Growth at the EU periphery: the next enlargement

In 2004, 75 million people are scheduled to become EU citizens, making this the largest round of expansion of the Western European club to date. Of the 10 new entrants, 8 are former socialist economies, for which membership in the EU represents the coronation of an effort began with the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. Based on their recent economic performance, the Central and Eastern European countries appear to be well on their way to successfully integrate in the Western European club, while the Baltic Republics still lag behind. The gap between the two groups emerges when we consider the adjustment of the production structure, the composition of trade and FDI flows, and income distribution. The evidence we review appears to support the role of institutional quality to facilitate integration in the world market and overall economic performance.     

Human Capital and Growth Cycles

This paper studies the dynamic interaction between human capital accumulation and economic growth. Capital market imperfections and an indivisibility in human capital investment prevent poor agents from accumulating skills, the acquisition of which positively affects technological progress. More productive technologies in turn require more sophisticated qualification and involve higher training costs. The equilibrium dynamics can be characterized by the joint evolution of productivity growth, the schooling costs, and the income distribution. Under our assumptions, individual incomes follow a non-linear Markov chain. This non-linearity generates endogenous fluctuations of schooling activities and the rate at which productivity improvements occur. We thank an anonymous referee for many helpful suggestions. Support from the German Research Foundation (DFG) under grant KA1519/2-2 is gratefully acknowledged.     

Learning for Innovation and the Skill Premium

The computer revolution took very long to pay off in productivity growth in the computer-using sectors. The relative wage of skilled workers, however, has risen sharply from the early days of the computer revolution onward. As skilled workers wages reflect their productivity, the two observations together pose a puzzle.This paper provides a micro-based explanation for the long diffusion period of the computer revolution. The general equilibrium model of growth zooms in on the research process and provides an explanation for sluggish growth with booming relative wages of the skilled. Technological progress in firms is driven by research aimed at improving the production technology (innovation) and by assimilation of ideas or principles present outside the firm (learning). A new General Purpose Technology (GPT) like the computer revolution generates an initial slowdown in economic growth and an increase in the skill premium.Acknowledgement I am indebted to Theo van de Klundert for suggestions and encouragement. Suggestions by Jan Boone, Bas Jacobs, Patrick Francois, Henri de Groot, Lex Meijdam, Niek Nahuis Sjak Smulders, Harald Uhlig and anonymous referees have contributed to the paper.     

湖南怀化市河西新区市场群落发展研究

通过对湖南怀化市河西新区市场群落发展现状的调查考察,揭示了市场群落形成的动力机制,包括体制环境与路径依赖机制、区位优势与区域功能导向机制、政府扶持与政策优惠的加速机制、民营资本争利于市的驱动机制、外来经商人员和知名厂商的激活机制、产销一体化互动机制。针对区域整体规划滞后、市场重复建设、划行归市不甚理想、市场开发的房地产化趋势、投资环境欠佳等主要问题,提出了改善投资环境和经营环境、形成各部门协同发展合力,吸引经营大户和知名厂商进驻市场、培植市场主体商户,关注市场新变化、拓展新业态、发掘新空间,加强产销衔接、推进工贸一体化,强化市场人才培育等对策建议。     

Job Creation and Job Destruction in a Regulated Labor Market: The Case of Austria

We study Austrian job reallocation in the period of 1978 to 1998, using a large administrative dataset where we correct for spurious entries and exits of firms. We find that on average 9 out of 100 randomly selected jobs were created within the last year, and that about 9 out of randomly selected 100 jobs were destroyed within the next year. Hence, the magnitude of Austrian job flows seems to be comparable to other countries, similar to the well-known results of Davis et al. (1996) for the United States. Job reallocation appears to be driven primarily by idiosyncratic shocks. However, job creation increases significantly during cyclical upswings whereas job destruction rises in downturns. We also find substantial persistence of job creation and destruction. The pronounced pattern of job reallocation rates falling with firm size and age continues to hold when we use a set of controls. Finally, we show that – controlling for sector and firm size composition – Austrian job reallocation rates are only half the rates for the U.S. This result is not surprising given the impact of tighter regulation and labor law in Austria.     

The Legislator as Political Entrepreneur: Investment in Political Capital

This paper applies the standard Austrian theory of capital investment to the standard interest group model of legislator behavior. Distinguishing between reputational capital and representative capital as interdependent forms of political capital, I argue that legislator behavior (specifically roll call voting) can be explained as entrepreneurial investment in political capital under uncertainty. I discuss several examples in which this approach can potentially add predictive power regarding legislative voting.     

中国钢铁业：结构、行为和绩效分析

国际环境快速变化,国内钢铁业如火如荼,认清中国钢铁行业的现状,通过产业组织理论的市场结构、市场行为和市场绩效的分析方法对钢铁全行业进行分析,提出改善钢铁行业结构,建立金融规避风险机制,促进产业前向整合之对策。     

对马克思按分配原则的反思

马克思的劳动价值论不仅是剩余价值的理论基础和分析资本主义分配的理论依据，同时也是马克思设想的社会主义按劳分配的逻辑起点。只是以往我们对按劳分配原则的最本质的含义理解不够透彻。实质上，应该说马克思设想的按劳分配原则最本质的内容包括三点，即在未来的社会主义社会中，个人消费品的分配以劳动量的大小为依据，等量劳动获取等量报酬，承认能力本位。在社会主义市场经济条件下的按劳分配原则，仍然没有偏离这三点本质的含义，但已经有了新的特点和形式。     

EDGAR on the internet: The welfare effects of wider information distribution in an experimental market for risky assets

Policies such as the SEC’s Fair Disclosure Rule, and technologies such as SEC EDGAR, aim to disseminate corporate disclosures to a wider audience of investors in risky assets. In this study, we adopt an experimental approach to measure whether this wider disclosure is beneficial to these investors. Price-clearing equilibrium models based on utility maximization and non-revealing and fully-revealing prices predict that in a pure exchange economy, an arbitrary trader would prefer that no investors are informed rather than all are informed; non-revealing theory further predicts that an arbitrary trader would prefer a situation in which all traders are informed rather than half the traders are informed. These predictions can be summarized as “None > All > Half”. A laboratory study was conducted to test these predictions. Where previous studies have largely focused on information dissemination and its effects on equilibrium price and insider profits, we focus instead on traders’ expected utility, as measured by their preferences for markets in which none, half, or all traders are informed. Our experimental result contradicts the prediction and indicates “Half > None > All”, i.e. subjects favor a situation where a random half is informed. The implication is that in addition to testing predictions of price equilibrium, experiments should also be used to verify analytical welfare predictions of expected utility under different policy choices. JEL Classification D82, D53, G14, L86 This work was largely completed while this author was at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.     

基于我国证券市场羊群行为的宏观与微观策略

证券市场的羊群行为是指投资者在证券投资中模仿其他投资者决策,在股票价格波动中追涨杀跌的行为.导致我国证券市场羊群行为的原因包括宏观和微观两个层面.为此,本文从宏观和微观两个层面提出抑制羊群行为的相应策略,即培育市场理性与培育理性投资主体两项对策.具体包括:完善信息披露制度;改善证券市场供求关系;完善合理的交易制度;规范证券公司"信息串联"行为;培育理性投资者等.以此来实现改善上市公司的信息披露质量,促进证券市场效率,以减轻羊群行为之害.