Heling Shi

On controlling crime with corrupt officials

Abstract This paper attempts to synthesize the recently developed strategic approach towards modeling corruption and the classical views. The following propositions are sought to be proved: (a) If reward schemes are introduced, the classical and the strategic approaches yield similar results so far as controlling crime is concerned; (b) With probability of detection being dependent on the effort of a corrupt official, crime cannot be controlled; and (c) In the context of an infinitely repeated game of crime, the corrupt law enforcing agent might choose less bribes and lower effort level than the myopic optimal and hence would strategically pamper crime.

From burden-sharing to opportunity-sharing: : unlocking the climate negotiations

In conventional thinking on climate negotiations, traditional fossil fuel-based economic growth is coupled with carbon emissions, thus mitigation has been regarded as a burden on economic growth. The scarcity within the global emission budget and the interpretation of climate change as ‘global public goods’ have led climate change negotiations into a burden-sharing deadlock. However, some recent economics studies suggest that mitigation could actually promote local economic growth opportunities; consequently increasing the incentives for unilateral mitigation actions. This article highlights the implications for the strategies of unlocking the climate negotiations deadlock. Following an explanation of how climate change negotiations have led to a burden-sharing game and have become a deadlock, some new ways of thinking (based on the emerging literature) are used to suggest how mitigation could promote local economic growth.Policy relevanceOne policy implication is the need to change the current mindset in global climate change negotiations. The current framing of burden-sharing can be abandoned in favour of opportunity-sharing. This more positive approach will stimulate progress on climate action. Therefore, green growth should be situated at the heart of post-2020 climate change regime. A new two-track architecture is proposed for achieving the transformation as a combined top-down and bottom-up approach. A lower legally binding target based on equity principles of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) could form a more politically realistic and inclusive basis for participation. To complement this, a green growth club would promote a higher voluntary global ambition and accelerate mitigation.

Ownership reform and total factor productivity growth in Chinese industry

This paper contributes to the literature on total factor productivity (TFP) in Chinese industry. First, an adjusted TFP index is calculated through deflating raw data on TFP in Chinese industry using indexes on technological innovation in Japan and the United States. Second, the TFP index is regessed on the percentage of gross industrial output produced by non-state firms for the period 1980 to 1995. The results suggest that ownership reform was an important determinant of growth in industrial TFP over the period.

An Inframarginal Approach to Trade Theory

Inframarginal analysis represents a methodology that extends marginal analysis, using non-classical mathematical programming, in efforts to investigate corner solutions and indivisibilities. As such this approach has been used to reintroduce classical insights regarding the division of labor and economic organization to the mainstream of economic inquiry. One of the most prolific and useful relevant applications of inframarginal analysis concerns the area of international trade theory. The ensuing field of study has attracted considerable — and rapidly expanding — interest in recent years. Yet, little has been done by way of organizing the accumulated knowledge in a single volume. This book fills that gap by collecting key articles that mark distinct stages in the evolution of research in the area of inframarginal applications to trade theory. In this context the volume represents an excellent introduction of this novel and exciting field of study to the new researcher, and an invaluable source of reference to those seasoned in inframarginal applications to trade theory.

The Economics of E-Commerce and Networking Decisions

PART I: KEYNOTE SPEECHES Inframarginal Versus Marginal Analysis of Networking Decisions and E-Commerce Y-K.Ng A Review of the Literature of Inframarginal Analysis of Network of Division of Labour X.Yang PART II: E-COMMERCE E-Commerce, Transaction Cost and the Network of Division of Labour: A Business Perspective H.Shi & H.Mathysen An Equilibrium Model of Hierarchy X.Yang A General Equilibrium Model with Impersonal Networking Decisions and Bundling Sale K.Li Legislation, Electronic Commerce and the Common Law A.Field E-Commerce in China: Problems and Potential J.Wong &W.Chee Kong Networking Decisions and Bundling Sale Ke Li PART III: IMPERSONAL NETWORKING AND ENDOGENOUS SPECIALIZATION: THEORY AND APPLICATIONS Toward a Theory of Impersonal Networking Decisions and Endogenous Structure of the Division of Labour G-Z.Sun, X.Yang & S.Yao Identification of Equilibrium Structures of Endogenous Specialization: A Unified Approach Exemplified G-Z.Sun Transaction Efficiency, Division of Labour and Foreign Direct Investment: A Unified Model D.Yang The Division of Labour and the Allocation of Time M.Lio PART IV: TRANSACTION COSTS AND THE DIVISION OF LABOUR MEASUREMENT AND EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS An Indirect Approach to the Identification and Measurement of Transaction Costs G.Rivers An Empirical Study on the Division of Labour and Economic Structural Changes M.Lio & M.Liu Endogenous Transaction Costs and Division of Labour X.Yang & Y.Zhao

A Note on an Inframarginal Analysis of the Ricardian Model

This is a note about Cheng et al.s paper, in which we consider a dual structure of division of labour and trade that is missed in the model of Cheng et al. Though the inclusion of the dual structure will not change the main results in the paper by Cheng et al., it explores an interesting way to use a general equilibrium model to describe a dual structure with underemployment in a transitional period of economic development. Copyright 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

E-Commerce, Transaction Cost, and the Network of Division of Labour: a Business Perspective

In the US and other industrialized economies multinational conglomerates continue to dominate the economy. The wave of corporate mergers and consolidations seemingly indicate this trend may continue. Yet evidence exists of another phenomenon that is emerging: large corporate leviathans are participating in a spate of corporate downsizing and vertical disintegration. What adds an element of paradox to this new phenomenon is that it is occurring in an economy that has been booming for three years and expanding for nine. After successive years of economic expansion since 1991, the spate of corporate downsizing remains unabated. The paradoxical incidence of downsizing in an economic boom has been explained away by cyclical factors external to the economy, such as an inflated dollar, an Asian economic downturn and a Russian economic crisis. It is believed that these external factors may have fuelled the intensity of price competition and cost cutting in the domestic economy, and thus have precipitated a wave of downsizing. In early 1998, when cyclical-induced downsizing was highlighted in Business Week as the cause, it was supplemented by an explanation that firms expected slow profit growth throughout 1998. This supplementary explanation is suggested to reinforce the conjecture that even the expectation of cyclical swings was enough to initiate corporate downsizing during an economic boom.

Centralized Hierarchy within a Firm and Decentralized Hierarchy in the Market

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, we develop a general equilibrium model based on corner solutions to simultaneously endogenize four aspects of the division of labour: individuals’ level of specialization, the length of the roundabout production chain, the number of goods in each link of the chain and the development of the institution of the firm. Second, the equilibrium model is used to endogenize the dividing line between the hierarchical structure of division of labour within the firm and the hierarchical structure of the network of transactions in the market.