual bank characteristics that are easy to observe in practice. This analysis builds on a new method to construct measures of systemic relevance of individual institutions that are consistent with a risk analysis at the level of the banking system, taking correlations in bank asset returns into account. We derive asset return correlations for a sample of European publicly traded banks from market data and construct two risk measures: incremental value at risk and conditional expected shortfall. Incremental value at risk quantifies the individual contributions of banks to the system’s Value-at-Risk. Conditional expected shortfall measures the increase in the expected system wide deposit insurance liability that would follow from the default of an institution. The analysis of hypothetical defaults of institutions is performed consistently with the observed distribution of asset returns by using the conditional distribution. Both measures are then analyzed in a panel regression where individual characteristics are used to explain incremental value at risk and conditional expected shortfall.     

Black power and state welfare policy

Conclusions The three strategies for the black movement are centered on black individual development resources, black capitalist resources, and political violence. The conflicts between the theorists of each strategy have been major. This study indicates that although black individual development, black capitalist, and black violence strategies are ideologically opposed, each one, nevertheless, has an influence on welfare policy. Black individual and violence resources influence Aid to Families with Dependent Children payments; black capitalist and violence resources influence the number of Aid to Families with Dependent Children recipients. These results suggest that there are a variety of means to social change even though there are ideological disputes about the values of each approach.     

Air pollution and mental health: Evidence from China Health and Nutrition Survey

Using the mental health data of the elderly in China Health and Nutrition Survey and city-level air pollution data, this paper empirically analyzes the influence of air pollution on the mental health of the elderly. Results show that with the aggravation of air pollution, the mental health of the elderly decreases significantly. Specifically, a 10 μg/m³ increase in air pollution causes a decrease of 2.43 points in mental health. Air pollution has a greater effect on males, rural residents, and low-income and low-education groups. In addition, this paper tests two mechanisms, namely, health status and individual activity, and finds that air pollution can reduce mental health by increasing the incidence and severity of disease. Moreover, the intensification of air pollution leads the elderly to prefer indoor activities. Based on individual data, this paper estimates the health effects of air pollution, which provides a basis for the formulation of environmental and health policies.     

A Long History of FOMC Voting Behavior

We devise and apply a method for estimating monetary policy reaction functions for individual members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the Federal Reserve. Our method uses members' votes on the monetary policy directive in FOMC meetings as the key source of data on individual preferences. The analysis provides a ranking by preference for ease for 84 FOMC members who served during the 1966-1996 period.     

中国引资是否影响了其他地区——对东亚主要经济体的考察

本文借助动态面板数据方法,分析了中国引资规模的扩大对东亚主要经济体外资流入规模的影响。对全体样本的考察显示,中国确实对东亚主要经济体的外资流入总量产生了转移效应,但若是剔除香港地区,中国因素则转变为积极影响。我们认为,出现这一结果的原因与香港地区流入外资的"过境投资"的特殊性质有关。深入的分析表明,由于地区异质性的存在,中国因素对于各经济体的具体影响存在较大差异。     

Are people in the SADC region willing to pay more tax to fund public healthcare?

ABSTRACT

For Africa to develop and achieve sustainable development, African governments have to prioritise spending on public health. However, the current spending data shows that health spending is a continuing struggle for African countries. Many researchers have the view that African governments have to collect more tax to spend enough on public healthcare. The question here is what extent people are willing to pay more tax to increase spending on public healthcare? Employing a multilevel regression model on Afrobarometer survey data, this paper examined to what extent individual and country level factors influence people’s willingness to pay more tax to increase spending on public healthcare in 12 Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states. This study found that peoples’ trust in their government is an important determinant of willingness to pay more tax, while factors such as the country’s quality of democracy, economic condition, and current per capita health expenditure have no influence.     

Dynamics of Growth,Poverty and Inequality: A Panel Analysis of Regional Data from Thailand and the Philippines*

Using panel data for provinces compiled from household expenditure microdata, the present paper empirically investigates the relationships among growth, poverty and inequality in Thailand and the Philippines. The empirical model avoids the potential bias due to the fact that the entire distribution of individual‐level consumption changes over time and empirical variables for growth, poverty and inequality are often compiled from the consumption distribution. The system generalized method of moments estimation results strongly suggest that inequality reduced the growth rate of per‐capita consumption, and that differences in inequality explain a substantial portion of the Philippine–Thai difference in growth and poverty reduction since the late 1980s.     

基于组态视角的物流竞争力提升路径研究

基于基础-企业-市场(groudings-enterprises-markets, GEM)模型和复杂系统理论,采用模糊集定性比较分析法,从组态视角出发,对31个省份(因数据缺失,不包括港澳台地区)物流竞争力提升路径进行实证分析。研究发现,主体、资源、环境、需求、技术、创新6个要素对物流竞争力都存在一定的影响,但是单个要素并不是强物流竞争力的必要条件;存在环境-需求-技术-创新驱动型、全面均衡综合驱动型以及资源-环境-技术驱动型3条等效路径;各地应根据资源禀赋情况,选择差异化提升路径。     

Indoor air quality and health: Empirical evidence from fluoride pollution in China

In this paper we conducted an econometric analysis to investigate the impacts of fluoride pollution on health. Burning high-fluoride-content coal indoors is the primary source of fluoride pollution in Guizhou Province of China. Exploiting longitudinal data from China Health and Nutrition Survey, we applied individual fixed effect models and triple difference models to examine the effects of whether households use coal as domestic fuel. The results showed that fluoride pollution from coal burning significantly increases the diastolic and systolic blood pressure levels of adults. And the pollution also leads to higher likelihood of underweight. Our further analysis indicated that fluoride pollution from coal burning during the infant period greatly reduces the height and weight of children in their childhood and adolescence periods. We also explore the mechanism by investigating the influence of fluoride pollution exposure on birthweight and find evidence that fluoride pollution had a negative impact on prenatal development.     

Health investment,physical capital accumulation,and economic growth

This paper analyzes the effect of health investment, and hence of health capital, on physical capital accumulation and long-run economic growth in an extended Ramsey model with an Arrow–Romer production function and a Grossman (1972) utility function. The paper concludes that economic growth is related to both the health growth rate and the health level. While growth in health capital always facilitates economic growth, the gross effect of health level on the rate of economic growth depends on how it affects physical capital accumulation. If the negative effect of health on economic growth through its influence on physical capital accumulation is not taken into consideration, then health level has a positive effect on the rate of economic growth by improving the efficiency of labor production. However, since health investment may crowd out physical capital investment and thus influence physical capital accumulation, excessive investment in health may have a negative effect on economic growth. Empirical tests of these theoretical hypotheses using panel data from individual provinces of China produce results that are consistent with our theoretical conclusions.     

Navigating the Impact of Globalization on Bank Efficiency in China

The paper provides for the first time empirical evidence on the impact of economic globalization on bank efficiency in a developing economy. Using the data envelopment analysis method, we compute the efficiency of the Chinese banking sector during 2000–2007. The empirical findings suggest that the inefficiency of the Chinese banking sector stems largely from scale rather than pure technical inefficiencies. Examining different components of economic globalization, we find that greater economic integration through higher trade flows, cultural proximity and political globalization have significant and positive influence on bank efficiency levels. The empirical findings suggest that liberalization (restrictions) of the capital account exerts a negative (positive) influence on bank efficiency levels in China.     

新创企业高绩效工作系统影响机制研究：一个多层模型

现有高绩效工作系统（HPWS）研究的不足表现为：较少探讨情境因素对HPWS内部结构的影响、对新创企业的疏漏、对员工HPWS感知的忽视、对多层次方法应用的缺乏等。通过对64家农业新创企业及其246个员工的多层数据进行分析,文章探讨了新创企业HPWS的多层影响机制。结果表明,企业层面HPWS对员工感知的HPWS具有显著影响;组织心理所有权和心理授权在员工感知的HPWS与员工创新行为间起完全中介作用,组织支持感的中介作用未得到验证;组织创新行为对企业绩效具有显著的正向影响。最后文章讨论了研究局限和未来研究方向。     

安徽省人均可支配收入的预测——GIOWA算子的优化组合预测方法应用

以安徽省最近20年的人均可支配收入数据作为分析样本,运用GM(1,1)、ARIMA(p,d,q)和BP神经网络三种单项方法给出预测.这些单项预测方法在各个时点的预测精度不一,预测的稳定性欠佳,而对他们重新进行变权组合,构建基于算术平均最小贴近度的GIOWA算子优化组合预测方法,取得了比每个单项预测方法更加优良和稳定的效果,并将该方法应用于人均可支配收入的预测,效果理想,方法优良,值得推广.     

高管改革开放经历与创新决策——基于风险承担和职业路径的双重调节效应

改革开放成长起来的企业家拥有哪些特质?这些特质会影响企业创新决策吗?通过手工搜集CEO背景数据,以2002-2015年沪、深A股上市的制造业和信息技术业为样本,采用静态面板回归、动态DID分析及2SLS检验等方法后发现,有改革开放经历的CEO会显著提升企业创新投资,且其个人风险承担和多元化的职业路径起着正向调节作用。进一步分析发现,与青少年和成年阶段相比,在童年阶段经历改革开放事件的CEO对创新投资的影响更明显;与国有企业相比,在民营企业中改革开放成长起来的CEO作用更显著。此外,改革开放成长起来的CEO将通过创新投资进而提高创新产出数量及质量。     

Restructuring in China＇s State-owned Enterprises： Evidence from the Coal Industry

Usingfirm-level data for China ＂s state-owned coal mines, this paper examines the impact of privatization, corporatization and debt restructuring of state-owned enterprises on technical efficiency. A stochastic frontier production method is applied to a panel dataset from 2000 to 2007. The simultaneous study of these three measures makes it possible to study individual effects more precisely than otherwise. The study shows that the three reform initiatives are all able to improve technical efficiency in state-owned coal mines. The finding of a significant efficiency improvement from relinquishing state ownership provides an alternative to privatization. The study of debt restructuring and technical efficiency has not been documented in the published literature.     

Risk‐Taking Behavior: An Experimental Analysis of Individuals and Dyads

The decision to undertake risk is often made by pairs (dyads), while much of the economics literature on risk taking focuses on the individual. We report the results of controlled laboratory experiments that compare behavior between individuals and pairs. Using the 2002 procedure and a within‐subjects design, we find that pair choices are largely consistent with subjects bargaining over the outcome rather than the pairs taking a more extreme stance than the individual members. Further, gender and age but not personality seem to influence relative bargaining weight. We also find that individuals are more willing to take risks after making decisions as part of a pair than beforehand. Both the personality of one's partner and nontask social interaction influence subsequent individual risk‐taking behavior.