LOCAL PAY DETERMINATION

Abstract. Theoretical models of local pay are reviewed, ranging from neoclassical perspectives, unemployment/wage trade-off models, and segmented labour market approaches. The empirical work on U.S. North-South differentials is discussed. For the U.K., studies of the extent of and trends in geographical pay differentials are considered, as well as behavioural explanations focusing on the role of excess demand. The issue of adjustment processes is then discussed, both in theory and in relation to empirical work for the U.S. and U.K. This discussion focuses largely on geographical spillover effects, in terms of origins, evidence, and issues of identification. Finally, the impact of certain impediments in the adjustment process are considered, specifically in relation to the U.K. These concern the role and influence of national wage bargaining, as well as factors inhibiting labour migration, stemming from the housing market and the climate of the national labour market.     

INSTITUTIONS AND (SHORT-RUN) MACROECONOMIC PERFORMANCE

Abstract. This paper reviews the growing interest in institutions. It argues that the explanation for this interest is a fresh awareness of how institutions affect economic performance. This connection arises because many economic interaction take the form of one or other of three 'classic' games (prisoners' dilemma, coordination and chicken) and the outcome in these games (and hence performance of the economy) is influenced by the institutional context of these interactions. The paper provides a detailed illustration of this argument with a survey of the literature which relates unemployment performances to the institutions of wage setting in OECD countries.     

Research on Embeddedness of Financial Institution in Guangxi Beibu Gulf Economic Zone

伴随着区域合作与发展的深化,如何挖掘现有的金融资源,加快引进有竞争力的金融机构,让引进的金融机构主体立足本地、根植本地,自觉地将自己的经营战略融入区域经济活动之中,成为金融管理监管部门思考的重要课题。本文以金融机构根植性这一创新视角,以广西北部湾经济区为例,分析金融机构根植性对经济区金融的传导机制,最后提出在政府服务功能、金融生态环境建设、保持适度差距等方面进行改进的建议。     

制度水平与双边股权资本流动——基于Heckman两阶段模型的分析

本文运用66个国家2001-2009年的双边股权资本流动数据,采用Heckman两阶段模型考察了制度水平对双边股权资本流动的影响。实证研究表明,母国和东道国的制度水平对股权资本投资决策和投资规模均具有显著的促进作用,但母国的制度水平起着决定性作用,一系列的稳健性检验也证实了制度水平对双边股权资本流动的作用是稳健的。此外,本文的研究还发现,传统的直接运用引力模型对双边资本流动的估计是有偏的,而Heckman两阶段估计是无偏估计。     

金融支持农民专业合作组织发展现状、问题及对策——以吉林省通化市为例

随着金融支持农民专业合作组织力度的持续增强,农民专业合作组织迅速发展,从而有效地提高了农民收入、推动了农村经济发展。然而,金融支持与农民专业合作组织发展现状还不能完全相适应,制约了农民专业合作组织进一步向高层次、规格化、专业化、产业化方向的发展。为此,本文以吉林省通化市为例,深入分析金融支持农民专业合作组织发展存在的问题及成因,并提出相关政策建议。     

涉农信贷与保险耦合模式下地方政府和保险机构行为的博弈分析

运用基于有限理性假设的演化博弈理论,对涉农信贷与保险耦合模式下地方政府和保险机构行为进行分析,得到了地方政府和保险机构同时分别支持和积极参与涉农信贷与保险耦合模式的参数条件,进而得到了涉农信贷与保险耦合模式可持续发展的现实条件,并给出对应的建议。     

河北省中小企业融资困境及对策研究

中小企业在促进河北省经济增长、就业增加等方面功不可没。然而融资难题却始终制约其健康发展,研究发现,应从企业自身、融资机构及融资环境三方面对症施治。     

Safety risk and international investment decisions

We identify and demonstrate the merit of a novel institutional factor, safety risk, which likely affects multinational corporations’ (MNCs’) international investment decisions. Safety risk refers to the extent to which security and physical well-being are endangered due to normalized aggression and criminality in society. Despite concerns from executives and policymakers, safety risk has attracted little research attention. We validate a safety risk measure and evaluate the construct’s effect on MNCs’ investments. The findings indicate that countries’ safety risk deters MNCs from investing. Further, in post hoc analyses, firms’ prior experiences with safety risk and countries’ private security investments moderated this relationship.     

Individualism and political instability

This paper examines the relationship between the individualism-collectivism dimension of culture and political instability using a dataset covering around 100 countries. To shed light on the causal effect of culture on political instability, the identification strategy exploits the variation in historical pathogen prevalence and the information provided by the genetic distance between countries. The results reveal that individualism has a negative and statistically significant impact on the degree of political instability, which means that this cultural trait contributes to making the political environment more stable. This finding is robust to the inclusion in the analysis of a substantial number of controls that may be correlated with both individualism and political instability, including other cultural dimensions. In fact, the relationship between individualism and political instability does not depend either on the specific measures used to quantify the level of individualism and political instability within the various countries or the estimation strategy adopted. The estimates also show that part of the observed effect of individualism is due to the impact of institutional quality, which acts as a transmission channel linking this cultural trait and political instability.     

Do political factors influence banking crisis?

This paper investigates the impending political determinants of banking crisis in advanced economies. In particular, we consider the impact of domestic credit growth on the likelihood of banking crisis and analyse possible constraints on the part of the governments in curbing the unsustainable credit growth. The endogeneity corrected results reveal that the household credit growth has greater impact on the likelihood of banking crisis than the enterprise credit growth. The political channel shows that if governments are concerned about domestic approval rates, then there is a higher chance of credit boom, which in turn increases the prospect of banking crisis. Interestingly, the findings reveal that the presence of an independent and well-functioning central bank mitigates the crisis probability and reduces the opportunistic behaviour of governments.