Economic Growth in Canada and the United States: Supply‐Push or Demand‐Pull?

Understanding the nature of structural change and the sources of economic growth of an economy, especially the relative importance of different industries, is essential for policy‐making. This paper estimates industry contribution to economic growth in both Canada and the United States. It argues that industry contribution should be evaluated on the basis of the performance of an industry in terms of creating economic value relative to other industries. In particular, it calls for the quantity and the price effects, which is consistent with real GDP in the chained‐Fisher index that values the industry more when its price rises and less when its price declines. This is an important departure from the traditional methodologies that consider only quantity effect. This paper shows that the contribution from demand‐driven industries is significantly more than the finding based on traditional thinking.     

Has Switzerland Really Been Marked by Low Productivity Growth? Hours Worked and Labor Productivity in Switzerland in a Long‐run Perspective

This paper shows that previous work has understated Switzerland's performance in terms of labor productivity growth. First, available data on hours worked are incoherent and overestimate growth in hours worked. The paper therefore establishes a consistent series of total hours worked and its components covering 1950–2010, showing that Swiss labor inputs actually were stable from 1964 to 2007. Second, long‐term improvements in Switzerland's Terms of Trade indicate that quality improvements in Swiss exports might not be fully mirrored in growth of GDP and, hence, productivity growth.     

企业金融资产配置与全要素生产率之谜——基于中国A股制造业上市公司财务数据的GMM分析

全要素生产率增长放缓的"生产率之谜"根源之一在于企业金融化行为,表现为企业越来越偏好配置金融资产。理论上,企业金融资产配置对全要素生产率存在"储蓄"和"挤出"的双重作用机制。进一步地,基于2008-2016年A股制造业上市公司的财务数据,采用GMM方法,实证了"生产率之谜"来自金融化假说的一个解释。实证结果显示：（1）金融资产配置与TFP二者之间呈现倒U型关系,说明金融资产配置在"TFP增速下降"之谜中扮演了促进因子的角色;（2）金融资产配置的挤出效应大于储蓄效应,表明企业套利动机强于储蓄动机,意味着长期来看TFP增长动力趋于弱化;（3）对TFP作用大小随企业所有权性质呈现出较大差异,非国有制造业企业的"储蓄"效应更加显著,而国有制造业企业则更多的是挤出效应;（4）融资约束越小、杠杆率越高、机构投资者越集中、企业规模越大和托宾Q值越低的企业更加偏好金融资产配置,其通过"挤出"效应而对TFP的负向作用也越大。因此,警惕企业金融活动的过度化,并采用差别化的"疏""堵"结合的金融供给侧结构性改革让制造业企业能"安心做好主业"。     

和谐社会引发的经济学思考

文章从经济学角度分析了和谐社会带来的三点思考:和谐社会呼唤主流经济学“经济人”假设研究范式的变革;和谐社会所追求的经济增长是社会和谐GDP的增长;和谐也是生产力。     

Linking HRM and Small Business Performance: An Examination of the Impact of HRM Intensity on the Productivity and Financial Performance of Small Businesses

Attempts to explore empirically the link between HRM and firm performance are numerous. Yet, research on this link remains restricted to large companies. Little is known about the extent to which the existing results extend to small businesses. The purpose of the present study is to develop and test a conceptual framework linking HRM to financial performance that fits small businesses. The central question is whether the development of an intensive HRM is profitable for smaller organizations. For the development and optimization of the conceptual framework, we rely on human capital theory and bankruptcy prediction models. Using structural equation modeling, we study the mediating effect of voluntary turnover and productivity on the relationship between HRM intensity and one year lagged financial performance. The results show both productivity and profitability enhancing effects as well as a cost increasing impact of HRM intensity.     

A Ranking of the Most Productive Business Ethics Scholars: A Five-Year Study

This paper presents the results of a study that counted articles and the number of pages written on business ethics and published during the five-year period 1995–1999. Individual scholars were ranked on the basis of total articles and total pages published. Institutions were also ranked based on the number of pages and articles their scholars published in selected business ethics journals. This article is the first one to rank schools and individual scholars on the basis of research productivity in business ethics.     

Potential Growth of the US Economy: Will the Productivity Resurgence Continue?

This paper analyzes the sources of U.S. productivity growth through 2004 and presents medium-term projections for the U.S. economy. We attribute a substantial portion of productivity gains over the past decade to production and use of information technology equipment and software. In the most recent years, we also identify a growing contribution from sources outside the technology- producing sectors. Our base-case projection for the GDP growth rate is almost exactly three percent. We emphasize the substantial range of uncertainty by presenting an optimistic projection of 3.5 percent and a pessimistic projection of only 1.9 percent. JEL Classification D240,E230     

Why sales reps should welcome information technology: Measuring the impact of CRM-based IT on sales effectiveness

This study seeks to answer the following question: Can sales representatives enhance their performance through their acceptance of information technology (IT) tools? Using data collected from two companies, we show that despite uncertain results and the frequent resistance among salespeople to IT interventions, IT acceptance indeed has a positive effect on sales performance. This occurs because salespeople using IT expand their knowledge and, in turn, gain improved targeting abilities, enhanced presentation skills, and increased call productivity. Thus, sales representatives have a strong incentive to accept IT because doing so is likely to sharpen their own job performance.     

R&;D,International Trade and Creative Destruction—Empirical Findings from Finnish Manufacturing Industries*

The determinants of productivity-enhancing micro-level restructuring are examined empirically with a panel of the twelve Finnish manufacturing industries. It is hypothesized that R&D leads to productivity diversity among plants, which in turn leads to the gradual reshuffling of input shares in the presence of dynamic competitive pressure. The effect of the creative destruction on industry productivity growth is measured with the between-component of productivity decomposition. Econometric results indicate with reasonable robustness that R&D generates creative destruction with a lag of several years. Some evidence is found that imports stimulate productivity-enhancing restructuring, especially when domestic R&D is low.JEL classification: O12, 014, 019, O31, O47*This paper is based on the chapter 8 of my PhD thesis which has been accepted by the Helsinki School of Economics (2003). The research has received financial support from Tekes (the National Technology Agency), and from the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation. This paper has benefited from comments by Petri Böckerman, Pekka Ilmakunnas, Kabor Kezdi, and Petri Rouvinen, to whom I am grateful. I am also thankful to the referees for helpful comments. Lisa Roponen has checked my English. An earlier version of this paper has been presented at the EARIE 2002 conference in Madrid and at the Summer at CEU Workshop in Budapest in 2003. Data work and computations have been carried out at Statistics Finland, in accordance with the terms and conditions of confidentiality. I also wish to thank many individuals at Statistics Finland for their guidance regarding the properties of the data. Please contact the Research Laboratory of the Business Structures Unit, Statistics Finland, FIN-00022, Finland, for access to these data. The usual disclaimer applies.     

关于中国市场体系建设和流通现代化的几个问题

本文认为,从市场体系和市场机制的完备程度来看,我国还不能称之为发达市场经济国家。因为我国要素市场特别是资本市场发育程度不够,一些重要商品和服务还没有真正市场化,国民经济中还存在一些价格机制管不到的领域。当前我国大量存在的工业消费品和生产资料批发市场,应当成为一种开放式的经营业态,一切好的流通方式,都可以学习引进,同时也不排除向一切先进业态转化。推进流通现代化,要从中国国情出发,鼓励各种业态平等竞争;要突破禁区,打破垄断,进一步解放流通生产力;要转换政府在流通中的角色,从市场的“创造者”转变为市场的“服务者”,从“运动员”转变为“裁判员”;要积极应对“入世”,加快整合国内市场,发掘中国流通企业的自身优势,尽快实现改造和升级,真正把服务质量和流通效率搞上去;要加快流通立法,整顿和规范市场秩序;要充分发挥流通行业协会的作用。