ECONOMIC TRANSITION AND LABOUR MARKET DYNAMICS IN CHINA: AN INTERPRETATIVE SURVEY OF THE ‘TURNING POINT’ DEBATE

Has the Chinese economy approached the ‘Lewisian turning point’ that marks the ending of the initial phase of industrial transformation fuelled by surplus labour? In this paper we undertake an interpretative survey of the literature on this issue, in the context of China's labour market conditions prior to the reforms and structural change of the past three decades. The available evidence is mixed, and our assessment makes a strong case for probing institutional constraints to labour mobility from an economy‐wide perspective, going beyond the confines of the rural economy.     

Through Trial and Error to Collusion*

In this article we study a very simple trial and error learning process in the context of a Cournot oligopoly. Without any knowledge of the payoff functions players increase, respectively decrease, their quantity as long as this leads to higher profits. We show that despite the absence of any coordination or punishing device this process converges to the joint‐profit‐maximizing outcome.     

Shareholder Value Maximisation,Stock Market and New Technology: Should the US Corporate Model be the Universal Standard? 1

In 1992 a blue‐ribbon group of US economists led by Michael Porter concluded that the US stock market‐based corporate model was misallocating resources and jeopardising US competitiveness. The faster growth of US economy since then and the supposed US lead in the spread of information technology has brought new legitimacy to the stock market and the corporate model, which is being hailed as the universal standard. Two main conclusions of the analysis presented here are: (a) there is no warrant for revising the blue‐ribbon group’s conclusion; and (b) even US corporations let alone developing country ones would be better off not having stock market valuation as a corporate goal.     

GAUGING THE SOURCES OF GROWTH OF HIGH‐TECH AND LOW‐TECH INDUSTRIES: THE CASE OF KOREAN MANUFACTURING*

Literature argues that the source of growth for high‐tech industries emanates from technological progress, while that for low‐tech industries comes from technical efficiency improvement. Also, some empirical studies have shown that technological progress is often accompanied by deterioration in technical efficiency. The focus in this study is to discuss a methodology and test the above two hypotheses with regard to Korean manufacturing data from 1970 to 1997. The study found that the 2.5 per cent average annual rate of technological progress during this period was the major contributor to total factor productivity (TFP) growth in Korean manufacturing whereas technical efficiency grew by a modest 1.1 per cent per annum. The analysis also showed that technological progress was responsible for TFP growth in both high‐tech and low‐tech industries and that both technological progress and technical efficiency improvement co‐existed in the case of Korean manufacturing industries.     

对转型期经济问题的法哲学思考

如果说财产是经济学的核心,那么财产权就是法哲学的关键.站在自然法哲学的高度审视、思考和改造中国社会的经济问题是推进和谐社会建设的时代必然.     

Parallel Trade and its Ambiguous Effects on Global Welfare

The regulation of parallel trade is a fiercely debated issue in the global trading system. This paper investigates the welfare effects of parallel trade freedom for different levels of trade costs and market size. It is found that parallel trade freedom has a positive effect on global welfare if countries are sufficiently heterogeneous in terms of market size and trade costs are sufficiently low. Contrary to intuition, this result even holds in a situation where parallel trade freedom implies the closure of the smaller market. If, however, countries are virtually homogenous in terms of market size, parallel trade freedom may be detrimental to global welfare for specific levels of trade costs.     

THE IMPACT OF ANTI‐TERRORISM EXPENDITURE ON ECONOMIC GROWTH AND WELFARE

This paper examines the effects of increasing anti‐terrorism expenditure on economic growth rate and social welfare. It is shown that: (i) spending the least amount possible on anti‐terrorism expenditure will lead to a maximum economic growth rate; and (ii) to achieve maximum social welfare, the government should allocate its budget to anti‐terrorism expenditure. The results shed light on why the US government has chosen to uphold and pursue its anti‐terrorism policies in recent years to present day.     

Introducing ‘Journeys Home’

Homelessness, despite being a major social policy issue in Australia, is an area that is not well served by data. Most sorely lacking is any large‐scale panel study that follows a broad sample of persons with recent experience of homelessness and unstable housing histories. In 2010, the Australian Government set about rectifying this deficiency when it commissioned the Melbourne Institute to undertake a new panel study, now known as ‘Journeys Home’. This study draws its sample from the population of Centrelink income‐support recipients, targeting persons identified in the administrative data as having recent experience of homelessness, as well as others with similar characteristics who may be vulnerable to housing difficulties in the future. This article summarises the design of this new study and reports on fieldwork outcomes from the first two waves of data collection.     

Regional Economic Disparity,Financial Disparity,and National Economic Growth: Evidence from China

The dynamic relations among national economic growth, economic disparity, and financial disparity in China are examined. Specifically, the focus is on whether economic disparity or financial disparity affects national economic growth. As measures of economic and financial disparity across regions and provinces, the Williamson coefficient of disparity is employed using both regional data (eastern, central, and western) and provincial data (from 31 provinces). Overall, it is found that both provincial financial disparity and, to a lesser degree, economic disparity have a negative effect on national economic growth. In addition, financial disparity appears to be exogenous, suggesting that financial disparity is not influenced by either economic disparity or national economic growth.     

Do Immigrants Affect Firm‐Specific Wages?*

We propose and test a novel effect of immigration on wages. Existing studies have focused on the wage effects that result from changes in the aggregate labour supply in a competitive labour market. We argue that if labour markets are not fully competitive, immigrants might also affect wage formation at the most disaggregate level – the workplace. Using linked employer?employee data, we find that an increased use of low‐skilled immigrant workers has a significantly negative effect on the wages of native workers at the workplace – also when controlling for potential endogeneity of the immigrant share using both fixed effects and instrumental variables.