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Abstract - The Invisible Hand of Rent Seeking: Capitalism, Democracy, and the Budget Deficits
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Abstract: Historically, social and economic grievances resulted in sociopolitical instability, which served as a medium of institutional changes in the evolution of Western Europe toward a more inclusive regime. In today's democratic capitalism, however, a great many interest groups have burgeoned and acquired political power to seek their own interest at the expense of the welfare of the general public. Interest groups thrive on a tacit agreement with those members of the political body whose primary interest lies in their own aggrandizement. Such agreement inevitably leads to excessive claims on public resources, interferes with the market system by perpetuating rent in many sectors of the economy, erodes the moral values of trust and respect, and causes moral hazard among the legislators by undermining budgetary discipline. Moreover, the inevitable friction among the legislators often results in gridlock in public decision making. The democratic capitalism thus is losing on both ends: the market efficiency and political efficacy, with reduced prospect of economic growth. This paper attempts to explain these phenomena as a strategic equilibrium of the major players in the politico-economic arena. Keywords: Democratic capitalism, interest groups, rent seeking, economic inefficiency, political inefficacy. |
Abstract - Exploration of Leisure Time Valuation to Explain Sex-Based Wage Gaps among Salaried Primary Care Physicians in the US
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Abstract: In the US, female physicians have lower hourly incomes than their male counterparts, across specialties and after adjusting for physician and practice characteristics; however, female physicians work fewer hours than their male counterparts. We wanted to determine whether a simple method of valuing leisure time – overtime pay – might help explain sex-based wage gaps among US primary care physicians. Therefore, we used Community Tracking Study Physician Survey data from 1996-2005 to model the impact of overtime pay on sex-based wage gaps. As overtime premiums increased in our models, sex-based wage disparities decreased: they become statistically insignificant when overtime wages reached 0%, 32%, and 61% premiums using the ordinary least squared model and with 0%, 62%, and 55% premiums using the propensity score weighted model, for internal medicine, family practice, and pediatric physicians, respectively. We conclude that modest overtime premiums reduced sex-based hourly wage gaps for the salaried primary care physicians we examined. Future analyses of sex-based wage gaps should account for leisure time and its trade for work hours when it becomes scarce. Keywords: Sex-based wage gaps, primary care physicians, workforce, gender, physician income. |
Abstract - Re-Opening the Silk Road to Transform Chinese Trade
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Abstract: Under anti-globalization and isolationism, China is seeking to portray itself as a new leader for globalization under the banner of the Silk Road initiative. Meanwhile, China’s traditional and comparatively advantaged industry, silk, has faced dire predicaments and challenges for long time, and needs a transformation in terms of initiatives. Throughout history, the prosperity arising from silk was supposed to represent a microcosm of Chinese society. This paper searches the breakthrough point to improve the current dilemma of Chinese silk enterprises; uses a Case Study for inductive reasoning that is feasible for marketing strategies; and provides a strategy to help Chinese silk enterprises to transform their market positioning and operating modes to obtain better development opportunities. The paper also analyzes the new external environment based on the “One Belt, One Road” principle, which is of crucial importance for the implementation of new marketing strategies. Keywords: China, Silk, Company Strategy, National Strategy, Transformation, Chinese Trade. |
Abstract - Recent Topical Research on Global, Energy, Health & Medical, and Tourism Economics, and Global Software: An Overview
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Abstract: The paper presents an overview of recent topical research on global, energy, health & medical, and tourism economics, and global software. We have interpreted “global” in the title of the Journal of Reviews on Global Economics to cover contributions that have a global impact on economics, thereby making it “global economics”. In this sense, the paper is concerned with papers on global, energy, health & medical, and tourism economics, as well as global software algorithms that have global economic impacts. The topics covered include re-opening the Silk Road to transform Chinese trade, education and skill mismatches, code of practice and indicators for quality management of official statistics, projections of energy use and carbon emissions, multi-fuel allocation for power generation using genetic algorithms, optimal active energy loss with feeder routing and renewable energy for smart grid distribution, demand for narcotics with policy implications, computer technology to improve medical information, heritage tourism, ecotourism impacts on the economy, society and environment, taxi drivers’ cross-cultural communication problems and challenges, hybrid knowledge discovery system based on items and tags, game development platform to improve advanced programming skills, quadratic approximation of the newsvendor problem with imperfect quality, classification of workflow management systems for emails, academic search engine for personalized rankings, creative and learning processes using game-based activities, personal software process with automatic requirements traceability to support start-ups, and comparing statistical and data mining techniques for enrichment ontology with instances. Keywords: Global economics, energy economics, health & medical economics, tourism economics, global software. |
Abstract - Education and Skill Mismatches in Maptaphut Industrial Estate, Thailand
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Abstract: This paper examines educational and skill mismatches by using primary data from Maptaphut Industrial Estate, Rayong Province, Thailand, conducted from 226 respondents. Ordinary least squares (OLS) and unconditional quantile (UQR) regressions are used to examine the mismatches on earnings. The empirical findings are as follows: (1) returns to education of high income workers are larger than average income workers; (2) education mismatches affect earnings, such that over-education is statistically significant, whereas under-education is not significant, for both the OLS and UQR estimates; (3) UQR provides more information on size of the over-education to the returns on schooling; (4) specific training for some job positions also indicates educational and skill mismatches; and (5) firms should invest in training for workers to reduce weaknesses in educational mismatches. Keywords: Over-education, Under-education, Skill Mismatches, Specific Training, Earnings, Maptaphut Industrial Estate. |