The Economics of Ageing—What do you Face?

The economics of ageing is the study of economic decision‐making by individuals and government aimed at fostering well‐being in old age. These decisions include preparing for old age and dealing with the risks of old age. The risks are substantial. Using the life‐cycle model, this article considers the risks for well‐being that people face in retirement and the role of government and private insurance in meeting those risks. The perspective of the life‐cycle model is also used to consider the gender gap in wealth on retirement.     

大学对政府生态决策的参与

大学参与政府生态决策具有平台优势和理念优势;可以通过提供政策建议、学术思想、宣传动员、效果评估、人才输送等途径参与政府的生态决策;对社会的进步和高校自身建设都有推动作用。伴随着发展方式的转型。政府决策的内容也将发生重要的变化,决策主体不仅仅单纯考虑本群体利益,而将延伸到自然与人类的共同利益。     

International Procurement as a Signal of Export Quality

In 1996, the British Government was accused of a protectionist 'buy British' campaign when it awarded a contract for army ambulances to Land Rover. We present a model where the procurement decision of the government affects the perception of consumers in the rest of the world about the quality of the domestic firm's product relative to that of a foreign rival's product. The model compares the outcome when the government's only concern is value for money with the outcome when the government takes account of the effect of its decision on export sales of the domestic firm.     

棉花种植业对新疆农业经济发展及农民收入影响变动的量化分析

利用计量经济模型分析棉花种植业对新疆农业经济发展及农民收入的影响。研究结果表明:从长期看棉花种植面积的增加对农业经济发展的贡献是边际递减的,农民种植棉花的比较效益优势不断下降;不同的棉花主产区棉花产量的增加对棉农收入的影响作用差异较大。当前新疆在发展棉花种植业的过程中迫切需要地方政府给予一定的引导,因此,应建立完善科学的棉花市场监测体系,及时把握准确的市场信息,以期对今后的棉花生产及产业发展做出正确的指导。     

邻避冲突的地方政府决策诱因探析

近年来，随着城市化进程的快速推进，邻避冲突作为一类特殊的群体性事件在我国频繁发生。从地方政府决策角度而言，行政决策理念的偏误、公共决策机制的不完善、政府公信力的缺失是造成邻避冲突的重要诱因。这就要求地方政府遵循公开和预防的决策原则，完善公民参与型决策机制，并对附近居民给予适当的补偿和回馈。     

外资企业控股权的政治经济学分析:以中国为例

从政治经济学公共品供给的角度对我国合资项目的控股问题进行了分析,认为中方对外资企业控股的主要目的是为了获得外资技术等的溢出效应,政府引资行为类似于一种能产生溢出效应的公共产品供给。由于引资决策者和公众相比存在偏好差异,随着引资决策集中程度的提高,政府主观公共品租金的增加会导致过度引资现象。在政府合资的非利润动机下,外国投资者最大程度地抽取合资企业的利润,使得合资企业的利润为零。本文还结合一个外资市场进入博弈讨论了中方控股的条件,认为中方控股会在一定程度上使合资企业的生产效率下降,我国低价格的人力资本区位优势和良好的投资环境则能缓解中方控股带来的效率损耗,使得中方控股成为可能。     

ASPECTS OF THE OFFICIAL NATIONAL INCOMES TABLES OF FIJI*

This paper describes and examines three particular features of the official national income tables recently published by the Fiji Government. The need of development planners for a comprehensive set of national accounts incorporating detailed information relating to central government current expenditure, the operations of the private business sector, and the rural household economy has assumed special importance. The uses and limitations to the information contained under these specific headings is discussed and throughout an emphasis is placed on the need for the adoption of consistent and systematic methods of collection and estimation procedures to facilitate planning and decision making. As aids to more detailed interpretation and analysis, the features described are considered to be of general interest to other developing countries.     

Bank bailouts and political instability

This paper studies bank solvency crises due to macroeconomic shocks in a model where government is prone to bailout because of cronyism. Citizens can dismiss the government and overrule its decision if they believe that a bailout is not economically justified. The results are as follows. First, the probability of a political crisis in equilibrium increases with the scope of the political principal-agent problem. Second, political uncertainty enlarges the set of parameters for which a banking crisis takes place and thereby increases financial instability. Third, politico-financial crises may stem from foreign lenders' loss of confidence.     

迈向回应型法：我国科学技术决策立法的反思与完善

我国科学技术决策立法存在明显的压制型法特征,突出表现在公众等外部意见未能充分流入行政机关、行政裁量权缺乏有效约束、《科学技术进步法》对地方立法约束力过强等。该立法模式极大阻碍了我国科学技术进步,因此有必要对其展开反思,结合治理实践中官员“行权”与“避责”的逻辑,将自治型法与回应型法理念有效融合,以此为基础,在立法体系上鼓励基层政府自我规范化,并结合备案审查与规范性文件附带审查制度,确保法秩序和有效治理的协调。在具体运作中,可尝试打破政府对决策权的垄断、引入科技专家和公众作为多元决策主体,参考重大行政决策程序制度建立科技决策程序机制,从而形成符合实际的回应型立法模式。     

Structure and use of the Integrated World Model

Most global models address quantitative aspects of socioeconomic behavior as extrapolated from an assumed initial global set of states. This paper describes a model designed to include explicit decision criteria based on the user's ethical persuasions. The regional structure of the model permits simulation of differing sets of social emphases at the level of nations or political groupings of nations. The model may be thought of as an intermediate stage in a long-range trend toward development of interactive decision modeling systems which incorporate several different modeling concepts into a larger user-interactive system.     

Regional Income Disparity and the Size of the Public Sector

This paper explores the impact of income inequality between jurisdictions on government decision making affecting the size of the public sector. We model policy choices as the outcome of regional representatives' negotiations in the legislature. We show that the more unequal interregional income distribution is, the greater the underprovision of public goods. More specifically, greater interregional income disparity leads to a smaller public sector. A wealthier economy as a result may have a relatively smaller government size when income disparity increases.     

FORGETFULNESS AND THE POLITICAL CYCLE*

This paper examines a mechanism that underlies both the political business cycle and the cycle in non-economic policies executed by politicians. We show that if rational voters suffer from forgetfulness (a noise in the memory). then government expenditure on the production of public good increases as elections approach. Hence, the model describes a cycle that is observed in the government expenditures of democratic societies. Unlike previous models, this model does not require that the government have information superiority over rational voters with respect to its competency. According to this model, incumbents transfer resources from the beginning of their terms of service and use them near the end of their terms. We also find that the less concave the production function, the wider the cycle.     

政府补贴、产权性质与战略性新兴产业创新绩效

政府补贴和产权性质作为战略性新兴产业发展的重要影响因素，其对创新绩效的影响已引起国内外广泛关注。采用Wind数据库中的中国战略性新兴产业上市挂牌公司面板数据，建立随机效应面板数据模型，科学评估政府补贴、产权性质对战略性新兴产业创新绩效的影响。结果发现：①现阶段中国战略性新兴产业政府补贴对企业绩效具有负向激励作用；②由于企业产权性质不同，政府补贴对非国有企业创新绩效的影响大于其对国有企业的影响。最后，提出完善政府补贴监管制度，营造合理透明发展环境，优化政府补贴政策，确保补贴方案因地制宜等政策建议，以期为政府制定更有效的补贴政策提供理论借鉴和决策支持。     

绿色低碳产品消费市场活力激发研究——基于绿色家电产品的演化博弈

激发绿色低碳产品消费市场活性,对拉动上游企业低碳减排,促进低碳供应链发展具有重要作用。基于演化博弈理论,构建了政府、家电企业、消费者三方博弈模型,探索各主体策略选择及演化稳定路径,并以实际数据进行验证。研究结果表明:政府低碳决策主要受家电企业低碳决策影响,家电企业低碳决策主要受消费者低碳决策影响,消费者低碳决策受政府及家电企业决策共同影响;家电企业低碳成本、政府不监管时消费者选择低碳消费带来的家电企业额外收益、绿色家电与非绿色家电价格差、消费者低碳消费环境保护效用是促进模型向政府不用监管、家电企业积极提供绿色家电、消费者主动选择低碳消费的理想稳定状态演化的重要决定因素。为此,政府应对企业减排成本合理补贴并加强宣传教育,家电企业应扩大低碳产品供给,提高低碳产品性价比,消费者应进一步提升低碳环保意识,树立低碳消费理念,践行低碳消费。     

Tax tilting and politics: Some theory and evidence for Latin America

A government budget deficit can exist for at least two possible reasons: tax smoothing and/or tax tilting. Under tax-smoothing, deficits are temporary phenomena resulting from the decision not to vary the tax rate in response to fluctuations in government spending (as a share of output). This is done in order to minimize the distortionary cost of taxes. Tax tilting occurs whenever the government has an incentive to discount the losses to society from taxes at a higher rate than society discounts them; hence it delays taxes or advances spending introducing an upward trend in total government debt. This paper develops a model that implies that tax-tilting tends to increase with political risk. An increase in political risk, measured by the probability of losing power, increases the rate at which the government discounts the future, causing government policy to be relatively more myopic. Hence it delays taxes or advances spending and its deficit increases. Using data from a panel of 19 Latin-American countries for the period 1984–2009, the paper presents estimation results that strongly support the proposition that an increase in political risk increases the degree of tax-tilting.     

Theory and Estimation of the Mortgage Payment Protection Insurance Decision

This paper examines the decision to take out mortgage payment protection insurance (MPPI) in the UK. The paper explains how MPPI has increased in importance over the last decade due to the government stating that Income Support for Mortgage Interest (ISMI) has crowded–out MPPI. A theoretical model of the mortgage protection insurance decision is developed which takes account of the welfare system. The model is estimated using logit analysis on 1995 Glasgow and Bristol data. Elasticities of the probability of take–up with respect to a variety of arguments are calculated, including the level of ISMI. The estimated elasticity with respect to ISMI is found to be very low, which suggests that the crowding–out motivation for the restructuring of Income Support for Mortgage Interest in October 1995 had little support in the data available at the time of the policy decision, and explains the continued low take–up rates since the 1995 restructuring.     

The relationship between government accounts and national accounts, with special reference to the netherlands

National accounts are a macro-economic accounting system that is compiled on the basis of a globally harmonized accounting standard, that is SNA93/ESA95. To a large extent, the SNA93/ESA95 accounting principles are also suitable for government (micro-)accounting purposes, if only because the accounts drawn up according to this standard are comparable across (types of) units and over time. That facilitates performance monitoring and benchmarking. In addition, the ESA95 guidelines and procedures deal with innovative transactions and accounting, which increases the credibility of the accounts. Finally, accounts for government units are then directly comparable with the macroeconomic accounts, which facilitates the link between forecasts for the national economy and drawing up government budgets. This paper also describes the present conversion of government accounts to national accounts for the government sector in the Netherlands and the plans of the Dutch government to change from a cash-based to an accrual government accounting system.     

The growth of government in the United States: An economic historian's perspective

This paper first outlines the salient features of the growth of government in American history. Secondly, it offers a neoclassical explanation of that history in which increasing specialization and division of labor brought on by the scientific/technological revolution of the nineteenth century drastically altered the demand for and supply of government. Finally, it argues that institutions matter and describes the way the particular structure of governments was important in the timing and pace of its growth.     

Vested Interests and the Common People in Developing Countries: Understanding Oppressive Societies and Their Effects

The standard economic model of how economies work is that activities are essentially productive. This is not a correct view of reality. The principal difficulty is that there is economic activity that is unproductive and harmful (from the point of view of those being harmed). This is a central feature of the economic organization of these societies, and creates poverty. The first section of the article discusses the concept of harm. The second section describes how societies are run on this basic set of principles: Take and maintain control of the government and other aspects of society, and use the power of government to obtain income. The third section of the article describes how this system harms the common people. Topics include corruption, misappropriation of natural resources, conflict and other harm engendered by the struggle for control, the influence on present society of the past operation of harmful economic systems, and discrimination as well as other “barriers to entry.”     

The enfranchisement of women and the welfare state

We offer a rationale for the decision to extend the franchise to women within a politico-economic model where men are richer than women, women display a higher preference for public goods, and women's disenfranchisement carries a societal cost. Men and women are matched within households which are the center of the decision process. We derive the optimal tax rate under two alternative regimes: a males-only enfranchisement regime and a universal enfranchisement regime. The latter is associated with a higher tax rate but, as industrialization raises the reward to intellectual labor relative to physical labor, women's relative wage increases, thus decreasing the difference between the tax rates. When the cost of disenfranchisement becomes higher than the cost of the higher tax rate which applies under universal enfranchisement, the male median voter is better off extending the franchise to women. A consequent expansion of the size of government is only to be expected in societies with a relatively high cost of disenfranchisement.We empirically test the implications of the model over the 1870–1930 period. We proxy the gender wage gap with the level of per capita income and the cost of disenfranchisement with the presence of catholicism, which is associated with a more traditional view of women's role and thus a lower cost. The gender gap in the preferences for public goods is proxied by the availability of divorce, which implies marital instability and a more vulnerable economic position for women. Consistently with the model's predictions, women's suffrage is correlated positively with per capita income and negatively with the presence of catholicism and the availability of divorce, while women's suffrage increases the size of government only in non-catholic countries.