Resistance to Trade Liberalization in Unionized Sector

This paper studies the lobbying against trade liberalization by both a firm and a union in the same industry. We find that the relationship between their political activities depends on the effect of political activity by one on the marginal effectiveness of political activity by the other. We also show that, when they are strongly risk-averse and their political activities are strategic complements, trade liberalization is likely to be successful if business is brisk, the foreign firm's production cost is high or the number of union members is small. However, when they are not strongly risk-averse, these results hold reversely.     

Is the Optimal Labor Income Tax Progressive in a Unionized Economy?*

This paper concerns optimal nonlinear labor income taxation in an economy with union wage setting and endogenous hours of work. The purpose is to study the determinants of tax progression. We show that the optimal degree of progression of the labor income tax depends on the extent to which the government can influence the wage rate via tax policy as well as on its ability to redistribute income across individuals. In addition, the argument for progressive labor income taxation depends on whether hours of work are chosen by the employed themselves or the union.     

Monetary union and the Maastricht inflation criterion: The accession countries*

We model an accession country facing a Maastricht‐type inflation criterion that specifies an inflation ceiling. In addition to deciding whether or not to satisfy this criterion, the country must decide how much costly economic reform to undertake. If the country puts enough weight on the future that it can credibly meet the inflation criterion no matter what the ceiling is, then the inflation criterion benefits the country but lowers reform. If the country puts less weight on the future, then a criterion with a properly chosen inflation ceiling can increase reform. We derive the inflation ceilings that maximize the country's welfare and its reform.     

浅析民主的概念

民主是什么?人们对此有过很多争议。本文从民主概念的由来入手,分析民主的两种基本模式,并论述程序民主与实质民主的区别,以便更好地理解民主的概念。     

试论私有财产权对我国政治民主建设的意义

私有财产权是宪政国家的基石。私有财产权保障了自由和民主原则得以实现、促进法治建设的进程、增强公民参与政治生活的意识。     

Hard and Disappearing Work: Making Sense of the Leisure Project

Situated at a point of critical intersection between leisure and labour, ancient athletics was in the most essential respects just as complex and ‘modern’ as its contemporary counterpart and can thus benefit from the methods of contemporary sport sociology, which can in turn find in ancient Greece a useful comparandum. As with contemporary sport, athletic pursuits must be situated within the broader economy of leisure in ancient Greece. However, a process of professionalisation gradually developed during the fifth century bce, turning athletics into what was arguably a form of labour. While many continued to derive their pedigree from the elite ‘leisure class’ that almost exclusively dominated the sixth century athletics, a growing number came from less‐distinguished families, their inclusion rendered possible by the construction of public gymnasia, private patronage, cash prizes for victory and other forms of social advancement. Some scholars have pointed to this development as an index of democratisation, but I will argue that it was actually a continuation of elite hegemony by appropriation of the commercial and artisanal classes, parallel to what can be observed in the expansion of athletic participation in the late nineteenth century. Along with expanding the talent pool, the pressure to produce the best athletes for inter‐state competition led to a professionalisation and broadening of athletic training: originally informal and paederastic, it eventually became institutionalised and regulated by the state. Extension of elite privilege to a few successful athletes ultimately served to confirm the Panhellenic prestige and thus also the domestic power of each city’s hegemonic class.     

企业工会职能创新浅析

企业工会的职能,除了在内容上有所创新外,在实现方式上也有创新的必要和可能。依靠信息化手段将彻底的改变工会的各种职能,可以节省员工劳动,使员工便捷的接受教育,使员工的满意度得到提高,有利于维护员工权利。     

Freedom of Association, Freedom of Contract, and the Right-to-Work Debate

The debate over union security arrangements is often presented as involving irreconcilable goals and values. Supporters of union security typically stress their importance to the union’s organizational strength and workers’ welfare. Right-to-work supporters, who favor banning such arrangements, typically emphasize employee freedom and choice. Our approach involves a unique comparison of both perspectives, which shows that neither perspective is completely compatible with safeguarding freedom. We therefore advocate reconciliation based on compulsory worker representation, which preserves the best freedom-enhancing properties of each perspective.     

中国汽车工业市场结构变迁及其成因

为揭示我国汽车工业的结构演进过程,以更好地引导发展,本文运用产业组织理论对我国汽车工业市场结构变迁及其成因进行了梳理。研究表明,我国汽车工业发展史可分为五个阶段,各阶段的市场结构特点、成因、竞争程度均有很大差异,其中政府和市场影响呈现此消彼长的局面,但政府角色更关键。政府一系列行为旨在塑造由国营车企主导的高集中度市场结构,但行政主导式的高集中寡占型市场结构由于缺乏有效市场竞争,因而市场结构始终与较强的市场势力和不完全竞争相联系。此外,本文还运用博弈论探讨了现阶段“多角联盟”下的企业行为,分析表明该结构下的价格合谋更具稳态性。     

State dependence,serial correlation and heterogeneity in the union membership dynamics

In order to distinguish the true and spurious state dependence from the complicated dynamics of union membership, the simulation estimators incorporating the lagged dependent variables, unobserved individual heterogeneity and correlations among the errors are implemented in this article to study union membership dynamics. It is found that the true state dependence of union membership under multivariate t assumption is much higher than the standard dynamic panel probit estimators which are under multivariate normal assumptions. On the other hand, the spurious state dependence (the variance of the unobserved individual heterogeneity) is estimated to be higher when using the standard dynamic panel probit estimators than under multivariate t assumption. Moreover, blacks and married men are found to have higher union membership true state dependence than whites and unmarried men.