Stability and Growth Pact: issues and lessons from political economy

The paper analyses the EU fiscal rules from a political economy perspective and derives some policy lessons. Following a literature survey, the paper stresses the importance of appropriate incentives for rule compliance in an environment where national fiscal sovereignty precludes the option of centralised enforcement. In addition, the paper stresses the importance of clear and simple rules and in particular the 3% deficit limit in anchoring expectations of fiscal discipline and facilitating public and market monitoring of public finances. This, in turn, strengthens incentive for rule compliance. Moreover, the paper discusses the interests of the most important players in European fiscal rule formation and the importance of choosing the appropriate time for initiating a reform debate.Non-technical summary The EU fiscal framework as laid down in the Maastricht Treaty and the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP, the Pact) aims to preserve fiscal sustainability while allowing room for automatic fiscal stabilisation. These two objectives are also at the heart of the ECB’s interest in the EU fiscal framework because their attainment facilitates monetary policy making in the short and long run.The paper analyses the EU fiscal rules from a political economy perspective and derives some policy lessons. The literature review of the first part reveals that fiscal rules can help solve deficit/debt biases and time inconsistency problems by constraining the behavior of policy makers. But rules can also mitigate biases if they facilitate financial market and public scrutiny of fiscal policies.Thereafter, the paper analyses the institutional environment in which EU fiscal rules are applied. It argues that EU rules reflect a “contract” amongst countries that retain sovereignty on fiscal policies. Enforcement, therefore, ultimately has to be undertaken by the contracting parties. Due to this constraint, the rules can also be characterised as “soft” law (with the 3% limit being nevertheless a much “harder” constraint than the other elements). But this does not necessarily imply that the rules are ineffective (or “dead”). Soft law reduces political transaction costs (by improving transparency and providing a forum for peer pressure). Moreover, if well-designed, such law can boost incentives towards making the rules “self-enforcing”. Evidence speaks in favour of this view: while EU fiscal rules were bent in a number of cases and compliance is undeniably of concern, major and rapid fiscal balance deteriorations have been largely prevented since the start of EMU.The paper also looks at potential trade-offs between “complex” rules where a “fine-tuned” economic rationale may boost acceptance of the rules versus simple and clear rules that allow easy monitoring. It is argued that clarity and simplicity of rules are important especially when formal enforcement is limited (“soft law”) and public monitoring becomes more important. By facilitating public and market monitoring of compliance, clear and simple rules are also more costly to breach.The benefits of “complexity”, and in particular the use of administrative discretion to fine tune the rules to country situations have limits, in particular when it comes to the excessive deficit procedure (EDP). It is argued that the 3% deficit limit and the time frame for correcting excessive deficits already provide some room to accommodate economic circumstances. The 3% limit must be clear, simple and strictly implemented to anchor expectations of fiscal discipline and to facilitate public and market monitoring. Further discretion and relaxation would conflict with this need. From this angle, other risks (e.g., efforts not materializing, structural reforms producing surprise costs etc) are hard to justify as a reason for extending deadlines to correct excessive deficits.The preventive arm of the Pact with its requirement of close-to-balance-or-in-surplus budgetary positions defines sound medium term budget positions and adjustment paths. This may be appropriately fine-tuned to address concerns about the Pact’s underlying economic rationale. For example, a symmetric application in good and bad times and less time inconsistency would be desirable.Finally, the timing of a debate on fiscal rules needs to be carefully chosen. In the EU context (and perhaps in other contexts as well), there seems to be much inherent pressure to make the rules more “complex”. Moreover, for the debate initiated in summer 2004, there was also no willingness by countries to give up sovereignty nor was there a sense of urgency to strengthen public finances via tighter rule implementation and enforcement. In such an environment, it is likely that changes to fiscal rules make them more complicated, discretionary and, thereby, potentially less enforceable.The views expressed are those of the author and not of the ECB. Comments by Vitor Gaspar, Mark Hallerberg, Steven Keuning, Jose Marin, Richard Morris, Gilles Noblet, Hedwig Ongena, Luca Onorante, Rolf Strauch, Juergen von Hagen, an anonymous referee and valuable assistance by Anna Foden are much appreciated.     

经济增长与制度分析

文章论述了制度与经济增长的关系,指出制度是经济增长的决定因素,也是经济增长的内生变量;分析了制度的规范约束、有效激励、以及明确产权、降低交易成本的内在功能与效应;提出制度创新是经济增长的关键,并对制度创新的内容与方式进行了探讨.     

促进低碳经济发展财税政策的国际实践及启示

文章论述了欧盟、美国、日本等经济发达国家在促进低碳经济发展方面的财税政策,分析其特点,并结合我国国情,从建立绿色预算制度、加大财政投入力度、改革税收制度、完善税收优惠政策以及加强制度创新、提高财税政策效果等方面提出了促进低碳经济发展的对策建议。     

政府转型模式与转型绩效：中国经验

改革开放以来，中国政府转型采取了一种滞后于经济转型的渐进转型模式，取得了巨大的成功。通过分析转型经济政府的角色与作用，解释中国政府滞后于经济转型的渐进转型模式，有效减少地方政府“被俘获”和“竞租”风险、联结不完全计划和不完全市场、推进制度创新，从而提升转型绩效。中国经验对转型经济具有借鉴意义。     

货币危机的政治经济学解释:文献评述

作者从文献的角度对货币危机的政治经济学解释做了一次比较全面的梳理,从中可以看出国际金融政治经济学的研究特点和思维方式。在理论构建上,政治经济学的学者们完全沿用了经济学模型中的不完全信息和动态博弈论,引入了预期的形成以及市场交易者和政府之间的战略互动,从而成功地把各种政治和经济变量纳入到一个模型之内。他们的贡献是,把政治变量引入到市场交易者和政府的预期形成中,强调了政治变量以及作为一种信息的政治变量在市场交易者和政府预期中的作用或者地位,并强调了政治变量在市场交易者和政府之间战略互动或动态博弈过程中的作用,从而更好地解释了货币危机的原因,提高了预测货币危机的准确性。在实证研究上,政治经济学通过预期效用函数、战略概率模型等方式,较为成功地实现了对政治因素这个分类变量的模型化,较好地实现了对政治因素的量化分析。     

市场经济条件下的思想政治教育浅析

我国社会主义市场经济体制的建立大大解放和发展了生产力,但市场经济的发展也影响了人们的思想观念、道德观点,给思想政治教育工作带来了很多新挑战。在市场经济条件下,必须重视思想政治教育,不断探索更符合社会发展的思想政治教育方法。     

政治文化与经济可持续发展的对称性--兼论与可持续发展相对称的现代政治文化的构建

政治文化与经济可持续发展之间呈对称性的特征。一方面,政治文化建立在一定的经济基础之上,受一定生产方式的制约;另一方面,政治文化对经济可持续发展有着反作用,可以为其提供一种持久与深层的文化支撑。本文探讨了关于政治文化概念的历史逻辑,对政治文化与可持续发展之间的关系进行了探析。并从制度、价值与文化三个层面提出了与经济可持续发展相对称的现代政治文化的构建策略。     

家族企业主的政治联系、制度环境与慈善捐赠——基于全国私营企业调查的实证研究

家族企业的慈善捐赠是中国慈善事业的中坚力量,探究其影响因素对深化理解家族企业行为具有重要价值。文章基于2012年全国私营企业调查数据,采用Tobit回归模型,研究了家族企业主的政治联系、制度环境对慈善捐赠的影响。研究发现家族企业主的政治联系促进慈善捐赠行为,具有政治联系的家族企业主比没有政治联系的家族企业主更多地进行慈善捐赠,政治联系级别越高,慈善捐赠水平也越高。当企业所处地区的制度环境更完善时,政治联系对慈善捐赠的促进作用减弱。文章揭示了家族企业慈善捐赠行为的部分规律,对推动中国慈善事业的发展具有一定的政策含义。     

全球化情势下的国家建设:新制度主义视角的分析

制度一直是政治学的主要研究对象,新制度主义学派积极融合政治学与经济学研究,将国家作为一种制度形态,阐明国家实施制度变迁的动机以及国家在制度变迁中的作用.全球化、现代化背景之下的中国道路,必须同时面对国家建设(新制度主义的前提预设)和政治改革(新制度主义的必然要求)双重任务.     

论我国乡镇企业的三大贡献

文章从三个方面论述了乡镇企业对我国经济发展的巨大贡献。首先是对国民经济增长的贡献，大体上可以从三个方面来反映：一是对国内生产总值增长的贡献；二是对工业总产值增长的贡献；三是对国家财政收入增长的贡献。其次是对经济结构调整的贡献，主要体现在矫正产业结构扭曲及调整农村就业结构，并且改变了我国工业企业的规模结构。最后在微观层次上，乡镇企业的发展为集体和国有企业的制度改革，提供了可借鉴的宝贵经验。     

Political Economy of US Trade Policy towards China

The trade relationship between China and the USA has become increasingly important to the economies of both countries. The recent trade conflicts and friction between China and the USA constitute obstacles in the way of US—Chinese bilateral trade relationship development, which is of considerable concern to both countries. Through an in‐depth analysis of the political process of US trade policy towards China, the present paper identifies the important determinants of US trade policy towards China. The influence of US trade policy on the trade relationship between the USA and China is assessed and implications for the trade relationship between the USA and China are discussed.     

县域经济发展中的“三农”问题与措施

中国的国情决定了农业和农村的发展事关全局,解决好"三农"问题是经济发展的基础,而"三农"问题的解决与县域经济的发展又是息息相关的.文章探析了当前县域经济发展和"三农"问题之间存在的问题,并从政治体制、城镇偏向制度安排等视角探讨了形成当前问题的主要原因,在此基础上提出了一些发展县域经济和解决"三农"问题的建议.     

THE ASEAN–CHINA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT: POLITICAL ECONOMY IN INDONESIA

The ASEAN–China Free Trade Agreement has been the most consequential trade agreement for ASEAN in the past decade. In this article, I use partial equilibrium modelling to estimate the direct impacts of the agreement on Indonesia and China, and from these estimates draw political economy implications for Indonesia. Although the agreement has contributed to a modest trade surplus for Indonesia overall, it has led to a larger bilateral deficit with China. In addition, the shifts to surplus for Indonesia have mostly been in resource-based sectors, while the shifts to deficit have occurred in many manufacturing sectors that the government would like to see grow. I argue that pushback against the agreement has contributed to a resurgence of non-tariff trade barriers in the country, although other political economy forces also have been at work. The agreement ultimately provides a cautionary tale: cutting regional import tariffs can lead to pressures for more complex and less transparent trade policies.     

新国际经济背景下的上海自由贸易区

以国际经济视角解读上海自由贸易区建立的时代背景、历史使命,阐述上海自贸区的制度创新点以及由此可能带来的连锁反应,并对相关社会、经济问题该如何解决提出建议.     

数字经济对产业结构优化的不对称影响——基于制度质量的视角

通过构建指标体系对我国2013—2020年31省份(因数据缺失,不包括港澳台地区)数字经济发展水平和产业结构发展规律进行深入研究,并重点探讨了制度质量在数字经济优化产业结构中的作用效果。研究发现,数字经济发展水平提高对产业结构优化升级具有显著促进作用,优化制度质量则能增强这一促进效果;从异质性看,制度质量水平越高的地区,数字经济对产业结构优化的促进效应越强,同时,数字经济对东部地区产业结构优化作用较为明显,对中、西部地区的影响则不显著;制度质量也是信息基础设施、产业数字化、数字产业化影响产业结构合理化与高级化的重要推动力。本文的发现为我国高效优化产业结构、高水平推进经济制度改革提供理论参考与实践价值。     

广东经济发展与媒体创新

政治及经济力量、社会变革都会影响传播活动。广东经济发展引发了媒体创新并形成了良性互动。媒体创新体现在媒体数量的增长,媒体对社会的影响力,对受众的引导等。广东媒体创新的动力是经济发展,创新的路径与一般的创新类似,诸如体制与机制创新、技术创新等。广东媒体体制创新与机制创新对全国其他媒体的改革影响巨大。广东经济发展也带动了知识沟的缩小,反过来,知识沟的缩小又引导媒体创新的进一步发展。