区域技术相容性及其经济收益指标分析--兼谈西部投资收益的技术水平结构差异

文章提出了区域技术相容性的概念,并着重讨论了这一概念中的经济收益指标。从西部区域技术相容性经济收益指标的度量入手,通过对统计数据的计算和整理,分析了这一指标与技术含量成正比等四个特征,研究了形成这些特征的原因,并对我国西部开发中投资收益的技术水平结构差异中的若干问题提出了建议,认为在西部投入技术含量较高的项目更为经济;加大西部大开发的科技投入,不仅必需,而且合算。     

中国农村贫困地区脱贫与经济增长要素分析

通过对河南33个经济不发达县有关数据的统计分析，可以得出资本、劳动力和土地三个投入要素对农业产出的贡献率。结合当地扶贫资金和扶贫专项贷款使用落实情况统计资料、劳动力状况和后备土地资源统计资料，我们详细分析了贫困地区这三个要素对经济增长和脱贫的作用，以及这三要素之间的相互替代关系，重点强调资本投入及资本投向对于贫困地区脱贫及经济发展的重要性。     

Expanding New York State's Earned Income Tax Credit Programme: the effect on work,income and poverty

Given its favourable employment incentives and ability to target the working poor, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has become the primary antipoverty programme at both the federal and state levels. However, when evaluating the effect of EITC programmes on income and poverty, governments generally calculate the effect using simple accounting, where the value of the state or federal EITC benefit is added to a person's income. These calculations omit the behavioural incentives created by the existence of these programmes, the corresponding effect on labour supply and hours worked, and therefore the actual effect on income and poverty. This article simulates the full effect of an expansion of the New York State EITC benefit on employment, hours worked, income, poverty and programme expenditures. These results are then compared to those omitting labour supply effects. Relative to estimates excluding labour supply effects, the preferred behavioural results show that an expansion of the New York State EITC increases employment by an additional 14?244 persons, labour earnings by an additional $95.8 million, family income by an additional $84.5 million, decreases poverty by an additional 56?576 persons and increases costs to the State by $29.7 million.     

INNOVATION ACTIVITIES EXPLAINED BY FIRM ATTRIBUTES AND LOCATION

In this paper, innovation activities of a firm are observed as its R&D spending and participation in three categories of innovation systems. The various factors that can influence a firm's innovation efforts are divided into, (i) firm location reflecting the regional milieu and (ii) firm attributes such as corporate structure, nature of the knowledge production, type of industry and a set of specific firm characteristics. The study is based on information about 2094 individual firms, which may be non-affiliated or belong to a group (multi-firm enterprise). The empirical analysis applies a novel data set to examine the influence of location versus a vector of firm attributes. Among innovative firms, the location of a firm does not influence neither the R&D intensity nor the frequency of interaction in horizontal and vertical innovation systems, when controlling the skill composition, physical capital intensity, industry, firm size and market extension. The paper contributes to the literature by observing that innovative firms have similar characteristics irrespective of where they are located, although the share of innovative firms differs between regions.     

The Route Matters: Poverty and Inequality among Lone-Mother Households in Russia

Using the case of Russia, this paper takes issue with the stereotype of lone mothers as the poorest women in society, with the most disadvantaged children. Analysis of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey suggests there is enormous diversity in the material circumstances and livelihoods of lone mothers. Complementing the diversity of lone mothers' experiences is the finding that women who live with male partners, but who are responsible economically for their households, face problems much like those of lone mothers. The structural inequities that result from combining paid labor with unpaid care and childrearing have particularly adverse consequences for lone mothers and for women who bear the brunt of maintaining their households. While this analysis emphasizes the different aspects of the falsely homogenizing category “lone mother,” it also recognizes the structural disadvantages shared by lone mothers and other women in Russia today.     

Lone Mothers: What is to be done?

This Dialogue presents the views of four authors, from the US, the UK, and Norway, on the best policies to help lone mothers. Lone mothers face an inevitable dilemma in allocating their time between earning income and caring for their children. The low-earning capacity of women in an unequal labor market exacerbates the problem, causing material hardship for many lone mothers and their families. The policy solutions proposed lie along a spectrum, ranging from those that seek to enable all lone mothers to take employment to those that aim to let mothers choose whether to take employment or care for their children themselves. Other policies discussed concern ways to value and support caregiving, improve the low-wage labor market for women, and provide a set of income supports that would both boost income and provide time to care for children.     

Gender Differences in Time-Poverty in Rural Mozambique

Based on time-use data from a 2013 primary household survey, this study examines the nature and extent of time-poverty experienced by men and women in peasant households in Mozambique. The main findings indicate that while women's labor allocation to economic activities is comparable to that of men, household chores and care work are almost entirely women's responsibility. The heavy burden of responsibilities leave women significantly time-poorer compared to men. Women's time-poverty worsens when the burden of simultaneous care work is taken into account. In addition, due to multitasking, the work tends to be more taxing. The examination of determinants of time-poverty shows that common measures of individual economic power, such as assets and education, do not necessarily affect the time-poverty faced by women.     

Trade liberalization,technology, relative factor supplies and the relative wage: evidence from the South

There is much controversy about the role that trade liberalization, technological change and relative factor supplies have played in bringing about changes in the relative wage of the unskilled workers. Much of the empirical work on this issue has focused on the industrial countries and paid little attention to developing countries. To fill this gap, this study develops a special data set to examine the relative wage behaviour of a large number of developing countries. An empirical model based on the theory is used to test different explanations of the relative wage change. As predicted by the technology explanation, the empirical analysis in the study finds a significant negative link between the relative wage of unskilled workers and the technology index. The analysis, however, does not find a significant role for labour supplies or trade liberalization in determining the relative wage of unskilled–skilled workers.     

The Pro‐Poorness,Growth and Inequality Nexus: Some Findings From a Simulation Study

An income growth pattern is pro‐poor if it reduces a (chosen) measure of poverty by more than if all incomes were growing equiproportionately. Inequality reduction is not sufficient for pro‐poorness. In this paper, we explore the nexus between pro‐poorness, growth, and inequality in some detail using simulations involving the displaced lognormal, Singh–Maddala, and Dagum distributions. For empirically relevant parameter estimates, distributional change preserving the functional form of each of these three‐parameter distributions is often either pro‐poor and inequality reducing, or pro‐rich and inequality exacerbating, but it is also possible for pro‐rich growth to be inequality reducing. There is some capacity for each of these distributions to show trickle effects (weak pro‐richness) along with inequality‐reducing growth, but virtually no possibility of pro‐poorness for growth which increases overall inequality. Implications are considered.     

A Dynamic Gender Analysis of Spain's Pension Reforms of 2011

Abstract

Gender differences in the labor market have been widely studied and discussed in terms of both research and public policy. One of the contributions of feminist economics has been to analyze and demonstrate links between gendered labor market experience and retirement incomes. This paper presents a methodology to study the dynamics of gender differences among retirees in Spain. The study provides a way to predict the effects of government policies proposed in 2011 that change the institutional framework of social security systems in an effort to address the fiscal challenges of an aging population.