From Predation to Accumulation?: The Second Transition Decade in Russia

In this paper I argue that the insecure property rights and widespread predation that have characterized Russia during these past 12 or so years have depressed capital formation in all its dimensions, private, public, physical, human and environmental. The elimination of the conditions that gave rise to insecure property rights and predation is a necessary condition for the kind of sustained economic growth the Russian government anticipates in its new economic strategy, promulgated in June 2000.     

Educated Bandits: Endogenous Property Rights and Intra‐Elite Distribution of Human Capital

This article presents a simple model of endogenous institutions linking property rights to the distribution of human capital between political and economic elite groups. In the absence of institutional constraints, the commitment problem of the political elites is intensified, because their human capital can turn out to be a double‐edged sword raising their efficiency in predation as well as in production. In general, the more human capital the political elites have, the stronger the institutional concessions they are ready to offer to attarct investment. Provided that predation depends sufficiently on human capital, the political elites can credibly commit to respect property rights by specializing in fields that are relevant for the priavte sector. Brain drain can undermine the transition to stable property rights even when the political elites are well‐educated. Comparative narratives from Malaysia and Zimbabwe are presented to motivate the theoretical discussion.     

Managing excessive predation in a predator-endangered prey setting

Bioeconomic analyses of predator–prey systems examine how to adjust species management in response to predation spillovers to avoid inefficiencies. Predation spillovers refer to the net economic value of predation, taking into account the impacts on prey. Inefficiencies arise when the species interactions that generate this value are not managed to maximize the net economic surplus generated by the system. Consumptive values for predator and/or prey harvests factor into the value of predation spillovers in prior work. In contrast, we examine the optimal management of a predator–prey system where the only values are non-market values associated with the species' abundances. We find that adverse predation spillovers may alone create social incentives for harvests or other interventions. Moreover, optimally reducing adverse predation spillovers may increase both species' abundances — an ecological “win–win” outcome that increases economic surplus, although the result depends on the controls used. We examine predator removal and predator exclosures that shelter prey from predation. Using a numerical example of the Great Lakes Piping Plover, an endangered prey bird, and Merlins, a falcon predator, we find predator exclosures can reduce inefficiencies and produce a win–win outcome.     

明代中国经济的产权分析与中欧比较研究

资本市场的萌芽和产生是商品经济的发展水平、社会化大生产状况和信用制度的成熟程度等三个因素共同促成的结果。在14~16世纪,中国和欧洲的基本条件相当,但欧洲地区出现了世界最早的资本市场,并逐步发展成为新的世界经济中心,而当时经济同样发达,并具有悠久文明史的古老中国却不仅没有产生资本市场,反而日渐衰落。本文从产权经济学的视角对明代中国和欧洲的经济发展状况和产权制度进行了比较研究,论证了14~16世纪的中国不可能出现资本市场的历史必然性。     

The economic costs of biological predation

This paper developes a bioeconomic model to analyse the economic losses from the reduced harvesting of prey species resulting from an increase in the stock of a natural predator. Examples of large mammals creating economic damage are whales and African elephants. The economic losses depend critically on the actual management of the prey stock, although the three measures we develop are equal when the stock is managed so as to maximize the sustained economic rent from the prey species. Predation losses are illustrated by the case of the Northeastern Atlantic Minke whale, where the estimate of the average predation cost per whale in 1991–1992 is between $US 1780 and $US 2370, using Norwegian cost and earnings data. A ten percent stock increase is estimated to cause a loss of almost $US 19 million to the fishers of the prey species. If half of this cost were assigned to Norway it would be equivalent to 2.8 and 6.7 percent of the gross profits of the Norwegian cod and herring fisheries, respectively.     

Conflict diamonds

‘Conflict diamonds’ refer to the fatal role that diamonds are believed to have played in several African conflicts. The article analyzes the impact of diamond rents on economic growth in light of the broader, previously discovered empirical finding of a ‘curse of natural resources.’ By extending the theory of appropriative conflict, a predator–prey game is outlined in which a rebel chooses between peaceful production and predation on natural resources controlled by the ruler. It is shown that whereas an increase in natural resources will increase the ruler's public utility investments, it might also lead to a crowding-out of labor from the formal sector to the appropriative struggle, which depresses growth. As predicted by the model, a cross-country regression analysis suggests that diamond abundance has a negative relationship with economic growth in countries with weak institutions.     

Predation and mergers: Is merger law counterproductive?

This paper extends the literature on predation and mergers to a multi-firm setting. Two new arguments why predation is rational when a merger is an alternative are provided. First, predation is less prone to the free-rider problem, since mergers concentrate the costs of eliminating a rival with one firm, whereas predation allows the costs to be spread out. Second, predation can be profitable since it limits the negative effects of the bidding competition for the prey. It is also shown that a restrictive merger policy might be counterproductive by “helping” predators avoid the disadvantageous bidding competition for the prey.     

Financial Liberalization, Property Rights, and Growth in an Overlapping-Generations Model

Using an endogenous growth model in which countries differ with respect to property rights protection, the paper analyzes the growth and welfare effects of removing capital controls, and studies the political support for a reform which improves the quality of property rights. When these are poorly protected, liberalization of capital movements may foster growth in the short run but eliminates it in the long run. The removal of capital controls may benefit agents at the time of liberalization, hurting future generations. Ceteris paribus , political support for a reform of property rights is stronger in the closed than in the open economy.     

Public investment,national debt,and economic growth: The role of debt finance under dynamic inefficiency

Public investment is a central issue in the dynamic analyses of fiscal policy and economic growth. Debt financing for public investment and its effects have recently received great attention because interest rates have been low, almost invariably remaining below economic growth rates. This paper presents examination of the effects of debt-financed public investment subject to a simple fiscal rule in an overlapping generations model with public capital. This topic includes capital budgeting and the debt–deficit criterion of the Maastricht treaty. We show herein that debt financing for public investment enhances economic growth if an economy is dynamically inefficient and if public capital has a sufficiently large productivity effect. Moreover, it reduces economic growth rates in a dynamically efficient economy. Debt and growth can have a monotonic or non-monotonic relation, depending on the steady-state interest rate, growth rate, and productivity effect of public investment. The findings indicate that debt–growth relations match with controversial empirical evidence. Furthermore, existing generations choose perfect debt finance if dynamic inefficiency exists. In contrast, a balanced budget is preferred in a dynamically efficient economy with low productivity effects of public capital. However, an economy with high productivity effects of public capital might cho ose debt financing. This paper contributes to the elucidation of currently emphasized issues of public investment.     

Production Period and Cycles: Several Interpretations in a Neo-Austrian Economic Perspective

The aim of this contribution is to study the notion of the period of production by taking into consideration the time-consuming nature of capital. Long delays between investment expenditures and receipts of profits from capital are indeed a remarkable property of the Austrian theory of capital. The study of the great essays of the neo-Austrian capital theory modeling allows us to postulate that there are at least two large contributing groups depending upon whether the production period is endogenous or exogenous. Our work consists in showing the well-founded methodology of the first current by suggesting a neo-Austrian inerpretation of the non-steady state behavior of the standard macroeconomic model. We show that the origin of economic cycles is the potential conflict between the producer's plan of investment through the period of production and the inter-temporal choices of the consumers.     

Ecological Transfers in Non-Human Communities Parallel Economic Markets in a General Equilibrium Ecosystem Model

Synopsis: The oft-cited analogies between ecological and economic systems are exploited to develop a many-species model of population dynamics. In economies, markets are the fundamental institutions in which the interaction of demands and supplies determine the quantities and prices of goods. However, economic markets are not appropriate for ecological communities, because markets rely on voluntary exchange, whereas plants and animals engage in involuntary transfers of biomass. A properly defined counterpart to markets based on biomass transfers permits a general equilibrium model of predator/prey and competitive interactions in a many-species community. Functional response from optimal foraging and predation risk provide the demand and supply, respectively, in the biomass transfers. Energy per unit time is scarce and predators and prey make optimum choices with respect to functional response and risk avoidance based on required energy expenditures. The energy expenditures are similar to economic prices: they determine foraging strategies and are beyond the control of the predators and prey, yet they are determined by the aggregate choices of all predators and prey and by population densities. The energies acquired from foraging are used in a new way to construct difference equations that determine the population dynamics. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

晋商为什么衰落？——产权保护视角的探析

晋商资本之雄厚,经营项目之多,活动区域之广,活跃时间之长,在世界商业史上都属罕见,完全可与威尼斯商人、犹太商人等相媲美。但是,曾经如此辉煌的晋商却在清末民初整体性衰落了。本文认为,晋商衰落的根本原因在于缺乏有效的私有产权保护制度。在外国列强侵略与国内武装起义等外部冲击下,晚清政府陷入财政危机与破产边缘,其日益加速的掠夺迫使晋商采取了"结托政府"以及偏好变现性较差的资产等低效率的产权自我保护形式。这一方面导致晋商的经营利润受损,一方面使晋商失去了应对经营波动的必要资本,在两者的综合作用下,晋商赖以崛起与成长的企业家创新日渐消失,并最终在清末民初整体性衰落。     

论《资本论》及其手稿中的经济危机理论的整体性

《资本论》及其手稿的经济危机理论是对资本运动规律的一种整体分析,具有揭示资本主义经济危机实质的整体性结构。社会主义运动一百多年的发展,不论是高潮还是低谷,大部分都源于《资本论》及其手稿经济危机整体性理论或涉及这个理论,富于战斗精神的几代人在《资本论》及其手稿的经济危机整体性理论中发现了武器,这个武器在反对资本主义和克服经济危机的战斗中总是发挥着巨大指导力量。《资本论》及其手稿经济危机整体性理论,不但直面资本主义市场经济中的问题,而且以独特视角全面分析西方金融危机和债务危机问题。把对西方金融危机和债务危机产生原因的分析,建立在《资本论》及其手稿的经济危机整体性理论的基础上,提出了应对危机的科学方法。     

资本回报率增长的最优知识产权保护强度研究——基于82个国家面板数据的实证

基于制度层面分析资本回报率变动的动因有助于探索经济增长新动力。计算82个国家的资本回报率，并基于知识产权保护视角对其变动机制进行分析，得出以下主要结论：①资本回报率增长存在最优知识产权保护强度，但发展中国家的理论最优强度小于发达国家；②发展中国家知识产权保护以远离最优强度状态促进资本回报率提升，发达国家则以接近最优强度状态促进资本回报率提升；③金融危机后，知识产权保护的促进效应在发展中国家更加明显，在发达国家有所弱化；④机制分析显示，知识产权保护通过促进技术创新提升资本回报率。     

乡镇企业和国有企业经济效率差异的人力资本产权分析

对乡镇企业和国有企业的实证比较分析表明 ,同属于公有制的国有企业和乡镇企业以及不同类型的乡镇企业之间之所以出现较大的经济效率差异 ,原因不在于物质资本产权的性质 ,而在于人力资本产权界定上的差异 ,尤其是经营者人力资本产权界定是导致两者经济效率差异的主要原因。     

Economic growth in a politically fragmented world

I explore the effects of economic and political integration on economic growth in a model of vintage human capital and sequential intergenerational bargains. Adoption of a new technology raises not only the productivity but also the bargaining position of the future generations, creating a bias for the current generations to preserve the current technology. Economic integration (i.e., the sharing of frontier technology among countries) promotes growth if there is a diversity in human capital distribution or a coordination failure across countries. On the other hand, political integration (i.e., the merging of countries into a single bargain) promotes stagnation as it eliminates the diversity and coordination failures.     

基于服务供应链的居住物业管理研究

文章基于服务供应链的相关理论,分析了居住物业管理的业务属性、利益主体和公共关系,界定了居住物业服务供应链的成员,构建了居住物业服务供应链的模型,并讨论了居住物业服务供应链的流程管理。最后,通过对服务流、信息流和资金流的有效控制,将服务能力管理、需求管理、客户关系管理、供应商关系管理、服务传递管理和现金流管理进行有效集成,实现物业服务产品的经济效益和社会效益。为提高我国物业管理提供了可以借鉴的意义。     

Capital and growth with oligarchic property rights

To analyze effects of imperfect property rights on economic growth, we consider economies where some fraction of capital can be owned only by local oligarchs, whose status is subject to political risk. Political risk decreases local capital and wages. Risk-averse oligarchs acquire safe foreign assets for insurance, thus increasing wages in other countries that protect outside investors. We show that for empirically reasonable parameter values, reforms to decrease political risk or to protect more outsiders' investments can decrease local oligarchs' welfare by increasing wages, making such reforms prone to political resistance from the ruling elite. We suggest measures of property rights imperfections derived from empirically observable data, and we test the quantitative predictions of our model using those measures and other parameter values routinely assumed in growth theory.     

The Discussion on Railway Public Property Right and State-capital Formation Mechanism

During the process of private enterprise and relaxing control, the railway industry of the entire world reserves considerably proportional state enterprise and state capital. One important reason of these economic phenomena is that there are many establishment collectivities in the railway industry. Every railway transportation enterprise uses the railway network, the hinge, the organizing group station and even the control center, take the format of public property and state capital to organize the relative transportation resources, which is more efficient in many instances than the private property right and capital, which is also the important economic reason why in the railway industry all of the world there are still ubiquitous for the public property rights and state-capital.     

税制改革、经济效率和社会福利——基于A-KOLG框架下的动态CGE模拟分析

在经典的世代交叠动态一般均衡(A-K OLG)模型的基础上,建立了一个由一系列不等式方程组所构成的"跨期动态"模型,反现实地模拟了提高间接税同时降低直接税对我国社会福利、经济效率的影响。与基期相比,减少对资本征税会带来福利增长0.34%(纯经济效率提高0.25%),减少对劳动征税会带来福利增长0.1%(纯经济效率提高0.02%)。该实证结果证明了间接税比直接税更有利于实现经济效率的理论观点。因此,提高直接税的比重是需要以一定的经济效率损失为代价的,实行该项举措应该权衡好各方面利弊、把握好改革时机。