中国劳动关系研究的演变——基于1978-2015年期刊文献的历史分析

本研究通过对1978-2015年我国期刊文献的量化及内容、文本分析,从研究主题、方法论、学科视角及认识论上等维度,挖掘了自改革开放以来我国劳动关系研究领域的发展变化.为认识中国劳动关系研究领域提供了一个历史的视角,有助于深化对中国劳动关系研究发展的理解.总体而言,改革开放以来,中国劳动关系研究在研究主题、研究方法、学科专业等维度均有变化,但也存在着稳定不变的特征.无论是对劳动关系认识、理念的变化,还是对研究主题侧重点的变化,都体现了改革过程中国家意志,也说明了历史、国家情景对劳动关系研究本身重要作用.     

The impact of the National Minimum Wage in low‐wage sectors: does the Earnings Top‐up Evaluation study add to our understanding?

Recent work investigating the possible impact of the introduction of the UK National Minimum Wage (NMW) in April 1999 has focused on the analysis of care homes, a sector particularly associated with low‐wage employment. In this article we attempt to add to these findings by utilising the Earnings Top‐up Evaluation (ETUE) survey which was carried out in 1996, 1997 and 1999, and aimed to over‐sample establishments operating in low‐wage sectors. Initially, we utilise the panel element of the ETUE to carry out a similar analysis to that adopted for the care homes data. However, in addition to this ‘establishment‐level’ analysis, we also utilise information on wages and employment in three non‐managerial skill groups, within this panel of establishments, to carry out an analysis at the level of the skill group. In this second set of analyses we are able to reject the null hypotheses of parameter insignificance, identifying a negative employment effect of the 1999 NMW, although this is only true of one of our indicators of NMW impact and its magnitude is small. In the conclusion to the article, we discuss our results in light of the findings from other similar studies.     

Economic research in Canada: Evolution and convergence

We describe the history and current state of economic research in Canada, including the role of the Canadian Economics Association (CEA) and other institutions. Our paper is organized around two central questions. Is Canadian economic research distinctive? And should it be more distinctive? We argue that a distinct Canadian “school” of economics existed in the past, but that economic research in Canada has converged on an evolving global standard in both method and topics. We ask whether this convergence serves the Canadian public interest and we raise some questions about the future of the CEA and its flagship journal, the CJE.     

Value investing anomalies in the European stock market: Multiple Value, Consistent Earner, and Recognized Value

Empirical academic studies have consistently found that value stocks outperform glamour stocks and the market as a whole. This article extends prevailing research on existing value anomalies. It evaluates simple value strategies for the European stock market (compared to many other studies that test market data on a country-by-country basis) as well as sophisticated multi-dimensional value strategies that also include capital return variables (Consistent Earner Strategy) and momentum factors (Recognized Value Strategy), the latter reconciling intermediate horizon momentum and long-term reversals of behavioral finance theories. It can be shown that these “enhanced” value strategies can produce superior returns compared to returns of the whole market or “simple” value strategies without capturing higher risks applying traditional risk measures.     

Facing ‘fairness at work’: union perception of employer opposition and response to union recognition

The introduction of statutory mechanisms by which unions can gain union recognition in Britain has stimulated employer activity to avoid and subvert union recognition campaigns. This article examines the nature and extent of such employer activities and how unions have responded.     

Analysing contagion and bailout effects with copulae

In this paper, a new methodical framework that combines elements of event studies and copula methodology is proposed in the context of the analysis of bank contagion. Furthermore, to the best knowledge of the author, this paper is the first one to analyse changes in the dependence structure of banks around bailout announcements. The results of the empirical study show that significant contagion effects could be detected both in the German banking sector after the onset of the subprime crisis as well as in the Japanese banking sector in the mid-nineties. I find that announcements of crisis at struggling banks induce a significant increase of lower tail dependence in the banking sector. The analysed bailouts and rescue measures by the central bank proved to be effective in reducing this increased lower tail dependence while increasing tail independence of bank stock returns at the same time. In both data samples, I find that the bailout announcements did not simply restore the pre-crisis dependence structure, but rather only decreased the likelihood of a joint crash of bank stocks without increasing the chances of a joint boom.     

Information and efficiency in political stock markets: using computerized markets to predict election results

This study concentrates on four computerized political markets in Germany between 1990 and 1998. While this new method for the prediction of election events worked quite well in the USA it did not perform as well in Germany. Searching for the causes of this distinction it is shown that, in contrast to the findings of Forsythe et al. (1992 Forsythe, R, Nelson, F, Neumann, GR and Wright, J. 1992. Anatomy of an experimental political stock market. American Economic Review, 82: 1142–61.  ), (i) extraordinary profits were achieved less by people who took advantage of other people's anomalies than by those people who acquired an advantage from the existence of asymmetric information, (ii) the marginal trader hypothesis does not hold when applied to German markets, and that (iii) traders relied on public opinion polls. It is argued that these distinctions are caused by the differences in the German and the US voting systems. Additionally, it is shown that to a certain extent (iv) election markets were able to predict the contemporary mood of the electorate without the help of public opinion polls, (v) first of all the informed traders used public opinion polls as a source of information, and (vi) prices themselves became a source of information on which expectations were based.     

Environmental Taxation,Inequality and Engel’s Law: The Double Dividend of Redistribution

Empirical evidence shows that low-income households spend a high share of their income on pollution-intensive goods. This fuels the concern that an environmental tax reform could be regressive. We employ a framework which accounts for the distributional effect of environmental taxes and the recycling of the revenues on both households and firms to quantify changes in the optimal tax structure and the equity impacts of an environmental tax reform. We characterize when an optimal environmental tax reform does not increase inequality, even if the tax system before the reform is optimal from a non-environmental point of view. If the tax system before the reform is calibrated to stylized data—and is thus non-optimal—we find that there is a large scope for inequality reduction, even if the government is restricted in its recycling options.     

Economic Valuation of the Threat Posed by the Establishment of the Asian Tiger Mosquito in Australia

Invasive species policy could be better informed if we understood how much people value reductions in the risks posed by these organisms. This study investigates the public’s willingness to pay (WTP) for additional measures to reduce the risk of invasion of the Australian mainland by the Asian tiger mosquito (ATM). The study contributes to the literature by applying a stated preference method to estimate the public’s WTP to reduce the risk of an ATM invasion, expressed as a change in probability. It is the first ex ante invasive species analysis to test over two discrete invasion reduction probabilities based on management effort. Further, to overcome the challenges in valuing changes in probabilities, the study presented respondents with a well-defined discrete difference in the final probability, with one scenario reducing risk from 50 to 25% and the other from 50 to 5%. We find a significant difference in the mean WTP values between these two scenarios (A$67 vs. A$90). The overall conclusion is that estimated benefits of reducing the probability of an ATM incursion outweigh the costs.     

The Employers' Offensive in the Provincial Newspaper Industry

This paper examines the widespread moves made by the employers in the provincial newspaper industry since 1987 to derecognize the National Union of Journalists. Based on personal structured interviews with NUJ lay and full-time officials, and editors and managers, it looks at the extent of the changes and the methods of introducing derecognition. This and several other indicators are used to argue that the employers' actions can be characterized as a strategic offensive. Finally the paper examines the reasons for the employers' offensive, disputing in part the arguments of other researchers in their explanation of the employers' reasons for derecognition.