Does local social capital deter labour migration? Evidence from rural China

This article empirically investigates the effect of local social capital on job-related migration in rural China. A household’s social ties in the region of origin, which we refer to as local social capital, may deter migration, because local social capital is location specific and an individual cannot benefit from it if s/he migrates. In view of Chinese gift-giving culture, we use household expenses on wedding gifts for family members outside household, relatives and friends as a proxy for local social networks. Based on the data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, we find that in rural China local social networks have a significantly negative effect on migration. The IV results suggest that a 10% increase in wedding gifts expenses results in roughly a 1.1 percentage points decrease in migration probability.     

创新投入影响产业结构优化升级路径分析

以中国省级区域为研究对象,分析得出本省创新投入可以通过1条直接路径和3条间接路径影响本地及其它省产业结构优化升级,并利用ESDA、静态和动态空间面板模型进行实证研究。结果表明：直接路径下创新资金投入对本地产业结构优化升级具有明显促进效应,创新人员投入则显著提高了本省产业结构合理化水平。本省创新人员投入通过“挤占效应”阻碍了其它省产业结构高级化发展。在创新投入的“协同效应”、产业结构变迁的“趋同效应”及官产学研的“协作效应”等空间溢出机制作用下,创新资金投入通过3条间接路径促进了其它省产业结构优化升级,创新人员投入则提高了外省产业结构合理化水平。前期产业结构高级化和合理化对后期产业结构发展具有动态影响。     

Protectionism, Export Requirements, and Joint Ventures

Economic distortions often accompany the attempt by lower-income countries to develop. This paper examines the consequences of two such distortions: an export-share requirement whereby foreign capital producing in a local enclave is allowed to sell only a fraction of its output in the local protected market, and some local capital must be allowed into a joint venture in the enclave, even if it must be paid a higher return there than foreign capital earns in its country of origin. The welfare effect of such measures is investigated as well as the effect on local wages of measures that drive out some foreign investment. Such a loss of foreign capital may serve to raise the wage rate.     

Imperfect Capital Mobility and Local Government Behaviour in a Two‐Period Economy

One clear result in the tax competition literature is that, when head taxes on immobile residents are available, the optimal capital tax rate for local government is zero. However, zero tax rate, when resident taxes are available, is incompatible with the phenomenon actually observed. In most countries, local governments use capital taxes as policy variables for choosing a nonzero tax rate. This paper presents a model of a two‐period economy with imperfect mobile capital to explain the behaviour of local government providing capital subsidies on capital. It further examines an equilibrium tax rate where local government’s objectives include Niskanen‐type revenue‐maximizing.     

Eco-Dumping, Capital Mobility, and International Trade

A small open economy’s optimal environmental policy is studied in a model with international capital mobility and local pollution. The country produces traded as well as non-traded goods. Is it in the country’s interest to engage in ecological dumping by choosing generous pollution allowances for the traded-good sector? The answer depends decisively on the policy regime in use. Dumping is not optimal if the country ensures that the implicit rent on pollution is completely appropriated within the country. However, if the implicit factor reward on pollution leaves the country because it accrues to (foreign) owners of mobile capital, the local welfare maximizing government tends to discriminate against the traded-good sector, the opposite of ecological dumping.     

Decentralization,social capital,and regional growth: The case of the Italian North-South divide

This paper aims to show how a region's constant level of social capital may have a very different impact on its economic growth depending on whether the central or the local level of government is responsible for regional policy.Our case study is the economic performance of Northern and Southern Italy in the post-World War II period, when a long phase of regional convergence came to a sudden halt in the early 1970s. We focus on the economic effects of the 1970s institutional reforms on government decentralization and wage bargaining. Our main hypothesis is that decentralization allocates the provision of public capital to institutions, the local ones, more exposed to a territory's social capital. Since social capital is lower in the Southern regions, decentralization made their developmental policies less effective from 1970 onwards, and regional inequality increased.We build an endogenous growth model augmented to include the interaction between social capital and public investment as well as the reform of the Italian labour market. We calibrate our model using data of the Italian regions for 1951–71. Our quantitative results indicate that decentralization triggered the influence of local social capital on growth and played a central role in halting the convergence path of the low-social-capital regions.     

异质性媒体与资本市场信息效率

新闻传媒通过其信息处理和传播功能 ,对资本市场的信息整合产生了重要影响.不同于以往的研究 ,文章深入新闻传媒行业内部 ,探讨了不同类别的媒体(中央媒体与各地方媒体)对中国资本市场信息效率的差异化影响.研究发现:中央媒体既可以直接提升资本市场信息效率 ,又可以通过削弱政治关联对资本市场信息整合的不利影响,间接改善资本市场信息效率;地方媒体虽然能够直接提升资本市场信息效率 ,但是无力削弱政治关联对资本市场信息整合的不利影响 ,其间接渠道并不起作用.这一结果考虑了媒体跟踪上市公司时可能产生的内生性问题 ,在一系列稳健性测试中始终存在.文章认为 ,相对于地方媒体 ,中央媒体在信息透明度较低情况下的信息获取和处理的能力优势 ,以及面对政治关联时保持客观报道的独立性优势,可以解释这一发现.     

最后贷款人(LLR)制度:香港经验及其启示

本文在对香港金融管理局履行最后贷款人角色和国内近几年地方政府动用公共资源对地方法人类金融机构进行资本救助、财务重组情况进行总结的基础上,研究认为:处置地方法人类金融机构的风险,必须发挥地方政府的积极作用;建立我国基于市场机制作用的真正的LLR制度;更严格地限制异地非金融机构类股东入股地方法人类金融机构;适当扩大外汇储备的运用范围.     

Migration selectivity and the effects of public programs

"A model of the spatial distribution of mobile heterogeneous agents is formulated to assess how a price change or program subsidy that is location-specific affects the composition of local residents via selective migration and thus biases evaluations of the effectiveness of the program based on its local consequences. Longitudinal data from Colombia are used to test the implications of migration selectivity. The findings confirm the existence of selective migration, suggesting that local subsidies to human capital attract high-income but, within income groups, low-fertility households and those with low human capital endowments. These migration patterns are shown to be consistent with the dominance of endowment over tastes heterogeneity in the population under plausible behavioral assumptions."     

促进区域经济发展的社会资本培育机制建设探讨

信任、合作、规范、网络、文化认同等社会资本要素在区域经济发展中的作用越来越明显,已成为自然资本、物质资本和人力资本的必要补充,并与其一起构成区域经济发展所必不可少的要素。因此,应充分发挥区域社会资本因素的作用,并与物质资本、人力资本等融合在一起,使之形成一种推动区域经济发展的合力。地方政府在关注区域内有形资本和人力资本的投入时,更应致力于社会资本的培育。具体而言,地方政府应建立健全法律规范,营造一个诚信的制度环境;加快构建社会信用体系;加强商会、行业协会等民间组织的作用;培育创新、信用、合作、开放的区域文化。     

地方政治权力转移与企业社会资本投资周期--基于政企关系重构的动态研究

文章以2007－2012年我国A 股上市公司为样本,从政企关系重构的视角研究了地方政治权力转移对企业社会资本投资的影响。研究发现：(1)在地方政治权力转移当年,企业会显著提高社会资本投资力度。随着主政官员任期的增加,企业社会资本投资呈现下降趋势。这说明在主政官员任期内,企业社会资本投资呈现先增后减的周期性特点。这种周期性特点仅在民营企业中存在。(2)民营企业社会资本投资的周期性特点在地方官员来自外地、继任官员预期任期较长、管制行业以及融资约束程度高和无政治关联的企业样本中更加显著。(3)在地方政治权力转移当年,民营企业提高社会资本投资力度能够帮助其获得政府补助,但这种优势并不会立刻体现出来;同时,企业提高社会资本投资力度也会对自身的研发投入产生挤出效应,且挤出效应持续存在于继任官员的整个任期中。文章的研究为理解企业建立政企关系的手段、过程与效果提供了新的视角。     

资本与地方发展的研究述评——基于发展地理与社会文化地理的整合框架

目前学界对于"资本"大致持两种研究视角,即将其视为一种生产要素或一种生产关系,由此,资本作用于地方发展的地理学研究也存在发展地理学和社会文化地理学两种对应的研究视角。随着关于地方发展的研究不断深进,两种研究视角逐渐非线性地交互作用,亟待在一个整合框架下提出新的综合范式,以推进地方发展研究的理论创新和实践分析。基于此,文章重新梳理了发展地理学和社会文化地理学两个学科视角下的资本与地方发展之间的相关研究,认为可以在场域空间视阈下将两个视角整合在同一个诠释框架之中,并基于该整合框架提出三个未来应关注的研究要点。文章的相关分析有利于推进当前中国发展战略的实施,且尝试提高中国人文地理学对于空间—区域发展问题的理论解释力。     

资源非优省会城市旅游发展研究——以海口为例

省会城市是一个省的政治经济文化交通中心,但不一定具有丰富的旅游资源。海口市属于资源非优省会城市。旅游发展中存在资源特色不够明显,竞争力不够突出、文化氛围不浓、城市形象不鲜明、旅游产品低端分散、基础设施建设滞后,规划不尽合理等诸多问题。今后应突出省会优势和文化特色,抓好节庆旅游会议旅游;抓住周边市场和本地市场,整合周边旅游资源,实行连片开发;开展乡村旅游和生态旅游;挖掘文化内涵,搞文化旅游;依靠科研力量,开展科普旅游;做好旅游服务,开展商业旅游。     

Financial Development, Foreign Direct Investment, and the Efficiency of Capital Allocation in China

We study the roles of local financial development and foreign direct investment, and more importantly, their interaction with one another, in local capital allocation, based on Chinese industrial and regional data. Our main finding is that, although local financial development and FDI each individually tended to improve the efficiency of local capital allocation during the sample period, they tended to compete and crowd out each other’s effect, so that one impaired the individual function of the other. In particular, there exists a threshold value for local financial development, above which an increase in FDI reduces the efficiency of local capital allocation, rather than improve it. On the other hand, there exists a threshold value for FDI, above which further development in the local financial system lowers the efficiency of local capital allocation, rather than increase it. Our estimations suggest that the levels of FDI and local financial development in some relatively more developed Chinese regions have already surpassed such threshold values. We provide some interpretations of our findings and we discuss potential policy implications.     

From families to formal contracts: An approach to development

This paper develops a theory in which individuals can use one of two types of human/social capital to enforce contracts: “Local capital” relies on families and other personal networks; “market capital” relies on impersonal market institutions such as auditors and courts. Local capital is efficient when most trading is local, but only market capital can support trading between strangers that allows extensive division of labor and industrialization. We show that economies with a low cost of accumulating local capital (say, because people live close together) are richer than economies with a high cost of accumulation when long distance trade is difficult, but are slower to transition to impersonal market exchange (industrialize) when long distance trade becomes feasible. The model provides one way to understand why the wealthiest economies in 1600 AD, China, India, and the Islamic Middle East, industrialized more slowly than the West. We report an array of historical evidence documenting the pre-industrial importance of family and kinship networks in China, India, and the Islamic world compared to Europe, and the modernization problems linked to local capital.     

地方政府债务绩效考核指标体系构建及评价模型研究

公共产品理论认为,地方政府债务是一把"双刃剑"。一方面,对债务资金借、用、还各环节的合理把握,可以充分发挥债务资金作为扩张性财政政策的杠杆作用;另一方面,各环节或某个环节的失误极有可能导致地方经济进入恶性循环,严重者甚至危害地方经济和社会安全。本文基于投入产出理论和"4E"理论,对地方政府债务支出绩效及支出过程的内涵进行充分剖析,系统全面地选取绩效考核指标,结合因子分析法进行验证并最终建立指标体系;在此基础之上,运用主成分分析法,构建评价模型;在指标体系和评价模型的构建过程中引入实证分析,针对性地提出相应改进对策和建议。     

Measuring embodied technical change in the US local telephone industry

This study attempts to measure the rate of embodied technical change by using a short-run variable cost function that contains arguments for labour and capital quality. In this short-run variable cost model, the expansion of the amount of physical capital increases variable costs due to more maintenance outlays, and then it leads to improvements in capital quality. When a measure of competition is included as a proxy for organizational efficiency, improvements in labour and capital quality explain more than two-thirds of productivity growth. The degree of returns to scale and the shadow cost of capital input in the embodiment cost model are presented as well. The study is based on pooled time-series and cross-section data of eight US local exchange carriers.     

地方政府债务风险预警评估分析及对策研究——以河北省为例

不少地方政府负债问题日益突出,严重影响到该地区政治与经济的可持续发展。通过对地方政府直接和间接负债状况及其形成原因的分析,可运用建立预警系统的方式来应对债务风险:转变政府职能,细化事权财权之间的分配;加强民间资本的投资,增加地方政府融资渠道;完善监督制度,加强债务管理;建立风险预警机制,建立地方政府偿债机制。     

The role of Provincial Government Spending Composition in growth and convergence in China

China’s development policy since 1978 has differed across regions. With rapid aggregate growth has come widening regional inequality. The fiscal decentralisation reforms in 1994 shifted political pressure onto provincial officials to boost local growth through local public investments. These investments affect regional convergence by counteracting regulatory frictions in factor accumulation, and can also determine steady-state growth. However, the effect of public spending allocations across physical and human capital on growth and convergence processes is empirically unexplored for Chinese provinces. We take provincial time-series data on public spending by category, finding local public spending and its components augment convergence rates differently across regions. Spending on education and health contributes significantly more to growth and convergence than capital spending, confirming that the public capital-spending bias is not a local growth-optimising strategy. We suggest a policy of aligning local government promotion incentives to human capital targets to correct local resource misallocation.     

Local Laws and Venture Capital Contracting in Transition Economies: Evidence from Poland

This study focuses on the legal structuring of venture capital deals in Poland. Three conclusions are derived. First, owing to significant imperfections in the Polish legal infrastructure, local venture capitalists need to consider how to structure their transactions. This represents a unique feature of venture capital investing in emerging markets. The study confirms the existence of three types of legal structures in venture capital investing (i.e. local deals, offshore deals and complex deals), with offshore deals being the predominant category. Second, local venture capitalists display different preferences for various deal structures based on venture capital firms' characteristics. Third, the placement of venture capitalists' rights varies across different legal documents, with the most pronounced difference being observed in local deals. The study is based on a survey of 64 venture capitalists.