Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Choice Of Technology In Economic Development, Lei Wen, Haiwen Zhou

Economics Faculty Publications

The impact of capital accumulation on job creation is an important and interesting issue in economic development. This model provides a general-equilibrium framework for studying technology choice with unemployment in a developing economy based on micro-foundations. Unemployment in the urban sector results from the existence of efficiency wages. Manufacturing firms engage in oligopolistic competition and choose technologies to maximise profits. A more advanced technology uses more capital and less labour. In the steady state, an increase in the amount of capital induces firms to choose more advanced technologies and the wage rate increases. While a higher capital stock always induces …

Search, Technology Choice, And Unemployment, Constantine Angyridis, Haiwen Zhou

Economics Faculty Publications

Technology variations among countries account for a significant part of their income differences. In this paper, a firm's technology choice is embedded in a search theoretic framework for unemployment. More advanced technology is assumed to have a higher setup cost, but it is more productive. The model is tractable and the following results are derived analytically. An increase in the unemployment benefit leads to an increase in the equilibrium wage rate, giving an incentive to firms to choose a more advanced technology. Thus, this result regarding unemployment insurance in models with wage posting carries through with Nash bargaining as well. …

The Hall Memorial Lectures, Lewis Karstensson

Economics Faculty Publications

This publication is a record of the Hall Memorial Lectures in Economics delivered at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in the 1980s.

Contents include:

Wallace C. Peterson, "Contemporary Macroeconomics: A House Divided" (Dec. 1, 1983)

Wallace C. Peterson, "Economic Stabilization and Inflation" (May 8, 1984)

Murray N. Rothbard, "The Five Faces of Reaganomics" (Nov. 27, 1984)

Murray N. Rothbard, "The Terrible Simplifiers: The Case Against the Flat Tax" (May 7, 1985)

Larry D. Singell, "Youth Unemployment: An American Crisis" (May 14, 1986)

Murray N. Rothbard, "Is There Life After Reaganomics?" (Oct. 22, 1987)

Murray N. Rothbard, "Deficits and Taxes: …

A Dynamic Model Of The Choice Of Technology In Economic Development, Haiwen Zhou, Ruhai Zhou

Economics Faculty Publications

In this overlapping-generations model, there is unemployment in the manufacturing sector. Manufacturing firms engage in oligopolistic competition and choose technologies to maximize profits. With capital as a fixed cost of production, increasing returns in the manufacturing sector exist. In the unique steady state, first, when individuals become more patient, the savings rate increases while the level of an individual’s income decreases. Second, an increase in population or percentage of income spent on manufactured goods does not change steady-state technology while the level of an individual’s income decreases. Third, an increase in the wage rate leads manufacturing firms to choose more …

Health Care Use, Out-Of-Pocket Expenditure, And Macroeconomic Conditions During The Great Recession, Juan Du, Takeshi Yagihashi

Economics Faculty Publications

We study how macroeconomic conditions during the Great Recession affected health care utilization and out-of-pocket expenditures of American households. We use two data sources: the Consumer Expenditure (CE) Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP); each has its own advantages. The CE contains quarterly frequency variables, and the SIPP provides panel data at the individual level. Consistent evidence across the two datasets shows that utilization of routine medical care was counter-cyclical, whereas hospital care was pro-cyclical during the Great Recession. When we examine the pre-recession period, the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and health care use was either …

Unemployment And Economic Integration For Developing Countries, Haiwen Zhou

Economics Faculty Publications

While financial or trade integration between countries may increase the size of the market and aid the adoption of more advanced technologies, will it also increase the level of urban unemployment for a developing country? In this model, there is unemployment in the urban sector. Manufacturing firms engage in oligopolistic competition and choose increasing returns technologies to maximize profits. Financial firms provide capital to manufacturing firms and they also engage in oligopolistic competition. We show that an increase in the wage rate in the manufacturing sector changes neither the level of technology nor the level of employment in the manufacturing …

The Choice Of Technology And Equilibrium Wage Rigidity, Haiwen Zhou

Economics Faculty Publications

In this general equilibrium model, firms engage in oligopolistic competition and choose increasing returns technologies to maximize profits. Capital and labor are the two factors of production. The existence of efficiency wages leads to unemployment. The model is able to explain some interesting observations of the labor market. First, even though there is neither long-term labor contract nor costs of wage adjustment, wage rigidity is an equilibrium phenomenon: an increase in the exogenous job separation rate, the size of the population, the cost of exerting effort, and the probability that shirking is detected will not change the equilibrium wage rate. …

The Minimum Wage And Crime, Andrew Beauchamp, Stacy Chan

Economics Faculty Publications

Does crime respond to changes in the minimum wage? A growing body of empirical evidence indicates that increases in the minimum wage have a displacement effect on low-skilled workers. Economic reasoning provides the possibility that disemployment may cause youth to substitute from legal work to crime. However, there is also the countervailing effect of a higher wage raising the opportunity cost of crime for those who remain employed. We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 cohort to measure the effect of increases in the minimum wage on self-reported criminal activity and examine employment–crime substitution. Exploiting changes in state …