The Impact of a Customs Union with the European Union on Internal Migration in Turkey

Abstract The impact of the recent Customs Union (CU) agreement between Turkey and the European Union on internal migration is studied using an intra‐industry trade Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model with intersectoral capital mobility under two alternative specifications for the labor market: the traditional Harris‐Todaro approach and the existence of a “wage curve” in the urban sector. Under both specifications, the numerical results show that the CU is welfare enhancing and causes a reduction of the urban‐rural wage gap as suggested by theoretical studies. At the same time, it leads to rural‐to‐urban migration and raises the capital rent, results that are counter intuitive with respect to the dual economy literature. Furthermore, the rise in formal labor demand and the migration response to the CU have not resulted in an increase in urban unemployment (i.e. the “Todaro paradox”), but rather to a fall in the unemployment pool. The study also shows that the Bhagwati‐Srinivasan proposal of maximizing welfare by uniformly subsidizing the entire labor market is impracticable, especially if the high wage union sector can negotiate employment conditions.     

RURAL–URBAN MIGRATION AND UNEMPLOYMENT: THEORY AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS*

ABSTRACT We develop a regional model where, in the city, unemployment prevails because of too high (efficiency) wages, while, in the rural area, workers are paid at their marginal productivity. We characterize the steady‐state equilibrium and show that it is unique. We then consider two policies: decreasing urban unemployment benefits and subsidizing urban employment. We find that decreasing the unemployment benefit in the city creates urban jobs and reduces rural–urban migration since new migrants have to spend some time unemployed before they can find a job in the city. On the other hand, raising employment subsidies increases urban employment but may also increase urban unemployment because it triggers more rural–urban migration. In this respect, the employment subsidy policy can backfire by raising rather than reducing urban unemployment.     

DISGUISED,URBAN UNEMPLOYMENT AND WELFARE IN A GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM MODEL WITH SEGMENTED LABOR MARKETS*

ABSTRACT This paper integrates the theory of segmented labor markets with the Ranis-Fei model of dualism to analyze two types of unemployment; disguised unemployment in the rural sector and urban unemployment. The major results obtained are (1) sector-specific accumulation in the urban area may raise unemployment and lower welfare and (2) sector-specific accumulation in the rural sector always raises welfare but increases disguised unemployment. These results highlight the importance of regional resource allocation and the role of the agricultural sector in reducing urban unemployment.     

Migration,Frictional Unemployment,and Welfare‐Improving Labor Policies*

Abstract. Studies have suggested that there exists job search and recruiting friction in urban areas. This paper constructs a two‐sector (rural and urban) model involving this factor and investigates how it affects migration and what the optimal policies should be. An analysis shows that frictional urban unemployment brings about intersector wage differentials and that an economy almost always has distortion in the absence of government intervention. Tax and subsidy policies that remove the distortion are explored. Setting urban wages appropriately is also shown to attain the optimum. Finally, we explore the criterion to judge whether changing urban wages as a policy, such as the minimum wage law, enhances social welfare.     

The changing geography of the Canadian manufacturing sector in metropolitan and rural regions, 1976–1997

This paper documents the changing geography of the Canadian manufacturing sector over a 22‐year period (1976–1997). It does so by looking at the shifts in employment and differences in production worker wages across different levels of the rural/urban hierarchy—central cities, adjacent suburbs, medium and small cities and rural areas. The analysis demonstrates that the most dramatic shifts in manufacturing employment were from the central cities of large metropolitan regions to their suburbs. Paralleling trends in the United States, rural regions of Canada have increased their share of manufacturing employment. Rising rural employment shares were due to declining employment shares of small cities and, to a lesser degree, large urban regions. Increasing rural employment was particularly prominent in Quebec, where employment shifted away from the Montreal region. The changing fortunes of rural and urban areas were not the result of across‐the‐board shifts in manufacturing employment, but were the net outcome of differing locational patterns across industries. In contrast to the situation in the United States, wages in Canada do not consistently decline, moving down the rural/urban hierarchy from the largest cities to the most rural parts of the country. Only after controlling for the types of manufacturing industries found in rural and urban regions is it apparent that wages decline with the size of place .     

京津冀地区城市间行业工资差异及影响因素分析

基于2005-2012年京津冀各城市工资及其它社会经济数据,探讨了市场潜能、产业集聚、人力资本、制度改革等因素对城市间各行业工资差异的影响。结果表明：①市场潜能对各行业工资水平的增长均有一定的促进作用。②除消费性服务业外,各类产业集聚对地区平均工资水平的提高均有一定的促进作用,但制造业集聚带来的拥挤效应也已开始体现;生产性服务业集聚能够带动公共性服务业工资的提升,而公共性服务业缺乏对生产性服务业的反哺;产业集聚对消费性服务业工资缺乏带动作用。③在控制变量方面,交通基础设施对工资水平的带动作用逐渐弱化;科技投入、人力资本对服务业工资水平的带动作用较高,而对制造业影响较弱;市场经济体制改革对工资水平的带动作用仍未体现;政府市场干预能力的提高仅带动了公共性服务业工资的提升,而外向度的提升则仅对公共性服务业缺乏带动作用。     

IS THERE A RURAL/URBAN EXPORT GAP?

ABSTRACT.  There is growing concern, particularly in policy circles, that rural manufacturing plants may be less likely to export than metro area plants, and that this may exacerbate the economic difficulties of rural America. A variety of reasons have been offered to expect this export gap, but little empirical work has been done. Using a database of all manufacturing establishments in seven southeastern states and the county and/or zip code-level characteristics of their environment, we find that rural plants are indeed somewhat less likely to export than their urban counterparts. Though there are several explanations for the existence of this gap, factors specific to the rural environment—lower levels of human capital and information externalities—are its largest source.     

FULL EMPLOYMENT AS A POLICY ISSUE

Passage of the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978 is the most recent step in the development of a national full employment policy. This article traces the origin of the legislative debate over full employment back to the 1940s, the only previous time that Congress gave serious consideration to full employment legislation. It analyzes the conflicting economic and political interests and philosophies that led to the defeat of the Full Employment Bill of 1945 and to passage of weaker legislation, the Employment Act of 1946, which dropped the commitment to full employment. The article then traces the contours of unemployment since World War II: recurrent recessions; significant unemployment between recessions; the unequal distribution of joblessness, hitting hardest at groups such as minorities, women, and youths; and growing urban and regional unemployment. Some of the hidden social, human and economic costs of unemployment are explored. So is the relationship between unemployment and crime, poverty, welfare, the urban crisis and inequality. Full employment reemerged as a major issue in the 1970s because of the impetus from groups whose unemployment problems persist between recessions. Coalitions of these groups pressed for a national policy to secure full employment for all groups. This led to passage of the Humphrey-Hawkins Act. But the controversy over full employment has not ended. Attempts to implement the Act, the article concludes, may heighten underlying controversies over issues such as inflation, wage, price and profit controls, the environment, and job creation and may make full employment one of the leading domestic issues of the 1980s.     

A CRITIQUE OF CONVENTIONAL EXPLANATION OF LABOR MARKET,CONDITIONS FOR EMPLOYED BLACKS*

Historically, the pattern of black employment has differed considerably from the pattern of white employment. In addition, the U.S. economy has undergone structural changes such that service sector employment has increased at a faster pace than has employment in other sectors. While employed blacks have made some occupational advances in non-service areas (e.g., manufacturing), the employed work force is heavily concentrated in low wage occupations in the service sector. Neo-classical analyses of the pattern of black employment do not consider the significance of these structural changes. Segmentation theorists do consider these changes but downgrade the importance of the service sector. This paper draws attention to the overwhelming importance of the service sector in explaining the structure of black employment in the last twenty years.     

THE URBAN ENTERPRISE ZONE*

ABSTRACT This paper provides an analytical framework of urban enterprise zones in a context of regional development. The direct and indirect impacts of urban enterprise zones on regional economies such as job creation, urban unemployment, agricultural wage and changes in the regional economic structure are analyzed by incorporating the intermediate goods sector. The study suggests that the establishment of urban enterprise zones is a beneficial and effective policy instrument which can be used in promoting urban renewal and regional economic growth.     

Neoliberalism and Suburban Employment: Western Sydney in the 1990s

During the past 15 years metropolitan planning strategies of the NSW state government have done little to address the spatial distribution of either employment or labour market equity within the metropolis. In the fast‐growing outer western suburbs, the government has focused on attracting business investment to increase the stock of local jobs and to improve employment ‘self‐sufficiency’— a dominantly neoliberal policy framework. This paper explores a widening gulf between the reality of outer urban change and this policy framework by considering changes in the location of jobs and in the employment experiences of residents in Greater Western Sydney (GWS). Evidence is drawn from census journey‐to‐work data (1991–2001). While holding a majority of manufacturing jobs in Sydney, GWS also experienced continued growth of jobs in service industries during the 1990s. Yet the relative importance of employment in the city's fast‐growth finance and business services sector still lags well behind that of inner and northern parts of the city. The focus on growing the regional stock of jobs has not addressed problems of labour market access faced by residents of particular localities and the goal of employment self‐sufficiency has not delivered greater equity to outer suburban labour markets. A focus on sufficiency of access to employment for residents of GWS draws attention not only to regional stocks of jobs but also to the provision of social infrastructure and state‐provided services to outer suburban populations as they continue to expand.     

上海市就业市场状况与城市犯罪的空间计量分析

基于2008年上海市经济普查数据和城市犯罪数据,改变以往学者以失业率描述就业市场状况的做法,构建就业市场状况指数,并将其扩展到所有行业;同时,构建空间计量模型,研究上海市就业市场状况与刑事犯罪率之间关系,结果表明:1)就业市场状况对刑事犯罪率影响显著,不同行业的影响并不相同;其中,批发零售业、租赁和商业服务业、居民服务和其他服务业、公共管理和社会组织业就业的集中会引发犯罪活动的发生。2)空间计量模型在解释就业市场状况与刑事犯罪率之间关系时,计量效果良好。3)"空间效应"是影响刑事犯罪率的重要因素,其影响来自"空间邻近效应"和"空间误差效应"。     

The Crofter and the Iron Works: The Material Culture of Structural Crisis, Identity and Making a Living on the Edge

The iron and steel industry has been of the greatest importance to the Swedish economy since medieval times. During the seventeenth century a large number of new iron works were erected in the Värmland region of western Sweden. The iron works brought an urban and industrial culture into an otherwise rural area. They were also of great importance to the local economies, as a number of people could earn their living, or part of their living, by working at the iron works or in other forms of associated employment. In the late nineteenth century a serious structural crisis hit the Swedish iron industry, causing many iron works to close. However, the actual effects, in the form of unemployment and increased poverty, appear, for hitherto unknown reasons, to have been minimal. In this article the household of a crofter family with close links with an iron works at the time of the structural crisis is investigated. Aspects of the crofter’s material culture, identity and consumption pattern are studied, and it is found that although the household shared in an urban and industrial identity, its economic basis was in the rural tradition of a mixed economy, combining wage employment and land-based elements. The mixed economy stands out as one reason why the structural crisis did not have as dramatic an effect as might have been expected.     

The minimum wage and seasonal employment: Evidence from the US agricultural sector

Nearly 40% of agricultural workers in the United States earn an hourly wage that is within 10% of the prevailing state-level minimum wage. We evaluate the impact of the minimum wage on farm employment using county-level data from the United States Census of Agriculture. We employ long-differences specifications and find evidence of a dynamic, negative effect of the minimum wage on seasonal agricultural employment, but no effect on year-round agricultural employment. We estimate a long-run elasticity of total agricultural employment with respect to the minimum wage of about −0.40, which is both statistically and economically significant. Employers’ total expenditures on hired agricultural workers are not affected by the minimum wage. Finally, our analysis suggests that increases in minimum wages may lead to higher capital investment as well as the consolidation of farming operations in the agricultural sector.     

PATTERNS AND DETERMINANTS OF PRODUCTIVE EFFICIENCY IN STATE MANUFACTURING*

ABSTRACT This paper uses a stochastic frontier production-function model to measure and compare productivity efficiency in the manufacturing sector of states in the United States over the period 1959–1972. Based on this model we find considerable variations in productive efficiency across states. A large portion of the variation is found to be related to regional differences in labor-force characteristics, levels of urbanization and industrial structure. We also examine the relationship between productive efficiency and the subsequent growth of manufacturing and find some evidence of a weak relationship between efficiency and the growth of employment.     

深圳市就业空间结构及其演变(2001-2004)

本文基于2001年基本单位普查和2004年经济普查数据,探讨深圳市就业空间结构的特征及演化趋势。研究表明,深圳市的就业空间结构存在就业密度下降、集聚程度不强、制造业占绝对地位、服务业郊区化等现象,而规划和市场是推动其演变的主要力量,在二者的共同作用下,深圳市就业空间结构将呈现以下的演变趋势:(1)从"带状组团式"向"网状组团式"转变;(2)制造业转型导致就业规模缩减;(3)服务业郊区化促进中心外围组团发展;(4)高端服务业集聚进一步增强。     

基础设施建设水平与城乡生态经济系统发展的耦合分析——安康地区的实例研究

基础设施是一个多因素多层次的动态系统,随服务对象的不同,基础设施具有不同的概念和内涵。城市和乡村,都是在特定的自然环境基础上经过持续的文化、经济建设,而形成的社会、经济、自然复合生态系统。本文通过构建耦合关系分析模型,研究了两者之间的相互作用机理。     

Employment Change in Occupations in Urban India: Implications for Wage Inequality

This article analyses employment and wage change patterns in India for a period spanning almost three decades, from 1983–84 to 2011–12. Using data from the National Sample Survey Organization, the study finds evidence of job polarization (employment growth in low‐ and high‐skill jobs and decline in middle‐skill jobs) in urban India during the 1990s and 2000s, and employment upgrading in the 1980s. Consistent with the literature on job polarization, the article finds a reduction in employment share in routine task intensive occupations. The author argues that this reduction is a result of both mechanization and technological upgrading within Indian industry. On the other hand, an increase in employment share in both low‐skill and high‐skill occupations is argued to be a result of growing self‐employment and informal sector employment in urban India. The wage change patterns are largely consistent with the employment change patterns. The analysis suggests that structural change in occupation is an important factor for understanding earnings inequality in India.     

东北地区城乡结构的演变机理与统筹发展

由于历史、文化、政治、经济和地理等方面的原因,东北地区的城乡二元结构是我国最突出、最奇特的地区。本文简要回顾了计划经济时期的二元城乡结构,然后从经济结构、居民收入与消费、城乡规模结构和社会发展水平等方面深入分析了改革开放后东北地区城乡结构的演变过程与动力机制。最后从区域经济结构调整、城乡发展战略和制度创新等方面,提出了促进城乡统筹发展的策略。     

THE IMPACT OF SPECIFIC-SECTOR CHANGES IN EMPLOYMENT ON ECONOMIC GROWTH, LABOR MARKET PERFORMANCE AND MIGRATION

ABSTRACT.  It is common in empirical regional economics to use total employment as an explanatory variable while investigating issues such as the level and distribution of income and migration. This paper argues that sector-specific changes in employment and labor market performance can have different effects on economic growth, the collection of tax revenue, migration, and the level and distribution of household income. As such, it is important to model sectors separately. We find that expansions in employment opportunities for a high-wage sector such as computer manufacturing or bioengineering, a medium-wage sector manufacturing, and the lower-wage sector of retailing have differing economic consequences for a small city. We use a data intensive computable general equilibrium model to obtain these results.