Kit-Chun Lam

Confucian Business Ethics and the Economy

Confucian ethics as applied to the study of business ethics often relate to the micro consideration of personal ethics and the character of a virtuous person. Actually, Confucius and his school have much to say about the morals of the public administration and the market institutions in a more macro level. While Weber emphasizes the role of culture on the development of the economy, and Marx the determining influence of the material base on ideology, we see an interaction between culture – specifically Confucian business ethics – and the economy. In this paper, we are going to study this interaction in several crucial stages of development of Confucianism. The paper concludes by postulating the relevance of Confucian business ethics to the global knowledge economy.

A Study of the Ethical Performance of Foreign-Investment Enterprises in the China Labor Market

This paper analyses the ethical performance of foreign-investment enterprises operating in China in comparison to that of the indigenous state-owned enterprises, collectives and private enterprises. It uses both the deontological approach and the utilitarian approach in conceptualization, and applies quantitative and econometric techniques to ethical evaluations of empirical evidences. It shows that according to various ethical performance indicators, foreign-investment enterprises have fared well in comparison with local firms. This paper also tries to unravel the effect of a difference in business culture and competitive market forces on ethical performance by comparing the behavior of foreign-investment enterprises with that of the indigenous state-owned enterprises and collectives on the one hand, and with that of the indigenous private enterprises on the other.

Relative Returns to Skills and Assimilation of Immigrants in Hong Kong

A simple formal model is presented to analyse intercensal changes in the relative earnings of immigrants. A number of factors are analysed, including a change in the relative observed quality of immigrants, a change in the relative prices of observed skills, and assimilation. The model is applied to 1981 and 1991 Hong Kong census data and shows that although there is economic assimilation in the narrow sense at an estimated rate of approximately 1.55 percent p.a., earnings of immigrants diverge from earnings of natives because their relative returns to schooling declined.

Wage structure when wage offers are private

Abstract In this paper we analyse the structure of wages of workers in contract firms for a two-period economy in which there is interfirm mobility. A contract firm provides specific training for a worker during the first period, which increases his productivity if he stays in the second period, but the worker may quit to join an alternative firm after a successful search. When the worker cannot borrow in capital markets, the motive for consumption smoothing dominates and the contract firm acts as a banker and sets wage above marginal product in the first period and below it in the second. When the worker can borrow, insurance is the dominant concern and the contract firm acts instead as an insurer by setting the first-period wage below marginal product and the second-period wage above it. This dichotomy will fade away if the contract includes an exit fee as a quit penalty.

Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Hong Kong: Are Immigrants More Mobile than Natives?: Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Hong Kong

We characterize intergenerational educational mobility by the percentage of children who have more schooling than their parents, and the change in the relative probability of the children attending university across their parents’ schooling levels. In Hong Kong, immigrant children are very upward mobile; their percentage of upward mobility has caught up with that of the children of the Hong Kong‐born parents. Hong Kong‐born children of immigrant parents are also more mobile than the children of Hong Kong born parents. Even though parental educational background remains important for university attendance, immigrant children experience higher mobility than Hong Kong‐born children in terms of access to university education.

Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Hong Kong: Are Immigrants More Mobile than Natives?

Intergenerational educational mobility is characterized in two ways, the percentage of children who have more schooling than their parents, and the relative probability of the children attending university across their parents’ schooling levels. We find that from 1991 to 2011, following a major expansion in higher education in Hong Kong, there has been considerable intergenerational educational mobility. Immigrant children are very upward mobile; their percentage of upward mobility has caught up with that of the children of the Hong Kong born parents. Hong Kong born children of immigrant parents, the second generation immigrants, are also more mobile than the children of Hong Kong born parents. In terms of access to university education, there is also considerable intergenerational education mobility. Even though children from better educated families continue to have higher probability of university attendance than children from less educated families, immigrant children again have higher mobility than Hong Kong born children.

Verifiable wage offers and recontracting: effect on wage and consumption profiles

Abstract This paper analyzes the effect of recontracting and matching verifiable wage offers on the intertemporal structure of contract wage and consumption profile for a two-period economy. A contract firm provides specific training for a worker during the first period, which increases his productivity if he stays in the second period, but the worker may quit to accept an alternative wage offer after a successful search. Wage offers are private to the worker but can be presented to the contract firm for matching. This paper shows that when capital markets are imperfect and wage offers are verifiable, the contract firm recontracts and matches any wage offers the worker receives up to the second-period productivity. The ex ante contract wage profile will be flat. Inefficient quits will be eliminated and there will be complete ex ante consumption smoothing. It is significant to note that the result of rising wage profile derived in numerous contract models is fragile with respect to assumptions on mechanism of interfirm labor mobility.