The ‘amelioration’ of child labor, ‘a modest proposal’

More than 317 million children between the age of 5 and 17 are working in the world. Child labor is a persistent phenomenon, even though its incidence has subsided with economic development. In this paper, we conduct a panel study of 101 countries from 1980 to 2004 where child labor is proxied by the labor force participation of children aged 10–14. We look at the relationships between child labor and investments in human capital, foreign direct investments, countries’ openness to trade, and credit market constraints. We depart from the contributions of cross-country studies by employing a fixed effects instrumental variable (FE-IV) panel data model by employing a fixed effects instrumental variable (FE-IV) panel data model to account for unobserved heterogeneity and endogeneity of child labor and individual country-specific effects. We find support for the conclusions of the above-mentioned studies: countries that trade more and have a higher stock of foreign direct investment have less child labor. More generally, we find that trade openness, investments in human capital, and financial development are associated with a reduction of child labor. Child labor persists but tailored policies on trade, investment, and financial reform can lessen child labor along with economic growth, improvements in health, and rising standards of living.     

The simultaneous evolution of economic growth,financial development,and trade openness

This article empirically investigates the interactions among economic growth, financial development, and trade openness through simultaneous equation systems. The identification and estimation of the systems rely on the methodology of identification through heteroskedasticity. The empirical results show that each of the three variables interacts in important ways. When controlling for the reverse causation, trade promotes economic growth in high-income, low-inflation, and nonagricultural countries but has a negative impact on growth in countries with the opposite attributes. Similarly, when accounting for the feedbacks from growth, banks and stock markets have different impacts on economic growth. While banking development is detrimental to output growth, stock market development is more favorable to growth in high-income, low-inflation, and nonagricultural countries. The data also reveal coexistence of a positive effect of financial development on trade and a negative effect of trade on financial development in poorer countries. In richer countries, financial development stimulates trade openness whereas trade has an ambiguous impact on financial development.     

The Aggregate and Distributional Effects of Financial Globalization: Evidence from Macro and Sectoral Data

We take a fresh look at the aggregate and distributional effects of policies to liberalize international capital flows—financial globalization. Both country‐ and industry‐level results suggest that such policies have led on average to limited output gains while contributing to significant increases in inequality. The country‐level results are based on 228 capital account liberalization episodes spanning 149 advanced and developing economies from 1970 to the present. Difference‐in‐difference estimation using industry‐level data for 23 advanced economies suggests that liberalization episodes reduce the share of labor income, particularly for industries with higher external financial dependence, higher natural propensity to use layoffs to adjust to idiosyncratic shocks, and higher elasticity of substitution between capital and labor.     

Financial development and financial openness nexus: the precondition of banking competition

We examine the dynamic relationship between financial development and financial openness using the pooled mean group estimator developed by Pesaran et al. (1999). Our results show that financial openness has a positive effect on financial development in the long run, but may have a negative effect in the short run. Using estimates of country-specific short-run coefficients, we also find that the adverse short-run effects of financial openness are associated with a lower degree of banking competition. The system GMM estimator also supports these findings, suggesting that the financial development and financial openness nexus is contingent on the degree of banking competition. A key policy implication is that a higher degree of banking competition is a precondition for financial openness to promote financial development.     

对外直接投资逆向技术溢出对中国技术创新的影响研究——基于长江经济带的门槛面板模型分析

本文基于2006—2018年长江经济带的省际面板数据,在利用基准回归模型检验OFDI逆向技术溢出对技术创新促进作用的基础上,构建了门槛面板模型,检验不同经济开放度下OFDI逆向技术溢出对我国技术创新的影响。实证结果表明,衡量经济开放度的三个指标中,研发强度和技术差距均存在单一门槛作用,并且对OFDI逆向技术溢出起到明显地促进作用;而市场开放度则存在双重门槛,呈现出先促进再阻碍而后又促进的过程。最后,结合长江经济带地区的发展实际,提出了利用OFDI促进技术创新的措施建议,以期为我国经济高质量发展提供参考。     

安徽省沿江五市经济开放度评析

安徽省沿江五市是安徽最活跃的经济带之一,其对外开放的地域优势以及经济活跃程度均高于安徽其他地市。沿江五市经济开放度具有明显提高和发展相对不平衡的特点。     

日本消费产品事故信息收集与公开制度

建立消费产品事故信息收集与公开制度是产品安全管理、保护消费者生命财产安全、提高产品安全水平的重要制度保障,是缺陷产品召回管理制度的一项重要组成部分。文章拟通过对日本消费产品事故信息收集与公开制度的解剖,以期对我国产品安全管理,尤其是缺陷产品管理工作提供参考。     

贸易开放与发展中国家收入差距扩大——基于中国的理论与实证分析

文章将人力资本结构因素纳入到贸易开放与发展中国家内部收入差距关系的分析框架之中,通过理论推理和实证检验考察了贸易开放、人力资本结构对发展中国家收入差距扩大的影响机制、条件与力度.研究表明,贸易开放对发展中国家收入差距扩大的影响不但与其所带来的技术进步类型有关,还与该国的产业发展战略和人力资本(人才供给)结构密切相关.就我国而言,人力资本结构升级速度慢于贸易产品结构升级速度,是贸易尤其是出口导致收入差距扩大的重要条件.     

What Kind of Dialogue Should Paradigm-Dialogues Be?

Paradigm-dialogues are important for several reasons. One reason is to clarify what kind of paradigmatical aspects do have an effect on choosing a qualitative or quantitative research method. To be successful a paradigm-dialogue should have informational quality, self-reflective quality, argumentative quality and communicative quality. The argumentative quality, however, should not be of a persuasive or competitive nature because of the partial a-rationality of paradigms. Paradigm-dialogues should be aimed at self-clarification, mutual understanding and sharing learning processes. That is why communicative quality is important to protect and to promote argumentative quality of a non-persuasive kind. Communicative quality should be understood in terms of striving for a dialogical relationship which is characterized by interactivity, communicative symmetry, openness, multiple hermeneutics, mutual trust and respect. Communicative symmetry is feasible and desirable. An ironic attitude may be helpful.     

Indicators of business environment,institutional quality and foreign direct investment in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries

This paper empirically investigates the effect of five business environment indicators and four measures of institutional quality on FDI inflows in GCC countries. The empirical results reveal that the time required to start a business, the time required to enforce a contract, the time required to register a property and the time required to resolve insolvency are negatively and statistically significantly correlated with FDI inflows. Our findings also confirm that political instability and absence of democracy, in fact, encourages FDI inflows. We conclude that the business environment strongly matters for FDI inflows into the GCC countries.