With the help of a simple model this paper formulates a hypothesis that a monetary expansion in the Chinese context of a segmented labor market has the effect of widening the wage gap between state and non-state workers. We argue that the reason for the increase in wage differential is that SOEs...

The Chinese government has been active in trying to cool the alleged bubbles in its housing markets, especially in urban areas. This paper argues that the high housing prices are at least partly caused by some real factors, including the policy of restricting land uses, in particular the...

This paper develops a theoretical model to study features of the spontaneous growth of private enterprises in China’s Zhejiang province. The model predicts that in a developing economy where the market environment is immature or unstable, the ownership structure of a typical private enterprise...

This paper develops a simple dynamic model to study some of the implications of Cantillon’s insight that new money enters an economy at a specific point and that it takes time for the new money to permeate the economy. It applies a process analysis and uses numerical simulations to map out how...

This paper develops a set of three models to study the optimal tax-subsidy regime in an economy characterised by two deviations from the perfect competition model – negative externality from pollution by the "dirty" industry, and increasing returns in the "clean" industry. Its main conclusions...

This paper investigates income inequality in the post-reform Chinese economy of 1978 to 2011. We identify a Kuznets inverted-U relationship between economic development and overall income inequality and provide evidence to suggest that this relationship was driven by the process of urbanization....

In this note, we introduce increasing returns to Bovenberg and Mooij's (1994) model as generalised in Fullerton (1997) and use an example to show that (1) even with a distortionary labor tax, the optimal environmental levy is greater than the Pigouvian rate; (2) the difference between tax on the...

This paper presents three simple models to study how prices, politics and persuasion may each play a role in environmental policymaking. Our conclusions are twofold. First, in the absence of increasing returns, requiring the polluting industry to purchase pollution permits can internalize the...

This paper investigates how monetary shocks are transmitted internationally. It shows that where a national currency is used as an international medium of exchange, the international money is non-neutral. In particular, an increase in the supply of international money leads to a transfer of real...

This paper develops a Ricardian model with money to study North-South trade that is mediated by the currency of the North. The model shows that an increase in the supply of Northern money results in inflation being “exported†to the South. The increase in the supply of Northern money...