Belton Fleisher - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
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Papers by Belton Fleisher
The Journal of Economic Education, 1985
The Journal of Economic Education, 1991
Social Science Research Network, 2004
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Mar 31, 2008
The evolution of China’s market economy is one of the most important developments in the world ... more The evolution of China’s market economy is one of the most important developments in the world economy in the twenty-first century. The diverse contributors to this book provide a unique set of essays that evaluate legal, regulatory, and economic aspects of China’s transition from planned to market economy.
British Journal of Sociology, Dec 1, 1966
Southern Economic Journal, Jul 1, 1968
Page 1. EMPLOYMENT AND WAGE RATES IN RETAIL TRADE SUBSEQUENT TO THE 1961 AMENDMENTS OF THE FAIR L... more Page 1. EMPLOYMENT AND WAGE RATES IN RETAIL TRADE SUBSEQUENT TO THE 1961 AMENDMENTS OF THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT WILLIAM J. SHKURTI AND BELTON M. FLEISHER The Ohio State University* I ...
Economics of transition and institutional change, Jun 30, 2023
In China, between 1995 and 2018, the proportion of workers employed in unskilled job categories g... more In China, between 1995 and 2018, the proportion of workers employed in unskilled job categories grew, while the share holding middle‐skilled jobs declined. The resulting income polarization magnified a major redistribution of wages within job categories, which is not only the main component of total income inequality but is also the driving factor contributing to changes in total income inequality over the 1995–2018 period. Our counterfactual simulation results support our conjecture that the large employment shift from middle‐skilled to unskilled jobs reflects the adoption of labor‐saving technologies and the response to increased demand for services. We believe that our study sheds light on similar transformations in other developing economies.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Feb 1, 2020
We propose a new methodology to estimate empirically the input price-induced technical change and... more We propose a new methodology to estimate empirically the input price-induced technical change and total factor productivity (TFP) growth in China. Our primary goal is to test Hicks\u27 induced innovation hypothesis by examining whether technical change in China has been induced by sharp increase in input prices that have accompanied its rapid economic growth. Utilizing the idea of a firm\u27s two-stage optimization problem, we develop a new parametric form of the variable profit function wherein the derived input demand and output supply functions can be easily constrained to be regular, and the functional structure is parsimonious in the number of parameters. Applying this methodology to Chinese time series data for 1986–2015, we find that not only is wage-induced innovation significant and quantitatively important, but also that it substantially buffers a long-term decline in TFP growth that would otherwise be quite substantial. We conclude that China\u27s economic growth is predominantly driven by wage-induced innovation along with massive injection of heavily subsidized physical inputs in public works and huge investment in industrial sectors
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Mar 31, 2008
Social Science Research Network, 2015
We report evidence of long-term adverse health impacts of fetal malnutrition exposure of middle-a... more We report evidence of long-term adverse health impacts of fetal malnutrition exposure of middle-aged survivors of the 1959-1961 China Famine using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. We find that fetal exposure to malnutrition has large and long-lasting impacts on both physical health and cognitive abilities, including the risks of suffering a stroke, physical disabilities in speech, walking and vision, and measures of mental acuity even half a century after the tragic event. Our findings imply that policies and programs that improve the nutritional status of pregnant women yield benefits on the health of a fetus that extend through the life cycle in the form of reduced physical and mental impairment.
Social Science Research Network, 2011
Evolution of the Industrial Wage Structure in China Since 1980 * Industry mean wages in China hav... more Evolution of the Industrial Wage Structure in China Since 1980 * Industry mean wages in China have exhibited sharply increased dispersion since the early 1990s. The upward trend in differences of average wages among major industry groups parallels increases in wage and income inequality not only between rural and urban sectors but within the urban economy as well. Research on the trend has focused on (1) how market forces have led to a better match between worker pay and worker skills; on (2a) how the growing share of employment in the private sector has "caused" growing wage inequality; and (2b) how residual government control in a few industrial sectors has contributed to wage inequality due monopoly rent sharing. We show that the industrial wage dispersion in China has evolved to match long-recognized international patterns of industrial wage dispersion and that an increasing proportion of industrial wage dispersion can be explained as returns to observed worker characteristics.
Social Forces, Mar 1, 1967
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Mar 1, 2007
Human Capital, Economic Growth, and Regional Inequality in China * We study the dispersion in rat... more Human Capital, Economic Growth, and Regional Inequality in China * We study the dispersion in rates of provincial economic-and TFP growth in China. Our results show that regional growth patterns can be understood as a function of several interrelated factors, which include investment in physical capital, human capital, and infrastructure capital; the infusion of new technology and its regional spread; and market reforms, with a major step forward occurring following Deng Xiaoping's "South Trip" in 1992. We find that FDI had much larger effect on TFP growth before 1994 than after, and we attribute this to emergence of other channels of technology transfer when marketization accelerated. We find that human capital positively affects output per worker and productivity growth. In particular, in terms of its direct contribution to production, educated labor has a much higher marginal product. Moreover, we estimate a positive, direct effect of human capital on TFP growth. This direct effect is hypothesized to come from domestic innovation activities. The estimated spillover effect of human capital on TFP growth is positive and statistically significant, which is very robust to model specifications and estimation methods. The spillover effect appears to be much stronger before 1994. We conduct cost-benefit analysis and a policy "experiment," in which we project the impact of increases in human capital and infrastructure capital on regional inequality. We conclude that investing in human capital will be an effective policy to reduce regional gaps in China as well as an efficient means to promote economic growth.
China Economic Review, Sep 1, 2015
China Economic Review, Apr 1, 2016
The Review of Economics and Statistics, Aug 1, 1963
Page 1. SOME ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF PUERTO RICAN MIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES Belton M. Fleisher *... more Page 1. SOME ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF PUERTO RICAN MIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES Belton M. Fleisher * I. Introduction T HE migration of Puerto Ricans to the continental United States (primarily to the New York ...
China Economic Review, Feb 1, 2016
The Journal of Economic Education, 1985
The Journal of Economic Education, 1991
Social Science Research Network, 2004
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Mar 31, 2008
The evolution of China’s market economy is one of the most important developments in the world ... more The evolution of China’s market economy is one of the most important developments in the world economy in the twenty-first century. The diverse contributors to this book provide a unique set of essays that evaluate legal, regulatory, and economic aspects of China’s transition from planned to market economy.
British Journal of Sociology, Dec 1, 1966
Southern Economic Journal, Jul 1, 1968
Page 1. EMPLOYMENT AND WAGE RATES IN RETAIL TRADE SUBSEQUENT TO THE 1961 AMENDMENTS OF THE FAIR L... more Page 1. EMPLOYMENT AND WAGE RATES IN RETAIL TRADE SUBSEQUENT TO THE 1961 AMENDMENTS OF THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT WILLIAM J. SHKURTI AND BELTON M. FLEISHER The Ohio State University* I ...
Economics of transition and institutional change, Jun 30, 2023
In China, between 1995 and 2018, the proportion of workers employed in unskilled job categories g... more In China, between 1995 and 2018, the proportion of workers employed in unskilled job categories grew, while the share holding middle‐skilled jobs declined. The resulting income polarization magnified a major redistribution of wages within job categories, which is not only the main component of total income inequality but is also the driving factor contributing to changes in total income inequality over the 1995–2018 period. Our counterfactual simulation results support our conjecture that the large employment shift from middle‐skilled to unskilled jobs reflects the adoption of labor‐saving technologies and the response to increased demand for services. We believe that our study sheds light on similar transformations in other developing economies.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Feb 1, 2020
We propose a new methodology to estimate empirically the input price-induced technical change and... more We propose a new methodology to estimate empirically the input price-induced technical change and total factor productivity (TFP) growth in China. Our primary goal is to test Hicks\u27 induced innovation hypothesis by examining whether technical change in China has been induced by sharp increase in input prices that have accompanied its rapid economic growth. Utilizing the idea of a firm\u27s two-stage optimization problem, we develop a new parametric form of the variable profit function wherein the derived input demand and output supply functions can be easily constrained to be regular, and the functional structure is parsimonious in the number of parameters. Applying this methodology to Chinese time series data for 1986–2015, we find that not only is wage-induced innovation significant and quantitatively important, but also that it substantially buffers a long-term decline in TFP growth that would otherwise be quite substantial. We conclude that China\u27s economic growth is predominantly driven by wage-induced innovation along with massive injection of heavily subsidized physical inputs in public works and huge investment in industrial sectors
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Mar 31, 2008
Social Science Research Network, 2015
We report evidence of long-term adverse health impacts of fetal malnutrition exposure of middle-a... more We report evidence of long-term adverse health impacts of fetal malnutrition exposure of middle-aged survivors of the 1959-1961 China Famine using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. We find that fetal exposure to malnutrition has large and long-lasting impacts on both physical health and cognitive abilities, including the risks of suffering a stroke, physical disabilities in speech, walking and vision, and measures of mental acuity even half a century after the tragic event. Our findings imply that policies and programs that improve the nutritional status of pregnant women yield benefits on the health of a fetus that extend through the life cycle in the form of reduced physical and mental impairment.
Social Science Research Network, 2011
Evolution of the Industrial Wage Structure in China Since 1980 * Industry mean wages in China hav... more Evolution of the Industrial Wage Structure in China Since 1980 * Industry mean wages in China have exhibited sharply increased dispersion since the early 1990s. The upward trend in differences of average wages among major industry groups parallels increases in wage and income inequality not only between rural and urban sectors but within the urban economy as well. Research on the trend has focused on (1) how market forces have led to a better match between worker pay and worker skills; on (2a) how the growing share of employment in the private sector has "caused" growing wage inequality; and (2b) how residual government control in a few industrial sectors has contributed to wage inequality due monopoly rent sharing. We show that the industrial wage dispersion in China has evolved to match long-recognized international patterns of industrial wage dispersion and that an increasing proportion of industrial wage dispersion can be explained as returns to observed worker characteristics.
Social Forces, Mar 1, 1967
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Mar 1, 2007
Human Capital, Economic Growth, and Regional Inequality in China * We study the dispersion in rat... more Human Capital, Economic Growth, and Regional Inequality in China * We study the dispersion in rates of provincial economic-and TFP growth in China. Our results show that regional growth patterns can be understood as a function of several interrelated factors, which include investment in physical capital, human capital, and infrastructure capital; the infusion of new technology and its regional spread; and market reforms, with a major step forward occurring following Deng Xiaoping's "South Trip" in 1992. We find that FDI had much larger effect on TFP growth before 1994 than after, and we attribute this to emergence of other channels of technology transfer when marketization accelerated. We find that human capital positively affects output per worker and productivity growth. In particular, in terms of its direct contribution to production, educated labor has a much higher marginal product. Moreover, we estimate a positive, direct effect of human capital on TFP growth. This direct effect is hypothesized to come from domestic innovation activities. The estimated spillover effect of human capital on TFP growth is positive and statistically significant, which is very robust to model specifications and estimation methods. The spillover effect appears to be much stronger before 1994. We conduct cost-benefit analysis and a policy "experiment," in which we project the impact of increases in human capital and infrastructure capital on regional inequality. We conclude that investing in human capital will be an effective policy to reduce regional gaps in China as well as an efficient means to promote economic growth.
China Economic Review, Sep 1, 2015
China Economic Review, Apr 1, 2016
The Review of Economics and Statistics, Aug 1, 1963
Page 1. SOME ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF PUERTO RICAN MIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES Belton M. Fleisher *... more Page 1. SOME ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF PUERTO RICAN MIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES Belton M. Fleisher * I. Introduction T HE migration of Puerto Ricans to the continental United States (primarily to the New York ...
China Economic Review, Feb 1, 2016