Money and price relationship in China

This paper investigates the effectiveness monetary policy by Granger causality tests in the two regimes of inflation and deflation, respectively. The surplus lag rolling estimation is applied to deal with the problem of the frequent structural changes in the Chinese monetary system. We found that the monetary policies have become less effective in stabilizing the price level in the deflation era that started from 1998. There is also empirical evidence to suggest that money was endogenous in China during the inflation period. This implies that the People's Bank of China had difficulty exercising the power of money supply to reduce inflation if the endogeneity was the result of the market behaviour. However, if the endogeneity was due to the government inflation-targeting rule, then there is no evidence to suggest that this rule has been effective for M0, M1 and M2 instruments, except for the M0 instrument during the inflation period of April 1990 to March 1995. Although it was found that money ceased to be endogenous in the deflation periods, it does not support the proposal of utilizing the money supply as a policy instrument, as we found that money is impotent in influencing price in the deflation regime. Our findings provide some empirical evidence to support the Chinese government adopting alternative policy instruments such as an active fiscal policy in the era of deflation.     

工业体系和民营企业兴起——基于252家中国最大民营制造业企业的经验研究

主流经济学家把改革开放后民营企业的大规模兴起，主要归因为市场经济条件下发挥企业家精神和遵循比较优势的必然结果。但是这无法解释为什么民营企业在兴起之初就广泛和快速地进入到各个工业，尤其是技术和资本密集型工业。基于中国工业史和252家中国最大民营制造业企业创业发展史的历史证据，文章找回"工业体系"这一被主流所忽略的重大历史现象和学术概念，从而首次提出一种理解中国民营企业发展独特性的结构性解释。文章发现：从计划经济时期继承而来的门类齐全和独立完整的工业体系，是解释民营企业创业和发展独特性的关键变量；已有的由国有企业和科研院所组成的工业体系，从市场机会、技术能力和组织资源等方面塑造了民营企业的创业选择和发展路径。所以，中国民营企业的快速发展不是仅凭自由市场就会自动出现的普遍现象，而是在市场条件下充分利用工业体系提供的技术和市场条件才得以出现的特殊现象。     

美国金融体系、大萧条和投机蔓延

相比于非主流的经济学家,2008年以来的美国经济大萧条对主流经济学家来说是一个巨大的震动,原因在于二者对于虚拟经济与实体经济间的互动关系一直存在争议。虽然政策的制定者依然依据的是主流经济理论,监管和透明度提升可以弥补市场失灵,但是有不少人对于监管在防范类似危机中的作用持怀疑态度。深层次的经济转型和对投机的限制对于经济的长期稳定来说是必要的。我们已经找到了一种衡量投机活动与生产活动的方法,被称之为"投机蔓延"模型,它提供了一个理解经济过度金融化的新视角。     

William graham sumner: Monetary theorist

Conclusion Sumner was the product of an indigenous American hard-money tradition that embraced free markets, free trade, and sound banking—a tradition that has much in common with the Austrian School in its theoretical and political orientation. His understanding of economic theory came from his reading of classical economists and the works of American theorist Condy Raguet, and his political convictions from his study of the American monetary experience, particularly the errors of the Hamiltonians. With these influences and his own hard-money views, Sumner arrived at positions on money, banking, and business cycles, economic policy that can be described as proto-Austrian in many ways. In particular, he saw credit-fueled booms as inherently unsustainable because they give rise to “fictitious capital” as versus real wealth.     

地方财政搭便车、财政货币承诺与地方债务治理

本文通过一个简单的理论模型说明了地方政府财政搭便车、中央银行货币政策承诺、中央政府财政政策承诺以及中央政府财政统筹协调之间的关系。研究发现,中央银行的货币承诺或中央政府的财政政策承诺对于降低地方政府的财政搭便车动机至关重要。虽然中央政府的财政统筹协调可以获得与中央银行货币政策承诺或中央政府财政政策承诺相同的结果,但其具体实施存在诸多困难。在此基础上,本文提出地方政府债务治理的政策设想和可行方法。     

Taxing Times in Indonesia: The Challenge of Restoring Competitiveness and the Search for Fiscal Space

Indonesia’s economic growth picked up slightly in mid-2016 but remains below the level demanded by government and popular aspirations. Despite a plethora of reforms intended to increase efficiency and productivity, some policies are perverse and longstanding problems of implementation remain. The share of manufacturing has declined, the real exchange rate has appreciated, exports have dwindled, and growth has been trending downwards. The banking sector is stable but inefficient, with wide net interest margins and numerous barriers to competition. Trade protection, particularly in basic food commodities, has created high costs that weigh particularly heavily on the poor. Declining government revenues have placed increasing pressure on the public budget, even as the current administration aims to increase spending on infrastructure and welfare and to enhance productivity. In an effort to increase revenues, the government has announced a tax amnesty program and other measures. In addition, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the new finance minister, has taken steps to cut non-essential expenditure in order to secure high spending on infrastructure and at the same time keep within the 3% budget deficit limit stipulated by law. Although the overall debt situation is not yet alarming, declining revenues and budget cuts that do not fully reflect this decline are putting pressure on increasing debt levels. The government’s high-profile tax amnesty program was the major policy initiative implemented in the second half of 2016 that aimed to relieve this pressure. Despite widespread criticism of, and scepticism about, the tax amnesty (both within and outside Indonesia), its first phase had a much higher participation rate than most independent accounts expected. Revenues raised so far through the amnesty are less than 60% of the official target, but this is actually a strong result for the short term. The bigger question, however, is whether the amnesty is a key element of a more encompassing strategy to overhaul the system of taxation and tax administration.     

MONETARY POLICY IN RWANDA: A COINTEGRATION ANALYSIS

Countries in Africa are increasingly becoming similar in outlook, especially as regards monetary policy. With a view to conducting a long‐term study of monetary policy in Africa, we apply an empirical test for the coherence of inflation targeting, first conducted by Nell (2003 ) for South Africa, to data from Rwanda. We find that like South Africa, Rwanda has a stable money demand function and the adoption of an inflation target is a wise policy option. Also, the Rwandan money market needs just over five quarters to eliminate half of any monetary disequilibrium. These results are of some interest to economists and policy makers for all the countries in the increasingly interconnected continent of Africa.     

日本应对新冠疫情的经济刺激政策及其制度性扭曲

面对新冠疫情的严重冲击,日本政府通过空前财政支持,日本银行辅以超额基础货币支持等公开市场操作,一定程度上抑制了企业大规模破产、大量工人失业和严重经济衰退,同时也直接带来了日本股市的空前繁荣。但过度财政刺激极大加重了日本政府的国债负担,长期"超量化宽松"的金融政策严重扭曲了市场的资源配置功能,极大削弱了日本市场经济体制的政策应对弹性和抗打压能力,事实上形成了一种变相向国民征税的市场外循环体系和制度性扭曲。     

Do free-market economists practice what they teach?

Conclusion There is then a fundamental inconsistency between theory and application for political economists who both rely on standard microeconomics for their support of the free market and scorn government intervention. Theory matters in free-market critiques of public policy. It matters, however, not only in determining the content of those critiques, but also, from a methodological standpoint, in the sense of whether the world-view presupposed by theory is one that leaves room for any meaningful critique to take place at all. It should not be news that the authorities in charge of public policy are ignorant. Surprisingly, if we start from the presumptions of perfect-knowledge economics we would be logically led to conclude that those authorities indeed never make mistakes, or if they do that it must have been planned that way all along. Fortunately, political economists working in the Austrian tradition are, as they have been since B?hm-Bawerk’s and Mises’s devastating critiques of Marxian economics and socialism, free from having to maintain this curious point of view. He also studied with Professor Sennholz at Grove City College.     

市场营销的虚拟化策略与实施

本文对近几年我国通货紧缩的经济背景下的货币供给特征进行了综述 ,指出在我国货币当局使用多种货币政策工具进行宏观货币调控的过程中 ,扩大使用公开市场业务操作 ,对于达到我国物价稳定的货币政策目标所起到的关键性作用及其优势。最后还论述了公开市场业务发展的前景。     

Modeling coordinated foreign exchange market interventions: The case of the Japanese and U.S. interventions in the 1990s

During the past thirty years, central banks often intervened in foreign exchange markets. Sometimes they carried out foreign exchange market interventions on a unilateral basis. However, central banks often coordinated their foreign exchange market interventions. We develop a quantitative reaction function model that renders it possible to study the factors that made central banks switch from unilateral to coordinated interventions. We apply our model to the intervention policies of the Japanese monetary authorities and the U.S. Federal Reserve in the yen/U.S. dollar market during the period 1991–2001. To this end, we use recently released official data on the foreign exchange market interventions of the Japanese monetary authorities. JEL no. F31, F33, G14, G15     

试析美国金融危机的根源——“政府”与“市场”关系的重大失误

在"政府"与"市场"的关系的长期论争中,自由市场派占据上风并导致监管缺失,成为美国金融危机的根源。其主要表现为:金融监管法律放松,长期宽松的货币政策,对市场的自由放任和对金融衍生品的监管放纵,对投资银行等金融机构的监管失职等。对我国的启示:要正确认识和处理好"政府"与"市场"的关系,要审慎推动金融创新,防范金融衍生品风险,要加强对金融机构和住房抵押贷款的监管。     

Market supplanting versus market fostering interventions: China, East Asia and other developing countries

The paper investigates the relationship between growth and different types of government intervention by distinguishing “market supplanting” regimes from “market fostering” interventions. A lesson from the East Asian miracle was not that governments necessarily intervened less, but they intervened efficiently in a relatively transparent and flexible way that kept overall distortions in check. China's reforms can be considered a transition from a “market supplanting” regime where market signals are distorted over long periods, to “market fostering” interventions in which government acts like a gardener. Alternative measures of government interventions were used to construct two composite policy indexes. Preliminary analysis suggests that “market fostering” interventions seem to have facilitated growth in productivity, although the result is inconclusive due to data limitations. Compared with the East Asian NIEs, China still has a long way to go in reforming the role of government in the economy.     

A paradigmatic change is needed for understanding the real market

Economics in China has been neoclassicalized in the past few decades. In this article, I argue that neoclassical economics is not a good theory of the market. It misleads both economists and government in understanding the economic issues. China is particularly vulnerable to its defects. In contrast, the Austrian School of economics is a better theory of the market since it studies the real market, not an imaginary market. The most important difference between the two economics paradigms is their understandings of the entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is missed in neoclassical economics. In the Austrian School economics and Schumpeterian economics, entrepreneurship is the soul of the market. The paradigm shift of economics is urgently needed but it will be a slow process. Chinese economists should play a role in this transformation.     

The effects of ‘Gesell’ (Currency) taxes in promoting Japan's economic recovery

The traditional interest rate policy has lost its potency due to the zero-lower bound of nominal interest rates and the gradual accelerating deflation in Japan. Without stopping deflation, the Japanese government may face a rapid erosion of credit worthiness due to an uncontrolled budget deficit. In order to cope with this unusual situation, a non-traditional monetary policy measure is proposed. A negative nominal interest rate is needed to clear Japanese markets and can be achieved by levying a tax on all the government-guaranteed yen financial assets. This is a modified version of Gesell's stamp duty on currency for actual implementation in the contemporary context. The benefits and side effects of this tax for Japan are analyzed here.     

作为异质性偏好的禀赋效应：来自神经经济学的证据

禀赋效应是主流经济学难以回避的"异象"（Anomalies）,对主流经济学一系列重要的理论假设构成了严峻挑战。过去半个世纪以来,对于禀赋效应是否真实、有效和稳健的存在,在主流经济学家与行为经济学家和实验经济学家之间一直存在着严重的分歧与争论。近10年来,伴随着科学技术的进步以及脑科学、认知神经科学、尤其是神经经济学的发展,研究者们在行为实验的基础上,使用脑成像和脑刺激等先进技术,揭示了禀赋效应与人类大脑神经活动之间的相关关系和因果关系,在神经科学的层面上证实了禀赋效应存在的微观基础。文章将对这些研究成果进行较为全面的回顾与评述,从而为禀赋效应的存在性提供新的科学证据。     

论金融危机时期中美救市政策之比较——以IS-LM-BP模型为探究视角

面对全球性金融危机,各国政府采取了各种各样的救市政策。财政政策、货币政策和外汇政策的搭配使用使得以IS—LM—BP模型为核心的凯恩斯主义大显神威。尽管中美两国的救市政策无一例外地反映了凯恩斯主义的经济路径和政府干预的反自由主义理念,但依然存在不同之处。IS—LM—BP模型并没有过时,运用该模型分析两国救市政策的异同对于我国早日走出经济危机具有一定的理论意义。     

Good deflation/bad deflation and Japanese economic recovery

Many economists dismiss the role of positive supply shocks as a cause of Japan’s deflation. Indeed, they sometimes attribute the long delay in Japan’s recovery to the mistaken view that Japan’s deflation reflects an acceleration of technological progress. Whatever the current situation in Japan, however, economic history certainly suggests that technological progress can go hand in hand with general deflation. Conducting a VAR analysis using very detailed information about the components of Japan’s consumer price index, this paper finds that short-run shocks to Japan’s relative price structure persist in the long run. Given this finding, it is possible to conclude that such shocks are real in origin and reflect technological change. As no effort has yet been completed to show the full extent to which technological change is driving short-run relative price change in Japan compared with other factors, and the full extent to which relative price changes are driving aggregate price change compared with other factors, the policy implications of these findings are unclear. What is clear is that it is a mistake to dismiss out of hand the possibility that technological shocks are playing an important role among other forces in Japan’s current deflation.     

外汇储备增长对我国货币政策独立性的影响

我国外汇储备的快速增长影响了货币政策的独立性,使得货币政策被动实施,效用打折。我国应通过改革现行的外汇管理制度,加大公开市场业务的操作力度等措施减少外汇储备增长对货币政策独立性的冲击。     

基准转移、结构嵌入与信用离散——近世货币变迁中的白银问题

元明以降,白银逐步成为举国上下的基准货币,深度影响着中国社会经济的演进路径。围绕白银货币化至货币白银化的历史源起、动态过程、促动机理及影响评价等问题,学界存有广泛争议。本文认为在宋金元时期白银货币化向货币白银化的演进过程中,中国货币体系经历了“铜钱基准”的陵夷并转向“白银基准”的内在变动过程。宋金时期白银在“铜钱基准体系”中的作用不断上升,金元之际白银价值基准地位初步确立,为明代货币白银化的出现提供了条件。明代白银通过均则折纳、加耗、折价等形式成规模并结构性地嵌入贡赋体制,并与民间市场上的白银替代一道形成了难以逆转的货币白银化态势。对于中国以银为核心基准的近世货币结构而言,结合信用制度的角度可以看出,在西欧新兴国家信用日益聚合的趋势下,中国社会呈现出信用离散的特征。国家信用层级的缺失、金融技术与构架的迟滞及称量银本身所致的信用外在化、记账单位的紊乱是其最明显的表征,中西方金融体制在信用层面发生日益显见的分流。