中国劳动密集型工业发展与城市化进程的相互关系

在二元经济结构转换的初期阶段,劳动密集型工业的发展与城市化密切相关。劳动密集型工业的规模、空间布局影响城市化的数量水平,其产业层次、用工方式则影响城市化的质量水平。同时,城市化的数量和质量水平也会反作用于劳动密集型工业的规模扩张。本文认为,我国改革开放以来劳动密集型工业的发展呈现出明显的粗放性,而且城市化数量水平和质量水平也较低,两者之间是互相影响、互为因果的。我国目前劳动密集型工业和城市化发展均存在需要克服的障碍,因此应该抓住两者的相互关系,促使两者相互带动、协调发展。     

贸易与就业:国际研究的最新进展与政策导向——兼论化解中美贸易冲突对我国就业影响的政策选择

随着全球经济一体化的深化,由劳动力国际化带来的失业增加、工资不平等、青年失业人口增多、非正规部门就业提高等诸多问题,已引起国际社会关注,贸易与就业成为当代国际贸易研究的重要课题。国际最新研究显示,贸易既能创造就业,也会导致失业,其就业净效应取决于不同国家的不同情况。从短期和局部看,因存在就业调整成本,贸易对不同国家、地区和个人会产生不同的影响;但从长期和整体看,贸易会对一国产业结构优化、高技能工人就业、工资提高和妇女就业产生积极影响。贸易能否发挥对劳动力市场水平和结构的积极影响,取决于政府的决策。中美贸易冲突将对我国就业产生重要影响,稳就业是中央提出的应对国内外复杂形势的首要任务。为化解中美贸易冲突对我国就业的影响,应尽快建立中国贸易调整援助制度,发挥中国在构建开放型世界经济中的引领作用,并从财政政策、金融政策、贸易政策、教育政策、区域政策和劳动力政策等方面综合施策。     

劳动力成本上升如何影响中国的工业化

工业化是经济增长的引擎,推进工业化进程对保持中国经济中高速增长的持续性有重要影响。本文基于2003-2016年省级数据测算了劳动力成本数据并实证考察了劳动力成本上升对中国工业化的影响机制与路径。结果表明,工资和社会保险费等劳动力成本的上升会导致中国“去工业化”。排除内生性问题,本文的结论依然成立。进一步,中介效应检验结果表明,劳动力成本上升通过资金配置的“脱实向虚”导致“去工业化”;制造业工资上升“挤出”了制造业就业并造成“去工业化”,尽管工资上升“倒逼”制造业投资增加并提升了工业化水平,但是“倒逼”效应微弱;社会保险费通过增加制造业就业提升了工业化水平,但也通过“挤出”制造业投资加速了“去工业化”现象。据此,本文提出以下政策建议:增加工业部门的有效劳动力供给,延缓工资上升趋势;落实社会保险费改革,降低社保费率;多管齐下扭转投资“脱实向虚”的局面;多种方式优化劳动力、资本、技术组合。     

照看子女、劳动参与和灵活就业:中国女性如何平衡家庭与工作

文章利用中国家庭收入调查2007和2008年数据研究了未成年子女对女性劳动参与和职业选择的影响。研究结果表明，家中有未成年子女显著降低了女性工作的可能性，提升了工作女性选择灵活就业的可能性；学龄前子女更有可能导致女性退出劳动力市场，而6-14岁子女更有可能导致女性选择灵活就业；不工作和选择灵活就业使女性更有可能成为学龄前子女的主要照顾者，但灵活就业并没有减少女性的工作时间；女性获得工作灵活性的代价是工资水平显著下降。上述结论在解决了女性劳动参与、职业选择和生育决策的内生性问题之后依然是稳健的。文章的结论对"全面二孩"政策背景保障女性就业有一定借鉴意义。     

New evidence on the historical growth of government in Europe: The role of labor costs

We document a robust positive correlation between the size of government and the labor share of income in data from European countries covering the period 1869–1975. Following Facchini et al. (2017), we interpret this correlation as evidence that labor costs drive public spending. The long-term increase in the labor share observed over this period explains half of the overall growth of central government. The relationship holds when the labor share is instrumented with movements in technological change at the frontier. When decomposing public spending, transfers, not intensive in labor, are the only component not associated with the labor share.     

Impacts of increased Chinese imports on Japan’s labor market

Using the Japanese firm/establishment-level census data, we investigate the impact of the Chinese import penetration on employment in Japan. We found negative impacts of the Chinese import penetration on total employment, especially in industries producing competing products to Chinese imports, and a positive impact of the import penetration in the industries from which firms purchase their inputs (upstream import penetration). The negative impacts are mainly driven by firms’ exit from the market while positive impacts are enjoyed by surviving firms. We did not find any significant impacts of the penetration in the industries to which firms sell their products (downstream penetration).     

Multiple job holding as a strategy for skills development

This study investigated the training effect of multiple job holding on the activity of main jobs. First, we developed a dual-labor supply model by adding the training effect of working second jobs. The theory showed that workers with unconstrained hours hold second jobs when they develop skills via the experience of second jobs. To verify the hypotheses from the theoretical model, the causal relationship between holding a second job and the wage rate of a main job was estimated using the Keio Household Panel Survey. Difference generalized method of moments was adopted to remove time-invariant individual effects and endogenous bias. Moreover, the estimations showed heterogeneity of main jobs in terms of length of working hours, tasks, and job turnover. Full-time workers engaged in intelligent tasks and those who did not change their jobs secured training effects from second jobs but only when the comparison group was the workers allowed to hold second jobs by their employers. It was presumed that employers paid to restrict employees’ activities. On the contrary, part-time workers engaged in physical tasks were exhausted by second jobs, which decreased the wage rate of their main jobs.     

Analyst coverage and lawsuit risk

In this study, we use a unique, hand-collected dataset of employee lawsuits and study the impact of analyst coverage on labour relations. We find that an increase in analyst coverage lowers the work-related litigations. In addition, we show that an increased number of analysts lowers the litigation cost, measured by settlement fees and attorney fees. Our results suggest analysts have an important impact on employee relations. Our research enriches the literature on employment practices and analyst coverage.     

Wage and price differences,technology gap and labor flow dynamics

The relationship between wage difference and relative employment is a very important issue in the field of economic structural change. An M-sector economic growth model is constructed in this paper to investigate the relationship between wage difference, price difference, technology gap, relative employment and sectoral dynamic change from the perspective of technologies. Labor flow is regarded as a decision-making behavior to maximize the benefits of economic agents. The benefits of labor flow mainly come from sectoral wage difference, and the costs of labor flow mainly come from the social resource expenditure during labor flow process. Our model illustrates that: (i) the relative employment is positively correlated with the real wage difference and technology gap; (ii) the sectoral dynamic changes coexist with the aggregate economic growth; (iii) increases in technology gap, and price and wage differences will stimulate labor migration, exacerbate the unbalanced growth of sectoral economies, and lead to faster and more effective aggregate economic growth.     

The impact of real exchange rate shocks on manufacturing workers: An autopsy from the MORG

We study the impact of large real exchange rate shocks on workers in sectors initially more exposed to international trade using the Current Population Survey’s (CPS) Merged Outgoing Rotation Group (MORG) from 1979 to 2010 combined with new annual measures of imported inputs, a proxy for offshoring. We find that in periods when US relative prices are high, and imports surge relative to exports, workers in sectors with greater initial exposure to international trade were more likely to be unemployed or exit the labor force a year later, but did not experience significant declines in wages conditional on being employed. Contrary to the usual narrative, we find negative wage effects for higher-wage, but not lower-wage workers, particularly for those who are less-educated.