the temporary help industry a response to the dual internal labor market this study of the rapidly growing temporary help industry draws on commerce department data and the results of the authors national mail survey of employers the authors also conducted interviews in the san francisco area with employers of temporary help and with representatives of temporary help agencies and labor unions they provide a taxonomy of employer responses to temporary increases in work loads ranging from the more intensive use of full time employees to a variety of arrangements with part time temporary and casual employees the authors show how these employer responses vary by industry occupation size of the firm stability of product demand and the level of fringe benefits

technological change rediscovering the engine of productivity growth in china s rural economy abstract this paper focuses on measuring the relative importance of the role of technology versus that of institutional innovation in china s rural economy a six equation rice sector model explaining provincial level technology adoption yield and factor demand are econometrically estimated using data from china s 13 rice growing provinces for the period 1975 1990 growth decomposition analysis identifies technology adoption as the most important determinant of rice yield growth during 1978 1984 accounting for nearly 40 percent the change institutional reform accounted for 35 percent of the growth in 1985 1990 technology accounts for all of the increase in rice yields the study demonstrates earlier studies may have over estimated the impact of decollectivization

the creation and spread of technology and total factor productivity in china s agriculture the overall goal of this study is to create a framework for assessing the trends of china s national and international investment in agricultural research and to measure its impact on total factor productivity the main methodological contribution is to provide more convincing measures of crop specific technologies from china s national research program and of those imported from the international agricultural research system our results find that from 1980 to 1995 china s total factor productivity for rice wheat and maize grew rapidly and new technology accounts for most of the productivity growth

outsourcing and unionization a tale of misallocated resistance resources while many believe the growth in outsourcing contributed to the decline in u s unionization up to the 1990s this argument has never been investigated systematically in this article we analyze the effect of outsourcing on unionization between 1973 and 1993 instrumental variables estimation shows outsourcing contributes to higher quasirents and industry productivity we find the union wage premium increases with the extent of outsourcing both for workers that are substitutable by outsourcing services and workers in jobs that are not substitutes of the tasks being outsourced finally we find no support for the claim that outsourcing reduces unionization jel j5 l2 l6

atypical work and pay author affiliation john t addison department of economics moore school of business university of south carolina 1705 college street columbia sc 29208 usa ecceaddi moore sc edu corresponding authorchristopher j surfield department of economics college of business and management saginaw valley state university 7400 bay road university center mi 48710 usa csurfiel svsu edu acknowledgment the authors are more than usually indebted to two referees for their particularly helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper and to our co editor for her perseverance 1 introductioneven as the economy continues to recover the u s is increasingly becoming a nation of part timers and free lancers of temps and independent contractors this disposable labor force is the most important trend in business today and it is fundamentally changing the relationship between americans and their jobs for companies large and small the phenomenon provides a way to remain globally competitive while avoiding the vagaries of market cycles but for workers it can mean an end to security and sense of significance that come from being a loyal employee one by one the tangible bonds that once defined work in america are giving way castro 1993 p 43 the frequency of alternative work arrangements such as temporary employment on call work and independent contracting nonstandard forms of employment commonly referred to as atypical work has steadily increased in recent decades see for example segal and sullivan 1997 research on atypical work alternative work arrangements we shall use the two terms interchangeably has tended to focus on the nature and extent of these arrangements and their impact on a worker s employment history e g addison and surfield 2006 although compensation levels have been accorded less attention the thrust of much of the earnings literature is pessimistic compared with regular or open ended employment alternative work arrangements often appear to offer inferior remuneration the public perception remains that workers in these alternative work arrangements constitute a disposable workforce characterized by low paying and precarious or unstable jobs abstracting for the moment from the complications introduced by the diversity of alternative work arrangements there are a number of reasons why their incumbents might earn less than regular workers for example wage differentials between atypical workers and those in open ended employment can arise from supply side differences among heterogeneous workers and employer preferences on the supply side a subset of workers may favor nonstandard work forms over regular employment and be prepared to accept lower pay one example would be adults who are heavily involved in household production and another is older workers who have moved out of career jobs but supply side differences alone are insufficient to sustain a permanent ceteris paribus differential in favor of regular workers in addition atypical workers and regular workers must not be fully fungible and employers must not be indifferent between them negative wage gaps for atypical work are not the only possibility admitted by the competitive model atypical workers may earn higher wages than their counterparts in regular employment if the aggregate demand for these nonstandard arrangements is greater than the number of individuals seeking such employment thus to adapt hirsch s 2005 p 527 argument in respect of part timers if firms use atypical work as low cost means of adjusting to variable and uncertain demand the relatively large supply of atypical workers required may run up against mobility or substitution constraints across labor markets delineated by geography occupation and industry and give rise to positive equilibrium wage gaps for atypical workers negative wage gaps may of course also be more apparent than real

the rapid rise of china s dairy sector factors behind the growth in demand and supply with the rapid growth in china s dairy industry a number of recent papers have addressed either the supply or the demand trends for dairy products in china none however presents a systematic explanation for the recent growth in both the supply and demand for dairy products the goal of this paper is to sketch a more comprehensive picture of china s dairy sector and to assess the nature of the sector s development in the coming decades drawing upon several empirical studies we examine the trends in dairy product consumption to create a composite picture of the factors underlying the recent growth we also empirically investigate the sources of production gains in milk supply and assess the relative importance of expanding herd size changes in the nature of production technological change and improvements in efficiency to the overall growth of milk production

china s food economy to the twenty first century supply demand and trade this paper accounts for the structural changes now taking place in china and suggests that china is not likely to become either an enormous importer or exporter of grain ultimately though china s grain balances will depend on decisions made by chinese policymakers rather than natural resource constraints p v this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

production and productivity growth in chinese agriculture new measurement and evidence abstract this study uses a more appropriate approach to measure growth in output input and total factor productivity for chinese agriculture using newly estimated production and productivity growth indexes the impact of rural reforms have been reassessed the conventional approach would overestimate the impact of the rural reforms on both production and productivity growth nevertheless both production and productivity still grew at respectable rates during the reform period the study also found that in order to promote the long term production and productivity growth which is much needed to feed the chinese population in the future it is imperative for the government to increase its investment in agriculture as the effects of recent institutional changes have been largely exhausted

the impact of china s economic reforms on agricultural productivity growth this paper presents a method for assessing the relative importance of price increases and strengthened individual incentives due to the introduction of the responsibility system for the post 1978 increase in china s agricultural productivity data on post 1978 chinese agricultural performance suggest that a little over three quarters of the measured productivity increase is due to payment system changes and the remainder to price increases we also use our method to calculate incentive indices giving an estimate of the fraction of their marginal product that peasants received under the pre 1978 regime

the household responsibility system reform and the adoption of hybrid rice in china abstract this paper studies the diffusion of hybrid rice before and after the recent institutional change from the collective team system to the household based farming system in rural china a simple model which treats the adoption of hybrid rice as a portfolio selection problem is presented the model is tested against time series cross county data collected from hunan province in south china the empirical evidence suggests that 1 adoption behavior in the collective system was not consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model this evidence indicates the existence of administrative intervention in influencing production decisions in the collective system 2 there was a significant change in the structure of the adoption function following the transition from the collective system to the household based system and 3 adoption behavior in the household system is consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model

causes of u s farm commodity programs this paper i s an attempt to explain variations by commodity in producer protection afforded by farm price support programs since the1930s particularly emphasized are theideas that these programs are essentially income redistributional measures and that given political forces the programs are attempts to redistribute efficiently variables associated with the cost to producers of generating political pressure and the social cost deadweight losses of redistribution are both found to be empirically important copyright 1987 by university of chicago press

irrigation agricultural performance and poverty reduction in china the overall goal of our paper is to understand the impact that irrigation in china has had on grain production and incomes in general and income and poverty alleviation in poor areas in particular the paper seeks to meet three objectives first we describe the relationship among irrigation status yields and household crop revenue second we seek to understand the magnitude and nature of the effect that irrigation has on yields and crop revenue finally we seek to understand the impact that irrigation has on incomes in poor areas our analysis shows that irrigation contributes to increases in yields for almost all crops and in income for farmers in all areas the importance of crop income in poor areas and the strong relationship between crop revenue and irrigation provides evidence of the importance of irrigation in past and future poverty alleviation in china we also show that in the majority of the villages that invested in new irrigation returns are positive even after accounting for increases in capital and production costs 2005 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

what drives china s new agricultural subsidies summary china s agricultural policy has undergone a fundamental transformation in the four decades since the introduction of market reforms in 1978 and now involves a wide array of policy instruments that range from output and input subsidies to public infrastructure expenditures this article analyzes the political economic determinants of china s agricultural subsidy changes using producer subsidy equivalents pses drawn from annual data from 1984 to 2015 on 16 agricultural commodity sectors that include multiple policy instruments empirical results indicate that national factors such as high rates of economic growth and a lower share of agriculture in the economy have been the primary drivers of increases in pses and that larger more geographically concentrated agricultural sectors are more likely to be subsidized at a higher pse rate finally china s joining the world trade organization in december 2001 led to significant increases in pses that were not already explained by internal national or commodity specific factors in essence china s agricultural subsidy programs and levels increasingly resemble those of developed countries primarily as a result of economic transformation and the ability to structure agricultural policies within the wto rules moreover this article predicts that agricultural subsidies will trend slightly upward in the next decade and that the strongest opportunities to export to china will be in animal products or grains that are utilized for feed or processed foods where the levels of subsidies are predicted to increase but remain lower than for traditional food crops

research productivity and output growth in chinese agriculture recent attempts to quantify the sources of growth in chinese agriculture have attributed an exceptionally large share of this growth to the contemporary institutional and market reforms within china to analyze this important issue we use a newly constructed panel data set that includes an agricultural research or stock of knowledge variable our results suggest that while still a significant source of growth the direct growth promoting consequence of institutional change and market reforms have been overstated by these earlier studies research induced technical change accounts for a significant share 20 of the growth in agricultural output since 1965

feature flexible forms of employment boon and bane in recent decades economic policy makers across europe have sought to increase labour market flexibility by promoting the use of temporary employment the articles in this feature provide new results on how fixed term and agency work contracts affect firm productivity and how the segments of two tier labour markets interact this article points to a possible trade off between efficiency and equity when deregulating labour markets taken together the evidence presented in this feature suggests that flexible forms of employment can be both a boon and a bane for labour markets and for society as a whole

agricultural productivity and sources of growth in south asia estimates of partial factor productivity growth for rice and wheat in india bangladesh and pakistan show relatively rapid growth in yields per hectare since adoption of modern rice and wheat varieties began in the mid to late 1960s byerlee rosegrant while partial factor productivity growth for rice and wheat in south asia has been extensively analyzed there is relatively little understanding of total factor productivity growth and the sources of productivity growth in the crops sector or of the relative contribution to output growth from productivity growth compared to increased factor use this paper assesses total factor productivity tfp growth in india examines the sources of productivity growth and estimates the rates of return to public investments in research and extension a comparison is made with results for bangladesh dey and evenson and pakistan azam bloom and evenson the paper describes the methodology for estimation of tfp decomposition of tfp and estimation of rates of return to public investments describes the data and presents results and policy implications

firm sponsored general education and mobility frictions evidence from hospital sponsorship of nursing schools and faculty this study asks why hospitals provide direct financial support to nursing schools and faculty this support is striking because nursing education is clearly general clearly paid by the firm and information asymmetries appear minimal using aha and survey data i find hospitals employing a greater share of their msa s registered nurses are more likely to provide direct financial support to nursing schools and faculty net of size and other institutional controls given the institutional context i interpret this result as unusually specific evidence that technologically general skill training may be made de facto specific by imperfect and costly mobility

new growth accounting this article opens the black box of total factor productivity by decomposing this all in one index into various input embedded and input free productivities in a new growth accounting framework the new method identifies different channels through which growth drivers affect economic growth and finds the most effective way to boost the economy which is unidentified in standard method this new approach uses a varying coefficient stochastic frontier model which integrates the standpoints of the endogenous growth theory and the induced innovation theory into a reduced form productivity analysis the new growth accounting is then applied to study the impacts and contributions of r d investments international trade and structural transformation to world agricultural growth during the period of 1962 to 2014 the empirical results provide new evidence to support the endogenous growth theory and the induced innovation theory indicating the necessity of using the new growth accounting method

employers in the boom how did the hiring of less skilled workers change during the 1990s abstract employers became more willing to hire a range of disadvantaged workers during the 1990s boom including minorities workers with certain stigmas such as welfare recipients and those without recent experience or high school diplomas the wages paid to newly hired less skilled workers also increased on the other hand employers demand for specific skill certification rose over time as did their use of certain screens the results suggest that the tight labor markets of the late 1990s in conjunction with other secular changes raised hiring costs and induced employers to shift toward screens that seemed more cost effective

looking beyond the bridge the effect of temporary agency employment on labor market outcomes abstract we perform a comprehensive analysis of the stepping stone effect of temporary agency employment on unemployed workers using the timing of events approach we investigate not only whether agency employment is a bridge into regular employment but also its effect on post unemployment wages and job stability for unemployed danish workers we find evidence of large positive treatment effects particularly for immigrants and for individuals considered less employable our results show that agency employment is in tendency effective in tight labor markets where firms use agency employment primarily to screen potential candidates for regular posts finally our results suggest that agency employment may improve subsequent match quality in terms of wages

productivity growth in u s agriculture a postwar perspective there has been a long standing fascination with productivity trends in u s agriculture in part this stems from the historical importance of agriculture to the economy but it also reflects economists early and continued interest in quantifying the rate of return to society s sizable investment in agricultural r d the sum of government sponsored and private sector r d investment in agriculture is estimated to have been 268 million in 1953 in that year total r d investment in the economy from all sources amounted to 5 1 billion 2 excluding defense and space related r d which accounted for approximately half of the u s total in the early fifties 3 r d expenditures dedicated to agriculture equaled approximately 10 of total u s investment in r d from all sources

the role of temporary agency employment in tight labor markets the authors use case study evidence from hospitals and auto parts manufacturers to investigate why employers used and even increased their use of temporary help agencies during a period of tight labor markets in the 1990s in high skill occupations the evidence suggests employers paid substantially more to agency help than to regular employees in large part to gain additional time to recruit employees for permanent positions and thereby avoid raising wages for new hires and existing employees in low skill occupations temporary help agencies appear to have facilitated the use of more risky workers by lowering their wages and benefits and the costs associated with turnover as in high skill occupations the use of agency temporaries in low skill occupations relieved pressure on companies facing tight labor markets to raise employees wages and may have contributed to the stagnant wage growth and low unemployment observed in the 1990s

collectivization and china s agricultural crisis in 1959 1961 the agricultural crisis in china in 1959 61 after the initial success of the collectivization movement resulted in 30 million extra deaths in this paper a game theory hypothesis proposes the main cause of this catastrophe i argue that because of the difficulty in supervising agricultural work the success of an agricultural collective depends on a self enforcing contract in which each one promises to discipline oneself a self enforcing contract however can be sustained only in a repeated game in the fall of 1958 the right to withdraw from a collective was deprived the nature of the collectivization was thus changed from a repeated game to a one time game as a result the self enforcing contract could not be sustained and agricultural productivity collapsed the empirical evidence is consistent with this hypothesis

liberalization endogenous institutions and growth a comparative analysis of agricultural reforms in africa asia and europe thirty years ago a vast share of low and middle income countries was heavily state controlled the liberalizations of the 1980s and 1990s had greatly different effects on growth in countries in africa asia and europe a comparative framework is used to document these differences and a model is developed to formally analyze how liberalization affects production and income distribution when the institutions that govern production and exchange are also affected hypotheses are derived for how endogenous institutional adjustments affect the growth response to liberalization these insights motivate a series of explanations for the differences in performance across regions and commodities following liberalization

success and failure of reform insights from the transition of agriculture this paper analyzes the linkages between the reform strategies in transition countries and economic performance the authors focus on agriculture because of the sharpness of the policy changes fundamental differences among countries and relative simplicity of agricultural relationships the authors document post reform performance in the transition countries of asia and europe the authors show how a pricing reform and subsidy reductions b land rights reform and policies that affect farm restructuring and c the presence institutions that facilitate exchange either markets or market substitutes affect output and productivity the paper ends with general lessons on reforms and transition

structure of agricultural protection in industrial countries abstract the nominal rates of agricultural protection in ten industrial countries from 1955 to 1980 are estimated with the same commodity coverage and data definitions a regression analysis is conducted to explain variations in the measured level of agricultural protection in terms of political as well as economic factors nearly 80 percent of the variations is accounted for by differences in agriculture s comparative advantage agriculture s share in total economy the international terms of trade between agricultural and manufactured commodities regionalism eec and food security consideration associated with non military alliance

china s agriculture drivers of change and implications for china and the rest of world the overall goal of this article is to identify major changes in china s agriculture food economy and their implications for both china itself and more importantly to the rest of world china has become one of the fastest growing economies in the world since late 1970s gdp grew at about 10 annually in the past 30 years china s experience shows the importance of both domestic and external policies in achieving sustainable growth the results from this study provide significant policy implications to many countries that are currently china s major trade partners or those seeking greater economic and trade relations with china the main conclusions on the implications of china s rapid economic growth are that china s growth will provide more opportunities than challenges to the rest of the world on average overall the rest of the world will gain from china s economic expansion though this general conclusion may not hold for some countries

economies of scale and scope and the economic efficiency of china s agricultural research system this article investigates economies of scale and scope and other potential sources of improvements in the economic efficiency of china s crop breeding an industry at the heart of the nation s food economy using data covering 46 wheatand maize breeding institutes from 1981 to 2000 we estimate cost functions for the production of new varieties at china s wheat and maize breeding institutes our results indicate strong economies of scale along with small to moderate economies of scope related to the joint production of new wheat and maize varieties cost efficiency increases significantly with increases in the breeders educational status and with increases in access to genetic materials from outside the institute

total factor productivity change in china s farming sector 1952 1989 a crucial problem in economic development is choosing institutions that are relatively efficient in resource allocation and conducive to growth however institutional innovations usually take time and it is often difficult to isolate these effects from the effects of noninstitutional factors modern china is one of the few exceptions it offers a rich experience in dramatic institutional changes after 1949 a smallholder system was experimented with immediately after the land reform this was quickly followed by various forms of collectivization since 1979 the household responsibility system hrs has gradually replaced the commune system thus china provides a unique opportunity for a comparative study of these different rural institutions in terms of the total factor productivity index tfpi this index measures the change in output relative to the change in inputs the examination of the tfpi also has policy implications the apparent plateau in grain production and the slow growth in other crop production from 1985 to 1989 constitute a sharp contrast to the period 1979 84 which witnessed rapid growth in both grain and economic crop production in china public ownership is favored by orthodox ideology and noneconomic factors often play an important role in economic life 2 in facing slower growth in crop production whether the hrs should or should not be the long term rural institution has become a sensitive question again and has kindled a heated debate within china in this study i will examine the performance of the successive rural institutions in china in terms of changes in the tfpi over the period 1952 89 using 1989 as the final year of my study the most important finding of this study is that the hrs showed a clear advan

political institutions and international patterns of agricultural protection this paper analyzes the influence of political systems and rights in patterns of agricultural protection across commodities countries and over time four political systems and a qualitative index of political rights account for differences in political institutions the analysis incorporates the effects of development of constraints on tax collection feasibility and of comparative advantages and terms of trade pluralistic systems are associated with higher agricultural protection levels although in a nonlinear fashion access to pluralism appears to be important although further democratization partly dissipates protection copyright 1994 by mit press

the earnings and employment of nurses in an era of cost containment previous research has shown that from the 1980s through the early 1990s nurses enjoyed substantial wage and employment gains that stemmed to some extent from increased labor demand using individual data for 1988 98 to compare nurses fortunes with those of college educated women and other workers in the health care industry the author documents that nurses experienced a decline in real wages beginning in the early 1990s at the same time that the skill premium for rns as reflected by the return to education and experience was increasing changes in measured characteristics and their returns explain very little of the decline consistent with the theory that the relative wage decrease was driven by a decline in the demand for rns and increased cost constraints the effects of hmo penetration are found to explain only a small part of the variation in wages across metropolitan statistical areas and across time

reconciling chinese meat production and consumption data with more than one fifth of the world s population and only 7 of the world s arable land china has the potential to become a major importer of land intensive products such as feed grains this development would be of particular interest to the united states and canada which together have more than 17 of the world s arable land but only 5 of the world s population 1 per capita private consumption in china has been increasing at an average annual rate of 6 8 over the past decade given the low average income level in china consumption of feedgrain intensive products such as meat dairy products and alcohol can be expected to increase with continued income growth these factors take on greater significance given the fact that china has applied to join the world trade organization and trade liberalization may soon occur use of grain intensive products should increase if china liberalizes its agricultural markets and china should eventually reverse the current trade situation and begin to import large quantities of feed grains and meats the combination of these observations has stimulated interest in china s agricultural data and the research and policy prescriptions based on these data are greatly affected by the data s quality to understand why this is important consider the following examples official chinese and u s data show that per capita pork consumption in china is about 5 kilograms per person greater than it is in the united states 2 if this is true then it might be argued that chinese pork consumption is reaching a saturation level alternatively one might argue that the enormous increase in per capita pork consumption in the past several years implies a large expenditure elasticity any attempt to use this expenditure elasticity for projection of future meat demand in conjunction with strong growth in projected per capita income would imply a large percentage increase in consumption from a base that is already very high because feed grain consumption is directly dependent on livestock

competitiveness and technical efficiency determinants in the groundnut oil sector of india india imports about half of its domestic consumption needs of edible oils groundnuts are a major source of edible oils in india one of the central problems of groundnut production and processing is huge inefficiencies due to an uncertain production environment owing to rainfed cultivation the low resource base of smallholder farmers and processors and the low adoption rates of improved technology this paper addresses critical issues that impair the groundnut sector s international competitiveness and efficiency the paper uses primary data collected from indian farmers and processors of groundnuts to measure efficiency and it suggests policies for reducing yield gaps and increasing efficiency specific policies suggested from the study are a the harnessing of improved varieties with attributes like drought tolerance high oil content high productivity for large scale seed multiplication and distribution by public and private agencies b viable village seed banks and seed networks through cycles of post rainy season seed multiplication to meet the seed requirements in the rainy season and vice versa c adoption of low cost technologies to increase profitability and reduce risk d oilseed clusters to facilitate scale and scope economies in processing units and e capital subsidies to accelerate technological upgrading to shed inefficiency in the processing sector the expected gains in efficiency in the production and processing of oilseeds are expected to result in producer and consumer gains which would justify the proposed incentives for seeds and for technological upgrading in the processing sector

rising wages mechanization and the substitution between capital and labor evidence from small scale farm system in china this article aims to investigate major factors that led to the observed pace of mechanization and the substitution between labor and machines in rural china we used commodity wise province level panel data for more than a quarter of a century from 1984 to 2012 the analysis demonstrated a dramatic increase in real agricultural wages in recent years especially after 2003 in contrast to a relatively stable real machine price the relative price of machines against agricultural labor has declined in an accelerating way which contributed to the observed rapid introduction of machines the elasticity of substitution between labor and machines was large in some commodities which contributed to a fast substitution of labor by machines

costes de contratacion y empresas de trabajo temporal una explicacion de la disparidad regional en espana the temporary work agencies twa industry experienced continuous growth throughout the 90s and now represents around 15 of temporary hiring in spain more interestingly are markable regional disparity in this sector exists across spanish provinces by developing a simple theoretical model and using panel data methodology this article examines the spanish caseand suggests that the costs of recruiting training and screening could explain a large part of the regional disparity this result is supported by the empirical fact that the twa firms have greater success in markets with low unemployment rates where the average duration of unemploymen tis longer and in provinces with higher concentrations of urban population respectively

livestock in china commodity specific total factor productivity decomposition using new panel data studies of total factor productivity tfp in livestock production are rare but when available provide useful information especially in the context of developing countries such as china where livestock is becoming more important in the domestic agricultural economy we estimate tfp for four major livestock products in china employing the stochastic frontier approach and decompose productivity growth into its technical efficiency te and technical progress components efforts are made to adjust and augment the available livestock statistics the results show that growth in tfp and its components varied between the 1980s and the 1990s as well as over production structures while there is evidence of considerable technical innovation in china s livestock sector te improvement has been relatively slow