中国制造业劳动生产率:1980-1999

本研究是测算中国制造业1980-1999年的劳动生产率的变动趋势,研究的重点是对工业和制造业就业人数、产出构成的时间序列的概念、覆盖范围和一致性问题进行深入分析,在数据分析的基础上,我们将构建调查后的1980-1999年共15个制造业部门的劳动生产率时间序列,无论是在投入方面、产出方面,还是在时间堆中,这些时间序列在概念和覆盖范围方面都是一致的.研究显示中国制造业的劳动生产率的增长在90年代展示了令人瞩目的加速.中美劳动生产率的追赶进程已经开始.     

Vote Trading and Information Aggregation

The standard analysis of corporate governance assumes that shareholders vote in ratios that firms choose, such as one share‐one vote. However, if the cost of unbundling and trading votes is sufficiently low, then shareholders choose the ratios. We document an active market for votes within the U.S. equity loan market, where the average vote sells for zero. We hypothesize that asymmetric information motivates the vote trade and find support in the cross section. More trading occurs for higher‐spread and worse‐performing firms, especially when voting is close. Vote trading corresponds to support for shareholder proposals and opposition to management proposals.     

Interest Rates and the Market for New Light Vehicles

We study the impact of interest rate changes on the demand and supply of new light vehicles in an environment where consumers and manufacturers face their own interest rates. Interest rate changes impact the auto market through both households and manufacturers. For the impact of rate changes on price and output growth, the household channel is quantitatively more important. A 100 basis‐point increase in both interest rates causes annual growth rates of production to fall from 1.0% to ?11.0% and sales to fall from 1.0% to ?2.9% in the short run.     

Monitoring,Grievances, and Plant Performance

This study develops the theory and an in-depth longitudinal study of the role of residual grievance activity as a suggested proxy for managerial monitoring within the context of manufacturing production. In the empirical section, we test the theory and practice within the firm for the optimal level of monitoring/grievances in an establishment with monthly data over a ten-year period. We find that production-related residual grievances could indicate increased managerial monitoring of a kind that has a positive impact on productivity.     

DISTRIBUTIONAL IMPACTS OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS TRADING: ALTERNATIVE ALLOCATION AND RECYCLING STRATEGIES IN CALIFORNIA

Cap and trade remains attractive to many state governments because it provides a much‐needed source of additional revenue when greenhouse gas emission allowances are auctioned to the highest bidder. We analyze the income distribution impacts of the California Global Warming Solutions Act under alternative policy designs. These include the free allocation of emission allowances versus recycling of auction revenues through proportional income tax relief and a per capita dividend. The analysis is undertaken under conditions where significant economic gains, rather than losses, are projected for the policy, and in the context of the new electricity pricing regulatory environment in which passing along the opportunity costs of using free allowances may not be approved. We adapt and enhance the Regional Economic Models, Inc. Policy Insight Plus Model and apply it for the first time to estimate the income distribution impacts of cap and trade. The analysis illustrates the importance of considering macroeconomic impacts and identifies important efficiency‐equity tradeoffs. The method and results are generalizable to the dozens of states and regions still formulating or revising climate action plans in the United States and to many regions and nations around the world. (JEL D31, R11, Q54)     

Stock Market Volatility and Learning

We show that consumption‐based asset pricing models with time‐separable preferences generate realistic amounts of stock price volatility if one allows for small deviations from rational expectations. Rational investors with subjective beliefs about price behavior optimally learn from past price observations. This imparts momentum and mean reversion into stock prices. The model quantitatively accounts for the volatility of returns, the volatility and persistence of the price‐dividend ratio, and the predictability of long‐horizon returns. It passes a formal statistical test for the overall fit of a set of moments provided one excludes the equity premium.     

Probabilistic Voting and Accountability in Elections with Uncertain Policy Constraints

We consider accountability in repeated elections with two long‐lived parties that have distinct policy preferences and different levels of valence. In each period the government faces a privately observed feasibility constraint and selects a publicly observed policy vector. While pure strategy equilibria do not exhibit tight control on government policy making, complete control is possible in mixed strategies. In optimal equilibria voters use reelection functions which depend on policy in a manner that causes the governing party to internalize voter preferences. In these optimal equilibria the voters use different reelection functions for different parties.     

Personal Lending Relationships

I identify the effects of personal relationships on loan contracting using executive deaths and retirements at other firms as a source of exogenous variation in executive turnover. After plausibly exogenous turnover, borrowers choose lenders with which their new executives have personal relationships 4.1 times as frequently, and loans from these lenders have 20 basis points lower spreads and 12.5% larger amounts. Personal relationships benefit firms across loan terms, especially during macroeconomic downturns. Increased financial flexibility from personal relationships insulated firms from financial shocks during the recent financial crisis: they exhibited less constrained investment and were less likely to layoff employees.     

A Multiple Lender Approach to Understanding Supply and Search in the Equity Lending Market

Using unique data from 12 lenders, we examine how equity lending fees respond to demand shocks. We find that, when demand is moderate, fees are largely insensitive to demand shocks. However, at high demand levels, further increases in demand lead to significantly higher fees and the extent to which demand shocks impact fees is also related to search frictions in the loan market. Moreover, consistent with search models, we find significant dispersion in loan fees, with this dispersion increasing in loan scarcity and search frictions. Our findings imply that search frictions significantly impact short selling costs.     

The Effect of Housing on Portfolio Choice

We show that characterizing the effects of housing on portfolios requires distinguishing between the effects of home equity and mortgage debt. We isolate exogenous variation in home equity and mortgages by using differences across housing markets in house prices and housing supply elasticities as instruments. Increases in property value (holding home equity constant) reduce stockholdings, while increases in home equity wealth (holding property value constant) raise stockholdings. The stock share of liquid wealth would rise by 1 percentage point—6% of the mean stock share—if a household were to spend 10% less on its house, holding fixed wealth.