DOES WAGE DISPERSION MAKE ALL FIRMS PRODUCTIVE?

This article puts the relationship between wage dispersion and firm productivity to an updated test, taking advantage of access to detailed Belgian linked employer–employee panel data. Controlling for simultaneity issues, time‐invariant workplace characteristics and dynamics in the adjustment process of productivity, empirical results reveal the existence of a positive impact from conditional intra‐firm wage dispersion to firm productivity (measured by the average value added per hour worked), which however decreases for higher dispersion levels. Findings thus suggest that the incentive effect of wage dispersion, predicted for instance by the ‘tournament’ model, dominates ‘fairness’ and/or ‘sabotage’ considerations. Further results reveal that the influence of wage dispersion on firm productivity is stronger among firms with a larger proportion of highly skilled workers but does not depend on whether wages are collectively renegotiated at the firm level.     

Budgetdefizite und Finanzierungsüberschüsse

In den Stabilit?ts- und Wachstumspakt ist die 3%-Defizitgrenze für den Staatshaushalt vor allem deshalb eingebaut worden, weil eine zu hohe Beanspruchung des gemeinsamen Kapitalmarktes der Eurozone verhindert werden sollte. Welche Erkenntnisse lassen sich zur tats?chlichen Inanspruchnahme des Kapitalmarktes aus den Finanzierungssalden der Volkswirtschaftlichen Gesamtrechnung gewinnen? Wie ist bei solch einer Betrachtung das Argument der Generationengerechtigkeit zu beurteilen? Welche Folgen h?tte gegenw?rtig eine Haushaltskonsolidierung?     

Redistributive politics with distortionary taxation

This paper proposes a first step towards a positive theory of tax instruments. We present a model of redistributive politics that extends those of Myerson [R. Myerson, Incentives to cultivate minorities under alternative electoral systems, Amer. Polit. Sci. Rev. 87 (1993) 856-869] and Lizzeri and Persico [A. Lizzeri, N. Persico, The provision of public goods under alternative electoral incentives, Amer. Econ. Rev. 91 (2001) 225-239]. Two politicians compete in terms of targeted redistributive promises financed through distortionary taxes. We solve for the case of both targetable and non-targetable taxes. We prove that there is an imperfect efficiency-targetability trade off on the tax side. Politicians prefer targetable taxes over non-targetable ones, especially when the latter are less efficient. Yet, targetable taxation is always used even when it is very inefficient compared to non-targetable taxes.     

Bidding for Labor

We present a competing-auction theory of the labor market, where job candidates auction their labor services to employers. An equilibrium matching function emerges which has many of the features commonly assumed, including constant returns to scale in large economies. The auction mechanism also generates equilibrium wage dispersion among homogeneous workers and constrained-efficient entry of vacancies in large economies. In a dynamic version of the model, we generate implied numerical values for equilibrium unemployment and wage dispersion. The theory makes the novel prediction that wage dispersion is a decreasing function of the discount factor and labor market tightness. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E24, J31, J41, J64, D44.     

Consumer creations of product meaning in the context of African-style clothing

In this article, the author conducts a multisite ethnography to examine how US consumers construct product meanings and assign them to African clothing worn in different consumption settings. Contextual product meanings both emphasize the changing role of the consumption setting and reveal the consumer’s use of place. A model emerges from the data to show that consumers establish contextual product meanings through the use of interpretive frameworks, or meaning domains, and that the consumption setting influences this process by affecting consumers’ use of meaning domains and their selection of potential influences on that meaning.     

纺织工业竞争能力评价指标体系的构建

在对纺织工业竞争能力评价方面已有成果的研究基础上,针对存在的不足,依据迈克尔·波特提出的有关产业竞争力的国家钻石模型,结合纺织工业的特性,从生产要素、需求条件、产业结构和企业效果四方面构建了能较为全面系统评价纺织工业竞争能力的指标体系,并对各级指标做了较为详细的解释。     

Growth, distance to frontier and composition of human capital

We examine the contribution of human capital to economy-wide technological improvements through the two channels of innovation and imitation. We develop a theoretical model showing that skilled labor has a higher growth-enhancing effect closer to the technological frontier under the reasonable assumption that innovation is a relatively more skill-intensive activity than imitation. Also, we provide evidence in favor of this prediction using a panel dataset covering 19 OECD countries between 1960 and 2000 and explain why previous empirical research had found no positive relationship between initial schooling level and subsequent growth in rich countries.     

Wichtige betriebswirtschaftliche Fachkonferenzen

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