Tuyen Pham, Christelle Khalaf, G. Jason Jolley, Douglas Eric Belleville Jr
{"title":"Hollowing out of middle-pay jobs in Ohio: An exploratory analysis","authors":"Tuyen Pham, Christelle Khalaf, G. Jason Jolley, Douglas Eric Belleville Jr","doi":"10.1111/ajes.12552","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ajes.12552","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Hollowing out is a term that refers to the decline in the share of middle-pay and middle-skilled jobs relative to low-pay and high-pay jobs. This study employs county-level occupational data at the place of employment to document hollowing out of middle-pay jobs across regions in Ohio. The county-level data with occupational information allow us to study how regions' economic heterogeneity contributes to the decline of middle-paying jobs in Ohio over the 2001–2019 period. Of 88 counties in Ohio, 77 counties experienced declines in the shares of middle-paying jobs. On average, Appalachian Ohio counties experienced higher hollowing out rates than other counties. We found that the hollowing out of middle-paying jobs in Ohio is associated with the declines in the shares of manufacturing and mining jobs.</p>","PeriodicalId":47133,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Economics and Sociology","volume":"83 2","pages":"427-443"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ajes.12552","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135405029","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jizhou Wang, Jin’an He, Richard Cebula, Maggie Foley, Fangping Peng
{"title":"Mixed ownership reform, political connections, and overinvestment","authors":"Jizhou Wang, Jin’an He, Richard Cebula, Maggie Foley, Fangping Peng","doi":"10.1111/ajes.12549","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ajes.12549","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The study discovers that mixed ownership reform aimed at enhancing the performance and resource allocation efficiency of state-owned enterprises may have unintended consequences in China. When the nature of state-owned control remains unchanged, there is a risk of increased overinvestment due to misaligned interests between state-owned equity representatives and companies. This incentive can be mitigated by introducing nonstate shareholders with political connections. The study employs a double machine learning method to analyze data from state-owned listed companies that introduced nonstate shareholders through stock issuance between 2008 and 2019. The research underscores that modern corporate governance mechanisms are crucial for successful mixed ownership reform.</p>","PeriodicalId":47133,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Economics and Sociology","volume":"83 2","pages":"407-425"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135804217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The optimized development of China's service industry in the “Belt and Road” regional value chain: A social network analysis","authors":"Hanmei Zhang","doi":"10.1111/ajes.12548","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ajes.12548","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The optimized development of service industry in the value chain can inject strong impetus into economic growth. The “Belt and Road” initiative provides a new path for China's service industry. This article combines value-added accounting method and social network analysis method to study the network environment of service trade in the “Belt and Road” region and the individual characteristics of China's service trade. At the same time, the article deeply analyzes the factors that affect the optimized development of China's service industry in the “Belt and Road” regional value chain from the perspective of trade relations and puts forward countermeasures and suggestions accordingly. The study found that the “Belt and Road” regional service trade network has high density and shows a trend of blockization. As a core node in the regional service trade network, China has strong subjective initiative, connecting link, and independence in trade relations. Moreover, the optimization of China's service trade relations can further enhance its position in the “Belt and Road” regional value chain. At the same time, it can also enhance political and cultural identity, enhance China's discourse power, and promote the process of regional economic integration. Therefore, China's service industry can use the “Belt and Road” initiative to innovate the trade relationship model and realize the optimal development.</p>","PeriodicalId":47133,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Economics and Sociology","volume":"83 1","pages":"293-323"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135969452","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Asymmetric information and capital mobility in antebellum America","authors":"Donald F. Vitaliano","doi":"10.1111/ajes.12547","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ajes.12547","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The New York legislature granted charters to 28 new banks in 1829. Over $5 million in capital was subscribed by 1745 individuals or entities. The average distance between investor and bank is less than 40 miles, and the average number of investors is 75 per bank, with ownership and control closely aligned. A gravity model fixed effects regression is estimated. Insiders, such as public officials and bank officers account for over one quarter of the invested capital. After accounting for information asymmetry, a strong home bias exists which suggests a high degree of capital immobility. The failure of Northern capital to invest in Southern manufacturing is readily explained by the picture of a thin and localized market dominated by political elite and specialized traders.</p>","PeriodicalId":47133,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Economics and Sociology","volume":"83 2","pages":"393-406"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136014596","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Who will guard over the guardians?","authors":"Alfred de Zayas","doi":"10.1111/ajes.12542","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12542","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Human rights have been weaponized and transformed into geopolitical tools to target certain states and not others. The rhetoric of human rights has been distorted by politicians, media, think tanks and the emerging “human rights industry” that serves hegemonic powers and not humanity. This constitutes an affront against human dignity.</p>","PeriodicalId":47133,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Economics and Sociology","volume":"82 5","pages":"471-480"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134805178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Prediction markets as meta-episteme: Artificial intelligence, forecasting tournaments, prediction markets, and economic growth","authors":"Ryan H. Murphy","doi":"10.1111/ajes.12546","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ajes.12546","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper presents a speculative framework suggesting that prediction markets (or its epistemic cousins such as artificial intelligence or forecasting tournaments) may constitute a break in the expansion of human knowledge in a manner similar to the impact of the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. Just as the scientific understanding of the natural world facilitated the development of useful technologies to move far faster than what is allowed by blind evolution and tinkering, tools such as prediction markets allow for scientific knowledge to move faster than its current evolutionary process. The intellectual bases for these tools, such as the interpretation of probabilities as bets, are relatively recent additions to human knowledge, which may have significant implications for how we evaluate past thinkers, versus what is now possible or may be possible in the future.</p>","PeriodicalId":47133,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Economics and Sociology","volume":"83 2","pages":"383-392"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ajes.12546","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135696252","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Catholic Church's point of view on priority of labor over capital","authors":"Elio Gasda","doi":"10.1111/ajes.12544","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ajes.12544","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution transformed Western civilization in dramatic ways. Simultaneously, the market economy converted human labor into “merchandise”. Also in the 19th century, the reality of workers forced Pope Leo XIII to publish <i>Rerum Novarum</i>, the first encyclical of the Catholic Church's social doctrine. In 1981, Pope John Paul II, in <i>Laborem Exercens</i>, will affirm that the conversion of human labor into “merchandise” was generated by an anthropological inversion in the order of concepts: the priority of capital over labor. The value of labor cannot be fixed solely by the market law of supply and demand. The value of labor is measured, mainly, by the standard of dignity conferred on those who perform it. The great challenge is to rescue human labor as an activity of humanization and social fraternity. Human life and the common good are more valuable than capital.</p>","PeriodicalId":47133,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Economics and Sociology","volume":"83 1","pages":"283-292"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136155438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"ESG performance and green innovation in a digital transformation perspective","authors":"Jun Dai, Qiumin Zhu","doi":"10.1111/ajes.12541","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ajes.12541","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the era of the digital economy, companies strive to promote green innovation by enhancing their ESG performance, aiming to create new advantages for high-quality corporate development. We investigate the influence and mechanism of corporate digital transformation, ESG performance, and green innovation using data from Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed enterprises in China between 2012 and 2021. The study reveals that good ESG performance significantly fosters green innovation. Additionally, digital transformation plays a positive moderating role in the relationship between ESG performance and green innovation, which remains consistent even after conducting a series of robustness tests. The findings of this study offer valuable insights for improving the top-level planning of “Digital Nation,” promoting the development of ESG concepts, and achieving “carbon peaking,” and “carbon neutrality.”</p>","PeriodicalId":47133,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Economics and Sociology","volume":"83 1","pages":"263-282"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47318856","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Trust, lies, and inequality","authors":"Ninghua Du, Shan Gui, Daniel Houser","doi":"10.1111/ajes.12540","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ajes.12540","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The effect of endowment equality on trust may stem from outcome inequality aversion or changes in expected trustworthiness. Here, we measure trust as the expectation of honesty in a sender-receiver game, where participants must make trust decisions without knowing the outcome. Our design enables us to isolate the effect of initial endowment inequality on trust. Our results show that endowment inequality reduces trust regardless of whether it favors the sender or the receiver. We further find that the frequency of lies is insensitive to endowment inequality. Our results amplify the importance of equal starting positions in promoting trust.</p>","PeriodicalId":47133,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Economics and Sociology","volume":"83 1","pages":"249-262"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45146487","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Plausibility, not science, has dominated public discussions of the COVID pandemic","authors":"Harvey A. Risch","doi":"10.1111/ajes.12539","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ajes.12539","url":null,"abstract":"<p>COVID-19 put to the test the understanding of the meaning of “science” by the medical profession, the media, and the public. Unfortunately, the vast majority of individuals were misled by those who spoke on behalf of science but who confused plausible stories with scientific explanation. Scientific understanding comes from theories, which generate hypotheses, which are, in turn, confirmed or disconfirmed by empirical evidence that is evaluated using statistical methods. In our daily lives, we may judge the validity of a hypothesis based on its plausibility, and for most trivial cases that is sufficient. But it is a mistake to imagine that science can proceed on that basis. Yet, scientists themselves are often confused about the foundations of the scientific method. “Evidence-based medicine” is now being used to discredit all medical evidence other than randomized controlled trials (RCTs), the supposed “gold standard” of medical research. This insistence on a single method that is deemed “best practice” has the ironic effect of replacing science with plausibility in medicine. RCTs fail to live up to their vaunted status because of frequent insufficiencies in randomization related to confounding errors and their magnitudes. When randomized trials were compared with observational studies in a meta-analysis of thousands of studies, the differences in conclusions were negligible. The entire framework of COVID-19 policy has been based on plausible hypotheses, not backed by genuine scientific evidence. Critics are correct in claiming that COVID-19 policies have been based on politics, not science.</p>","PeriodicalId":47133,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Economics and Sociology","volume":"82 5","pages":"411-424"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46317594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}