Impact Of Tariff Reduction On Structural Employment In China: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis

The paper studies the effect of tariff reduction on employment in China. Using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) analysis, a model simulates the structural adjustment in the Chinese economy as a result of tariff cuts and predicts their quantitative impacts on structural unemployment during the adjustment period. It is concluded that the structural unemployment in China caused by tariff reduction is not as serious as some have claimed. The technique of study on structural unemployment can be extended to other countries to analyze the impact of trade reform.     

Food availability versus consumption efficiency: causes of the Chinese famine

The Chinese famine of 1958–1961 is characterized not only by its great magnitude but also by the uniqueness of its causes. In this article we present evidence that conventional reasons; including FAD and entitlement failure, fail to offer plausible explanations for the tragedy because of the obvious contradiction between food availability and excessive deaths during the famine period. Our thesis is that the famine is caused by consumption inefficiency, a result of the free food supply in the communal dining system in the famine period. This causal factor is unique and unprecedented in the famine history and theory. Yet the thesis is consistent with a basic economic precept: if property rights for food in a society are not defined, food consumption will be inefficient. This inefficiency mades the previously barely adequate food supply in China inadequate, causing a large-scale famine.     

An innovation index based on factor analysis

Factor analysis techniques are applied to develop an innovation index which indicates the relative tendency of various industrial sectors to innovate. The index is derived from various input variables which reflect the extent to which resources are allocated to achieve innovation and output variables which measure the extent to which new product and process innovation is achieved. In constructing the innovation index, each of the variables is weighted in accordance to its involvement in factor patterns which best reproduce correlations in the set of statistics. The innovation index is applied to rank-order various industrial sector and changes in innovation characteristics over time are indicated by index values determined for 1960, 1963 and 1970. Relationships are established between values of the innovation index and interindustry differences in the dynamics of the development of markets created through technological innovation. Application of these relationships for projecting the rate at which markets will develop for new technological innovations is discussed.     

In Search of System Understanding and Control

Technology, standardization, and global integration have created a world of ever-increasing financial and economic complexity. However, measurement and modeling have not kept pace with these developments: new approaches to recognize and embrace the complexity of an open social-economic system are necessary. In particular, it is necessary to address five fundamental challenges to system modeling and forward-looking examinations of human behavior: fallibility, reflexivity, time inconsistency, domain inconsistency, and the “Lucas critique.” It is of particular importance to recognize that human life operates in an integrated domain of economic, political, spiritual, family, social, and cultural aspects. To support the needs of analysis, new types of data are necessary. The article presents several specific areas in which modeling and measurement must be improved to meet the demands for economic analysis in the 21st century.     

Workplace Harassment Intensity and Revenge: Mediation and Moderation Effects

This study examines the mediating role of rumination, state anger, and blame attribution, and the moderating role of trait forgiveness in the relationship between workplace harassment intensity and revenge among employed students at a medium-sized Midwestern U.S. university (N = 310) and full-time employees from various industries in Shanghai, China (N = 251). We tested the proposed model using techniques described by Hayes (Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis, The Guilford Press, New York, 2013). Results within both samples suggested that workplace harassment intensity is positively associated with both major and minor revenge. Results of multiple mediation tests showed that state anger and blame attribution mediated the relationships between workplace harassment intensity and both types of revenge behavior. Furthermore, trait forgiveness moderated the relationship between blame attribution and major revenge.     

Ethical guidelines for business and social marketing

The ethical sensitivity of all professionals has come under closer scrutiny recently. Within the business area, the ethics of marketing executives in particular has been viewed with skepticism. The growing use of “social marketing” also compounds the potential for ethical abuse. The ethical dimensions of both business and social marketing are examined in this paper. Four ethical guidelines-increased professionalism, ethical consultants, seminars and ethical cost-benefit analyses-are suggested as a means of improving the ethical standards of marketing decision-making.     

The range of strategic choice in Tanzanian industry

This paper reports the results of a strategic planning exercise carried out in Tanzania and shows that under actual planning conditions there can be a wide range of potential outcomes for decision-makers to consider. With a given output mix and the same level of investment over twenty years, employment creation could be 35 percent higher than the most capital-intensive alternatives would allow and incremental value added could be 5 percent higher. If different output mixes are introduced and a basic, heavy-industry strategy compared with one based strictly on economic efficiency, the most labor-intensive outcome would create 70 percent more jobs than the most capital intensive and produce 12 percent more incremental value added. A basic industry strategy can substantially reduce reliance on international trade, lowering the share of industrial value added due to trade-dependent industries from 47 percent to 11 percent, but may be more difficult to implement.     

Immiserizing growth in centrally planned economies

This paper proposes a theoretical model explaining the discrepancy between the reported growth rate and the improvement in living standards in centrally planned economies (CPEs ). It investigates the institutional arrangement in CPEs and suggests that distorted growth generally takes place as the CPEs' planners attempt to achieve rapid economic growth while prices are kept constant. This leads to an overestimation of the growth rate in terms of the actual economic welfare improvements in CPEs. It can result in immiserizing growth, wherein a rapid growth is accompanied by a deterioration in economic welfare.