我的九条命

在我生命中各个阶段里，我与学术界不知不觉地频频有缘。启蒙时期，我科到名师的熏导业已浸淫于国学；经史子籍，无所不读，撰文作诗，直追唐宋，俨然是一个“小老学究”。当我入仕时，一秉传统士大夫的志趋，一心为国为民，在我自我流放期间，发现我唯一可谋生的本领是学术，我既没有继承万贯家财，也没有在当权时放出许多人情，作为经商的捷径，实际上，我曾试探经商之路，但是在没有有力的后台引见下，我意识到，要加入一家企业，条件是能够为其带来多少商机，我对这种用才标准并不欣赏，在此情形下，要做一个小企业家，其生活方式也难以适应，特别是对我的妻女是一种冒险。     

Approximating unanimity orderings: An application to Lorenz dominance

Stochastic dominance and Lorenz dominance are examples of orderings which require unanimous agreement among an infinite set of indices. This paper considers various subsets of inequality measures that respect Lorenz dominance, and assesses the extent to which a small number of indices can reproduce the Lorenz ordering. Using income data for 80 countries, our results suggest that Lorenz dominance can be predicted with 99% accuracy using just 3 or 4 inequality measures, as long as two of them focus on the extreme upper and lower tails of the distribution. In contrast, confining attention to the index families and parameter ranges normally considered may fail to detect the majority of occasions when Lorenz curves intersect. These results lead us to question the faith placed in procedures based on a finite set of inequality indices, and to suggest that similar lessons will apply to other types of unanimity orderings.     

The Long Run Growth and Productivity Performance of the United Kingdom

This paper examines Britain's long run growth and productivity performance since the late nineteenth century, taking an international comparative perspective and disaggregating by sector. Britain was richer than the United States and Germany in 1870 largely because of high levels of labour productivity in services and agriculture rather than in industry, together with a highly favourable structure, particularly a small share of the labour force in agriculture. By 1990, the productivity gap in manufacturing had not grown bigger. Rather, the deterioration in Britain's overall comparative labour productivity position has been concentrated in services and agriculture, together with the effects of structural change, particularly the later shift of labour out of agriculture in the United States and Germany.     

International Borrowing, Specialization, and Unemployment in a Small Open Economy

The authors show that an increase in international borrowing increases specialization and unemployment in a small open economy that is subject to terms‐of‐trade risks. The economy has a production advantage in the export sector. However, the size of the export sector is limited by the available funds. To insure workers against income fluctuations arising from terms‐of‐trade risks, firms in the export sector offer workers a stable wage rate with the possibility of unemployment. An increase in international borrowing increases specialization in the export sector, which leads to higher unemployment when the terms‐of‐trade shock is bad. A state‐contingent price subsidy can reduce unemployment without inefficiently reducing specialization. The results are robust to the introduction of risk‐averse firms.