Economic Competition,Policy Interdependence,and Labour Rights

Extant scholarship treats national policies concerning labour rights as a function of economic factors and yet neglects influences of policies among economically competing states. Relying on the policy interdependence theory, this study argues that labour rights policy in a state is dependent on its economic competitors’ labour policy decisions. It specifically maintains that the intensifying competition for foreign direct investment and exports as well as against imports channels negative externalities of deteriorating labour protection in competing states which drives expansive downward policy mimicking and leads to a global decline in labour rights – a race to the bottom. Utilising spatial econometric technique to analyse a new data on labour rights for the period 1994–2009, it finds that labour rights practices are interdependent among economic competitors and experience global deteriorations; whereas labour rights laws remain largely independent due to high policy and reputational costs of lowering them and show more fluctuations.     

ECONOMIC TRANSITION AND LABOUR MARKET DYNAMICS IN CHINA: AN INTERPRETATIVE SURVEY OF THE ‘TURNING POINT’ DEBATE

Has the Chinese economy approached the ‘Lewisian turning point’ that marks the ending of the initial phase of industrial transformation fuelled by surplus labour? In this paper we undertake an interpretative survey of the literature on this issue, in the context of China's labour market conditions prior to the reforms and structural change of the past three decades. The available evidence is mixed, and our assessment makes a strong case for probing institutional constraints to labour mobility from an economy‐wide perspective, going beyond the confines of the rural economy.     

Firm ownership and internal labour practices in a transition economy

One feature common to many post‐socialist transition economies is a relatively compressed wage structure in the state‐owned sector. We conjecture that this compressed wage structure creates weak incentives for work effort and worker skill acquisition and thus presents adverse consequences for the entire transition economy if a substantial portion of the labour force works in the state sector. We explore firm wage incentives and worker training, as well as other labour practices and outcomes, in a transition setting with matched firm and worker data collected in one of the largest provinces of Vietnam – Ho Chi Minh City. The Vietnamese state sector exhibits a compressed wage distribution in relation to privately owned firms with foreign ownership. State wage practices stress tenure over worker productivity and their wage policies result in flatter wage–experience profiles and lower returns to education. The state work force is in greater need of formal training, a need that is in part met through direct government financing. In spite of the opportunities for government financed training and at least partly due to inefficient worker incentives, state firms, by certain measures, exhibit lower levels of labour productivity. The private sector comparison group to state firms for all of these findings is foreign owned firms. The internal labour practices of foreign firms are more consistent with a view of profit‐maximizing firms operating with no political constraints. This is not the case for Vietnamese de novo private firms that exhibit much more idiosyncratic behaviour and whose labour practices are often indistinguishable from state firms. The exact reasons for this remain a topic of on‐going research yet we conjecture that various private sector constraints, including limited access to formal capital, play an important role.     

企业激励机制模型设计中的几个问题

企业激励机制系统的设计必须以产权清晰、资本市场的发展为前提，系统模型的设计者应该是具有专业知识的专门机构，在指标设计中必须处理好数量测度与非数量测度、短期指标与长期指标、静态指标与动态指标之间的关系.     

Internal labour markets in the Australian banking industry: their nature prior to the Second World War and their recent decline

This paper uses evidence from late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century personnel records of two Australian banks to examine the nature of internal labour markets prior to the Second World War. It is argued that the industry possessed all the classic features of internal labour markets: limited ports of entry, internal promotion, long careers, and assignment of wages by well-defined rules. The paper then examines the reasons why banks adopted internal labour markets. Finally, the paper examines the recent decline of internal labour markets and examines the role of technological and social changes in this decline.     

票据无权代理追认制度微探

票据行为是一种法律行为，自然也可以以代理方式为之。民法上有关代理制度的规则一般也都可以适用于票据代理行为。但由于民法与商事法的立法旨趣各有侧重，为促进票据流通、保障交易安全，票据代理不能照搬民法上关于代理制度的规定。票据的无权代理是票据代理中一个非常典型的问题，与民法上的无权代理区别很大，其中存在的问题很多。对于票据的无权代理中是否应当赋予本人以追认权，多数大陆法系国家的立法例与英美法系国家之立法例有所不同。     

国家行为与产权：一个新制度经济学的分析框架

早期的产权理论侧重于微观层次的分析，较少考虑中观（利益集团）及宏观层次（国家）对产权结构形成的影响及不同层次产权的交互作用的机制。文章从新制度经济学关于国家的定义入手，通过对个体权力与国家、集体行动与国家以及法治化社会与国家的三个层次的分析，提出建立产权制度分析的国家模型，从而论证国家与产权制度变迁的关系。     

调配产权收益完善资产负债结构

国资监督机构在深化国资国企过程中应集中调配产权权益,完善资产负债结构,优化资源配置,通过资本运营和良好的市场环境,充分发挥中央和地方政府的职能,在互为尊重的前提下,杜绝侵权行为的发生。     

论商标反向假冒行为及其法律规制

商标反向假冒行为妨碍了他人对自己商标的正常使用，扰乱了正常的市场秩序，欺骗了广大消费者和公众。很多国家的立法都明文对其进行规制，我国现行法律亦从不同角度对其进行规制。当前，对严重的商标反向假冒行为，应予以刑法调整。     

On measuring the wealth of nations: the US economy, 1964-2001

This paper examines the methodology of Shaikh and Tonak (Measuringthe Wealth of Nations, 1994) underlying their calculation ofestimates of productive labour in the US economy from 1964 to2001. The focus is not on the results but on the methods thatgenerate them. The paper finds that the compromises made byShaikh and Tonak because of data unavailability are unreliable,and that better approximations are possible. On this latterbasis, the Shaikh and Tonak methodology can be used to providethe labour and wage estimates needed for empirical investigationsin the surplus-based tradition.