中国的刘易斯转折点到来了吗?——基于农业部门工资决定的视角

文章从刘易斯增长模型的经典著作入手,廓清刘易斯模型的关键假说,以农业部门工资决定原则变化的独特视角,即农业部门工资和劳动边际生产率的关系研究中国的刘易斯转折点。研究发现:中国经济整体上已经到达刘易斯第一转折点,但是研究还发现经济发展中存在不平衡性,东部发达地区已经接近刘易斯第二转折点(即商业化点),中西部大部分地区已经越过刘易斯第一转折点(即短缺点),西部少数欠发达地区还没有到达刘易斯第一转折点。     

农民工劳动权益状况分析——基于江苏省常州市的调查

农民工权益保护问题已成为当前我国社会面临的重大课题。文章利用江苏省常州市548位农民工的调查数据,对农民工的劳动权益状况进行了考察。研究发现,在31项有关权益保障的重要指标中,绝大多数指标结果不容乐观,农民工的多项劳动权益不能得到保障。劳动报酬获得、休息休假、劳动合同签订、社会保险与福利等方面的权益受损较为严重。基于调查结果,文章提出了加强农民工权益保障力度、实施人性化的企业管理制度、建立企业社会工作服务体系等对策建议。     

邯郸区县农村剩余劳动力转移研究

在城镇化的进程中,农村剩余劳动力转移到非农产业是一个必然的趋势,否则,将不可避免地导致农业资源的过度开发和人力资源的极大浪费,并导致从根本上难以解决农民收入的增加问题.因此,有必要在农村劳动力转移的过程中,研究和分析农村劳动力转移的具体形势,探究剩余劳动力转移和农村经济发展,农业劳动力转化和农村城镇化之间的关系问题.在实证研究邯郸区县剩余劳动力转移的基础上,获取不同的转移类型,为进一步解决农村剩余劳动力转移问题提供对策参考.     

The E nigma of Under-urbanization: An Explanation Based on International Trade

To study the relationship between under-urbanization and international trade, we set up a model of the transfer of surplus rural labor in an open economy using 1995-2010 data from 40 countries and regions where industrialization was incomplete. Our findings indicate that if, in an open economy, there is a substantial labor surplus and in which domestic goods and services can be sold to foreign markets, there will be a significantly positive correlation between the net export ratio and the degree to which urbanization lags behind industrialization; countries or regions with higher marketization level, lower urban unemployment rate and poorer public health facilities are more likely to be under- urbanized; and an inverted U-shaped relationship exists between under-urbanization and per capita GDP.     

The Non-Existence of the Labor Demand/Supply Diagram,and other Theorems of Institutional Economics

The most famous and influential diagram in modern (neoclassical) labor economics is the model of wage determination by supply and demand. Using concepts and ideas from institutional economics, I argue that the theory of a perfectly competitive labor market is logically contradictory and, hence, the demand/supply diagram cannot exist on the plane of pure theory. Four other fundamental theorems concerning labor markets are also derived, as are implications about the theoretical foundation of the field of industrial relations and the economic evaluation of labor and employment policy.

The Labor Market Participation of Sandwich Generation Italian Women

We empirically analyzed the labor market participation of Italian women, with special emphasis on the role of intergenerational family links. Older relatives, on the one hand, discourage the work participation of women by requiring care; on the other hand they may provide household services favoring labor supply. We studied this dual impact estimating a trivariate probit model where the three choices to be in the labor force, to use informal help from older relatives and to care for them are jointly determined. Our estimates show that care duties towards members of the previous generation hinder the labor market participation of Italian women, and that informal help received from older relatives strongly increases their probability of being engaged in paid work.

The Distributive Impact of Reforms in Credit Enforcement: Evidence From Indian Debt Recovery Tribunals

It is generally presumed that stronger legal enforcement of lender rights increases credit access for all borrowers because it expands the set of incentive compatible loan contracts. This result relies on an assumption that the supply of credit is infinitely elastic. In contrast, with inelastic supply, stronger enforcement generates general equilibrium effects that may reduce credit access for small borrowers and expand it for wealthy borrowers. In a firm‐level panel, we find evidence that an Indian judicial reform that increased banks' ability to recover nonperforming loans had such an adverse distributive impact.     

基于连续时间动态博弈的供应链声誉及其微分对策研究

着眼于企业及其供应链的可持续发展,纳入时间因素分析供应链协调问题.基于供应链视角考虑顾客价值开拓,并将其本质抽象为“供应链声誉”的构建过程.针对这一供应链动态协调问题,基于供应链成员企业之间的长期合作关系,在连续时间背景下采用变分法建立了供应链各方关于供应链声誉的微分对策模型,通过求解该模型发现在拟约束方程组有解时Nash均衡存在,并求出了相应的最优微分对策.这些理论研究结论阐明了长期的、稳定的合作关系对于实现供应链协调的意义,对于实践中供应链动态协调的实现具有一定的启发与参考价值.论文最后对相关结论进行了数值分析.     

Competitive and Collaborative Quality and Warranty Management in Supply Chains

Product quality and product warranty coverage are two important and closely related operational decisions. A longer warranty protection period can boost sales, but it may also result in dramatically increased warranty cost, if product quality is poor. To investigate how these two decisions interact with each other and influence supply chain performance, we develop a single‐period model with a supplier that provides a product to an original equipment manufacturer, which in turn sells it to customers. Customer demand is random and affected by the length of the product warranty period. Warranty costs are incurred by both the supplier and the manufacturer. We analyze two different scenarios based on which party sets the warranty period: manufacturer warranty and supplier warranty. Product quality is controlled by the supplier, and the manufacturer determines the ordering quantity. We analyze these decentralized systems and provide the structural properties of the equilibrium strategies. We also compare the results of centralized and decentralized systems and identify the conditions under which one system provides a longer warranty and better product quality than the other. Our numerical study further shows that, in decentralized settings, when the warranty period is determined by the firm sharing the larger proportion of total warranty costs, the supply chain can achieve greater system‐wide profit. Both parties can therefore benefit from properly delegating the warranty decision and sharing the resulting additional profit. We further design a supplier‐development and buy‐back contract for coordinating decentralized supply chains. Several extensions are also discussed.     

Value of and Interaction between Production Postponement and Information Sharing Strategies for Supply Chain Firms

We analyze the value of and interaction between production postponement and information sharing, which are two distinct strategies to reduce manufacturers’ uncertainty about demand. In both single‐level and two‐level supply chains, from the manufacturer's perspective, while information sharing is always valuable, production postponement can sometimes be detrimental. Furthermore, the value of production postponement is not merely driven by savings in inventory holding cost as postponement enables the manufacturer to avoid both excess and shortfall in production. We find that production postponement and information sharing strategies may substitute, complement, or conflict with each other, depending on the extent of the increase in the unit production cost when production is postponed. In a two‐level supply chain, from the retailer's perspective, information sharing and production postponement can be beneficial or detrimental. When information sharing is beneficial to the retailer, the retailer always shares her demand information with the manufacturer voluntarily. In addition, this voluntary information sharing is truthful because inflated or deflated demand information hurts the retailer through a higher wholesale price or a stock‐out. However, the retailer never shares her demand information voluntarily if the manufacturer has already adopted production postponement because production postponement and information sharing strategies always conflict with each other. Even when the retailer does not benefit from information sharing, we show that the manufacturer can always design an incentive mechanism to induce the retailer to share the demand information, irrespective of whether the manufacturer has already implemented production postponement or not. The above findings underscore the need for a careful assessment of demand uncertainty‐reduction strategies before the supply chain players embark upon them.