The Inequality of Regional Economic Development in China between 1991 and 2001

This paper measures the unequal development of the regional economies in China and investigates the primary factors leading to the inequality. The official data on China's regional GDP and the regional GDP of three industrial sectors from 1991–2001, as reported in the China Statistical Yearbook and A Statistical Survey of China, are adopted to calculate and decompose the Gini coefficient for each year. The primary finding is that the levels of inequality in China's regional economies clearly showed a slight upward trend after 1991. The inequality of the overall GDP is primarily attributed to the between-group effect rather than to the within-group effect. It is also found that the regional inequality of the secondary industry sector's development accounted for half of the overall inequality. Thus, this study suggests that it is crucial for China to formulate and adhere to policies that will help it to develop the economy more equally among all areas and to develop the secondary industry sector among all regions/provinces in order to overcome the important issue of the inequality in regional economic development.     

关于规范国企高管年薪及制订《工资法》的建议

国企高管年薪过高的问题，成为人们对分配不公意见的焦点之一．国企高管的天价年薪，没有法律上的依据。应尽快制订工资法，对全国各行各业的工资进行调整规范。     

2020年农民增收:新冠肺炎疫情的影响与应对建议

新冠肺炎疫情将从多个渠道、多重方式对今年农民增收带来严重冲击,其中对工资性收入影响尤为突出。疫情在全球加速扩散,对全球经济贸易增长冲击严重,通过全球供应链影响我国产业经营和农民就业,今年后期农民持续增收挑战巨大。本文认为必须统筹疫情防控和经济社会发展两线作战;加快中小企业复工复产,实施文化旅游产业振兴,加大创新创业支持,恢复和稳定农民就业增收;创新农产品产销对接,实施产业提升工程,提升风险治理能力,稳住和促进农业经营增收;加强国际疫情研判,抓紧做好防范应对,稳住农民增收基础。要对标问题、攻坚克难、系统发力,通过一揽子政策助力农民持续增收,力争如期实现全面建成小康社会和全面打赢脱贫攻坚战目标。     

Labour mobility and wage inequality in the presence of endogenous foreign investment

This paper examines the impact of labour mobility and increased competition on skilled–unskilled wage inequality and foreign investment. Unlike the existing literature this paper considers a model where foreign investment is endogenously determined. The paper shows that in the shortrun, inflow of either skilled or unskilled labour has no effect on wage inequality but increased competition increases wage inequality. Inflow of either type of labour increases foreign investment but the impact of increased competition on foreign investment cannot be unambiguously determined. Inflow of skilled labour increases wage inequality in the longrun and its effect on foreign investment is positive. Increased competition in the longrun increases wage inequality, foreign investment and welfare.     

Intersectoral wage linkages: the case of Sweden

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether wage-setting in certain sectors of the Swedish economy affects wage-setting in other sectors. The theoretical background is the Scandinavian model of inflation, which states that wage-setting in the sectors exposed to international competition lead wage-setting in the sheltered sectors of the economy. The Johansen maximum likelihood cointegration approach is applied to quarterly data on Swedish sector wages for the period 1980:1–2002:2. Different vector error correction (VEC) models are created, based on assumptions as to which sectors are exposed to international competition and which are not. Granger causality tests are then carried out in the different restricted/unrestricted VEC models to test for sector wage leadership. The Granger causality tests provide strong evidence for the presence of intersectoral wage causality, but no evidence of a wage-leading role for the internationally exposed manufacturing sector.      

国际贸易与劳动力市场:研究述评

近三十年来,国际贸易迅速发展,同时各国劳动力市场保持着一种动态变化,国际贸易对劳动力市场的影响不断加深.在这一背景下,国际经济学和劳动经济学领域的学者对国际贸易与劳动力市场的关系进行了大量的理论与经验研究,相关研究主要集中在三个方面:国际贸易对各国工资的影响、国际贸易对各国就业的效应以及国际贸易对劳动力需求弹性的影响.本文将从上述三个方面对相关研究进行回顾.     

Factor decomposition of cross-country income inequality, 1960–1990

In this paper we present Esteban's 1994 [Esteban, J., 1994. La desigualdad interregional en Europa y en España: descripción y análisis. In: Esteban, J.M^a., Vives, X. (dirs.), Crecimiento y convergencia regional en España y en Europa, Vol. 2, Instituto de Análisis Económico] decomposition of the Theil index of inequality over per capita incomes into the (unweighted) sum of the inequality indices of (i) the productivity per employed worker, (ii) the employment rate, (iii) the active over working-age population rate, and (iv) the working-age over total population rate. Each of these factors clearly have different meanings for analysis as well as for policy. We apply this factoral decomposition to a set of 120 countries. We also contrast the empirical findings with the results obtained for the 23 OECD countries. [OECD, Labour Force Statistics, Several issues, Paris].     

收入分配、医疗资源与人口健康:一个跨国研究

收入分配与人口健康的关系是一个争论已久的问题。本文在总结各种理论假说和以往实证研究的基础上,使用新的、质量较好的跨国面板数据,重新检验了收入分配与人口健康的关系。本文的分析重点有二:一是收入分配对人口健康的滞后影响;二是医疗资源在收入分配与人口健康的相关关系中所起的作用。本文的主要发现是,收入不均对人口健康的确有不利影响,但这种不利影响需要10年或更长的滞后期才能充分显现出来,这种滞后性是以往使用固定效应模型的跨国研究未能检测到收入不均与人口健康具有负相关关系的主要原因。此外,医疗资源(特别是初级医疗资源)人均拥有量对人口健康有积极作用;医疗资源有可能通过某种不可观察固定因素对收入分配与人口健康的关系发生影响。这些发现有助于澄清关于收入分配与人口健康关系的争论,对医疗政策也有重要参考价值。     

Downward wage rigidity and job mobility

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) we study whether being individually affected by downward wage rigidity has an effect on layoffs, quits and intra-firm mobility. Within a structural empirical model we estimate the individual extent of wage rigidity. This is expressed by the wage sweep-up, which measures by how much individual wage growth increases through the effect of downward wage rigidity when compared to a counterfactual labour market with flexible wage setting. We find robust negative effects of wage sweep-up on quits and layoffs and some evidence for a positive association of wage sweep-up and promotion opportunities. This is consistent with a core-periphery view of the labour force, where a core work force is protected from layoffs and wage cuts and at the same time enjoys good promotion opportunities. On the other side a peripheral work force provides a buffer for adjustment and suffers from both flexible wages, more insecure jobs and less internal promotion opportunities.      

The labor market effects of foreign owned firms

Foreign firms have a more educated workforce and pay higher wages than domestic firms even after controlling for worker quality, at a given moment in time. This does not imply that foreign ownership improves the labor market outcomes of the workers since foreign investment may be guided by unobservable firm and worker characteristics correlated with schooling or wages. This paper asks whether foreign investors acquire firms with high human capital or wages, or whether foreign acquisition improves these outcomes. Using a matched employer-employee data set, I find that foreign acquisitions of domestic firms have small effects on the human capital and on average wages of the acquired firms. Instead, foreign investors “cherry pick” those domestic firms that are already very similar to the group of existing foreign firms.