Empirical and public choice evidence for hyperbolic social discount rates and the implications for intergenerational discounting

The derivation of the correct discount rate for intergenerational projects in Cost Benefit Analysis is particularly contentious. Public choice has resulted in lower discretionary exponential discount rates for many intergenerational projects in Britain and the USA. This is shown to be strong indirect evidence that the true social discount rate may be a hyperbolic (rather than an exponential) function. There is also empirical evidence for this hypothesis. The hyperbolic nature of discounting is also a standard finding in the behavioural sciences. For intergenerational time frames hyperbolic discount rates should be employed together with exponential discount rates in cost-benefit sensitivity analyses.Sincere thanks to Maureen Cropper and Paul Portney for supplying their survey results and to Elaine Barrow and Phillip Judge for graphics assistance. Two anonymous referees also provided valuable comments.     

Intergenerational transfers and the social discount rate

This paper investigates the relationship between intergenerational asset transfers and the choice of the discount rate for use in cost-benefit analysis in a model of a competitive overlapping generations economy constrained by a socially managed exhaustible resource. Provided that there are no distortions in capital markets and that all agents hold perfect foresight, cost-benefit techniques will result in a Pareto efficient resource allocation if the discount rate is set equal to the market rate of interest. But since the path of the interest rate depends on the level of intergenerational transfers, cost-benefit techniques do not ensure a socially desirable distribution of welfare between generations; a social optimum will result only if intergenerational transfers are properly chosen and enforced. Decentralized private altruism may result in intergenerational transfers that both present and future individuals would agree are too small if members of the present generation attach positive weight to the general welfare of future generations, not simply their personal descendants. In a world where intergenerational transfers are non-optimal, second-best policy-making may imply a constrained optimum that is inefficient. Together, these findings suggest that cost-benefit analysis is at best a partial criterion to policy formulation that should be used only in conjunction with ethical principles that define the proper distribution of welfare between present and future generations.     

Public enterprises,planning and policy adoption: three welfare propositions

Despite widespread privatizations over the last three decades, public enterprises, as production units under government control, are still present in several countries and sectors. While the academic and political debate on the costs and benefits of privatization is vast, a focus on the rationale for public enterprises, from the standpoint of Social Cost Benefit Analysis, is missing. This paper aims at filling this gap and provides a normative discussion on public enterprises in a general equilibrium setting. The conditions under which public provision may be beneficial and the metrics for evaluating polices and projects under (a)symmetric information and (non)benevolent governments are presented in three welfare propositions. The main policy message points to the overall quality of institutions as a necessary pre-condition for socially desirable public enterprises. A sound institutional environment provides policy-makers with the correct incentives to design and implement meaningful policies even if public administrators adopt sub-optimal plans. Institutions should constrain self-interested policy-makers from disrupting the key welfare signals for policy adoption as well as for project appraisal, while bias in management is a relatively less important concern.     

信息不对称与多元化折价关系研究——来自中国沪市上市公司的证据

国外研究者一般认为,上市公司存在着多元化折价问题。对于我国上市公司而言,多元化折价现象是否存在以及多元化折价的影响因素有哪些,相关研究却很少。文章通过计算超额价值,发现我国上市公司也存在多元化折价现象,而信息不对称是导致多元化折价的主要因素。文章还发现,多元化扩张行为会导致信息不对称水平的上升,从而使多元化折价问题更为严重。     

金融市场不完全的理论分解与测度研究——基于中国封闭式基金折价的动态考察

基于金融市场不完全的结构分解,文章构建了一个涵盖市场交易费用、套利定价机制不完备程度和行为金融学因素的封闭式基金折价机理模型,分阶段计量分析发现:(1)普通交易成本因素影响基金折价约6.1%;(2)2007年前股指期货缺位因素导致基金折价约25.6%,之后随着股指期货的正式推出该影响显著下降;(3)市场套利定价机制不完备程度测度表明,该因素影响基金平均折价三个阶段分别为8.26%、5.87%和7.91%;(4)时期固定效应表明,有5个季度因投资者情绪相对乐观而降低了基金的平均折价率。     

中国近代民间发行纸币的运行机制及其问题——基于清末天津贴水风潮的分析

中国在很长历史时期,货币并不统一。民间曾经可以自由发行纸币。民间发行之时,需要储备金属货币。储备比例根据市场的货币需求状况动态调整。运行这套机制需要非常严格的条件。这些条件包括:在纸币无法等值兑换金属货币时,发行机构要付出相应的流动性成本,以之约束其发行行为。此外,在自由竞争的前提下,民间发行机构也应具有一定规模,以便更好地应对挤兑危机。清末天津的贴水风潮说明:当时中国民间发行纸币在这两方面都有问题。解决这些问题,需要政府对于发行机构设置一定的门槛,同时以严格的制度保证纸币与金属货币等值兑换。     

股权结构对股权代理成本的影响——来自中国上市公司的实证检验

股权代理成本可细分为两种:一是股东与经营者之间的利益矛盾而引起第一类股权代理成本;二是控股股东与中小股东之间的利益冲突而引起的第二类股权代理成本。在理论分析和研究假设基础之上,本文建立了两个回归模型来分别检验我国上市公司的股权结构对两类股权代理成本的影响,并提出通过调整和完善上市公司的股权结构来降低其股权代理成本的建议。     

Bitcoin市场的长记忆性的实证分析

Bitcoin是一种新型的虚拟电子货币。运用初步的统计方法和R/S分析法分析其市场交易数据,对其长记忆性进行实证分析。分析结果表明,现阶段,Bitcoin的交易市场具有聚集性和持续性,当前的价格对于未来很长一段时间都有影响。     

顾客资产管理视角下的顾客忠诚及其驱动因素研究

在当今的顾客中心时代,顾客忠诚及其有效管理已经成为学术界和企业界共同瞩目的战略问题之一。关系营销与管理的深入发展和顾客资产管理学派的兴起．为企业更有效地管理顾客忠诚提供了新的思路。本文旨在以中国电信产业的发展与竞争现况为背景。从顾客资产管理的整合视角,探索顾客忠诚的关键维度及其驱动因素。同时．也对关系收益与转移成本在驱动顾客忠诚过程中的作用进行了理论剖析与实证研究。     

On the Value of Life in Rich and Poor Countries and Distributional Weights Beyond Utilitarianism

This paper discusses the use ofdistributional weights in CBA based on a generalBergson-Samuelson SWF. In particular it illustratessome consequences of applying a SWF characterized byconstant inequality aversion (which includes classicalutilitarianism as a special case), together with aconstant relative risk aversion utility function, whencalculating the damage costs of global warming. Itextends and clarifies earlier unintuitive results, andemphasizes that utility must be seen as fully cardinalin terms of levels in this context. In the specialcase of utilitarianism, on the other hand, it issufficient to be able to make interpersonalcomparisons of utility changes.     

影子价格长短期划分及其计算

影子价格对资源配置具有重要的指导意义。但是影子价格的定义方式通常与短期生产相联系,而长期生产多资源要素的变化往往被忽视。区分生产短、长期,通过方向导数来确定长期生产资源调整的影子价格。     

On the Market for Principles of Economics Textbooks: Innovation and Product Differentiation

Tabular data are provided on the journals that have published economic education articles, the topics covered, and the individual authors. Institutions are ranked by their contributions to the economic education literature.     

The economic advantages of response in the treatment of advanced breast cancer

Summary

The introduction of a new class of drugs, the taxoids, has dramatically improved the outlook for patients with advanced, metastatic breast cancer. Second-line monotherapy with the most effective taxoid, docetaxel, in patients with anthracycline-resistant metastatic breast cancer, shows an overall response rate up to 55% in this patient population. Increased response rate is associated with improved quality of life for these patients.

We carried out a cost analysis to determine the economic benefits of being in a response state compared with the other health states associated with advanced breast cancer: stable, progressive or terminal disease.

We found that the cost of care for responders is 40% of that for early progressive disease and just over a third of that for late progressive disease. The costs associated with stable disease are only a little less than those for progressive disease, and are more than double the costs for patients who have responded to chemotherapy. The costs during terminal disease are the highest, and are more than nine times those associated with caring for responders.

Our findings confirm other studies which demonstrate that the cost of chemotherapy can be offset against the reduction in costs incurred for patients who remain in healthier states for longer. The key parameter determining the economic efficiency of treatments for advanced breast cancer is response rate.     

房地产业非均衡发展导致的社会成本损失研究--基于短命建筑视角

借鉴国内外学者关于短命建筑的最新研究成果,首次在国内以较科学的方法探讨因房屋过早拆迁引致建筑寿命缩短进而产生的社会成本或额外损失,旨在为纠正房地产业近年来盛行的“大拆大建”非均衡发展态势、促进规范有序的城市化和工业化发展提供有针对性的政策依据。     

内控信息披露质量、披露方式与权益资本成本——基于缺陷信息披露的实证证据

重点研究上市公司在相关法律法规的要求下,提高其内控信息披露质量,是否可以从资本市场中获得未来持续收益. 从内控缺陷信息披露角度衡量内控信息披露质量,使用权益资本成本作为从资本市场中获得未来持续收益的指标,立足于沪市上市公司2010~2012年的实证数据进行验证,得出以下结论:上市公司内控信息披露质量水平越高,权益资本成本越低. 不同的信息披露方式会影响两者之间的关系,选择自愿性披露方式的上市公司,随着内控信息披露质量水平的提高,权益资本成本变低的趋势会增强.     

品牌资产评估:一个模型的提出与验证

在品牌价值日益得到承认与重视的大趋势下,品牌资产评估的重要性也日趋明显。笔者就品牌资产价值从经济学角度给予了理论上的解释,在此基础上提出以品牌获取的超额利润为基准,着眼于未来获利能力的评估模型,并对该模型进行了验证与对比研究。     

两税合并、税收筹划与盈余管理方式选择

文章以2007年的两税合并为背景,研究上市公司出于税收筹划的目的如何选择盈余管理方式。研究发现,税率下降公司由于税率下降幅度较大,税收筹划收益较高,因此进行了显著向下的应计盈余管理,而没有选择真实盈余管理方式;而税率上升公司则由于存在5年的过渡期,税收筹划收益较低,因此既没有进行显著的应计盈余管理,也没有进行显著的真实盈余管理。这意味着上市公司在进行税收筹划时会综合权衡各种避税方式的成本收益,进而选择最合适的避税方式。政府部门在制定税收政策时必须预先考虑企业可能的税收筹划策略,以达到预期的政策效果。     

The Implications for Health,Depression, and Life Satisfaction from a Permanent Increase in Income for the Disadvantaged Elderly: Evidence from Taiwan

This paper uses an exogenous increase in income for a specific subgroup to explore the extent to which higher income leads to higher levels of health and well-being. In 1995, the Taiwanese government implemented the Senior Farmer Welfare Benefit Interim Regulation (SFWBIR) that was a pure cash injection to senior farmers. A difference-in-differences (DiD) approach is used on survey data from the Taiwanese Health and Living Status of Elderly in 1989 and 1996 to evaluate the short-term effect of the SFWBIR on self-assessed health, depression, and life satisfaction (LS). Senior manufacturing workers are employed as a comparison group for senior farmers in the natural experiment. This paper provides evidence that the increase in income caused by this pension reform significantly improved the mental health of senior farmers by reducing 1.697 points of the depression scale in DiD and 2.178 points in the robust estimation; however, it had no significant short-term impact on self-assessed health or LS.     

Controllability and Persistence of Money Market Rates along the Yield Curve: Evidence from the Euro Area

Abstract. Controllability of longer‐term interest rates requires that the persistence of their deviations from the central bank's policy rate (i.e. the policy spreads) remains sufficiently low. This paper applies fractional integration techniques to assess the persistence of policy spreads of euro area money market rates along the yield curve. Independently from anticipated policy rate changes, there is strong evidence for all maturities that policy spreads exhibit long memory. We show that recent changes in the operational framework and the communication strategy of the European Central Bank (ECB) have significantly decreased the persistence of euro area policy spreads and, thus, have enhanced the ECB's influence on longer‐term money market rates.     

Dynamic Efficiency with Multi-Pollutants and Multi-Targets The Case of Acidification and Tropospheric Ozone Formation in Europe

In this paper we consider two important aspectsin the complex problem of transboundary airpollution in Europe, namely (i) theinterdependence of the problems of troposphericozone and acidification and (ii) the dynamicprocesses related to soil acidification. Wedevelop an optimal control model to analyse theinteraction between acidification as a stockpollutant and tropospheric ozone as a flowpollutant for several countries. Using acost-benefit framework an analysis is performedto determine efficient emission paths fornitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide and volatileorganic compounds. The model jointly analysesacidification and ozone. The current Europeanreduction plans do not fully take into accountthe multi-pollutants multi-targets nature ofthe problem. In addition, the plans allow fortemporary exceedance of critical loads withoutconsidering the consequences for the temporaldevelopment of the soil quality. This papershows the complex relations and interactionswhich one should deal with while designingpolicies that are efficient with respect to thecross-effects between the differentenvironmental problems. It also shows howdynamic efficient abatement strategies wouldlook if the cross effects and the dynamicprocesses in soil acidification are explicitlyincorporated in the analysis.