May 31, 1999 <p> China's economic performance of the past two decades presents a puzzle for the economics of transition and development: Enormous private business incentives were unleashed that have fueled rapid economic growth despite the fact that China has had very weak "conventional...</p>

Some critics of proposed legislative labor policy changes contend that laws favoring labor would adversely affect business investment. Research on labor policy, however, often assumes that investment is fixed. The authors present a sequential bargaining model in which labor policies that...

The long literature of former socialist systems concludes that any effort to reform the economy without drastic political change is believed to be doomed to fail because tight political control and nonmarket coordination mechanisms are intertwined with each other. Indeed, the history of economic...

To better understand the relationship between different types of firm ownership and management turnover, this study classifies ownership along two dimensions: the type of owner and the concentration of ownership. Within this framework, a unique data set is used to study the impact of management...

China's economic performance of the past two decades presents a puzzle for the economics of transition and development: Enormous private business incentives were unleashed that have fueled rapid economic growth despite the fact that China has had very weak "conventional institutions" (such as...

A large literature has documented impressive productivity growth in China's state enterprises during the reform. The evidence has been used to support the view that China's enterprise reform has been successful. We cast doubt on this view by arguing that productivity is not a reliable measure of...

Policy debates over proposed legislative labor policy changes include contentions that business investment will negatively respond to labor laws that favor labor. Research on labor policy, however, often assumes that investment is fixed. We present a sequential bargaining model in which labor...

Product demand, supply and internal coordination are all explicitly specified in a model to study how they jointly determine the division of labor (job span). A larger job span means fewer workers are used to cover a production process, which is helpful in coordination and product quality, but...