Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Growth in Malaysia: Interactions with Human Capital and Financial Deepening

This paper explores the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in economic growth in Malaysia, appropriately controlling for other proximate drivers of economic growth: domestic investment, exports, financial markets, and human capital. Domestic capital formation, FDI, human capital, and financial deepening significantly affect economic growth. FDI has a positive and significant effect on economic growth, but its effect is of lesser magnitude than that of domestic investment. Human capital and financial markets interact with FDI and, thus, are important for both short- and long-term growth processes. The results suggest that it is important to encourage domestic as well as foreign investment to put Malaysia back on its precrisis growth path.     

中国结构性通缩中的周期性与结构性问题

2012-2016年间,我国CPI和PPI走势呈现长期背离分化走势,整体表现出明显的结构性通缩特征。本文将外部冲击、产能过剩及巴拉萨-萨缪尔森效应相结合,构建符合中国国情的结构性通缩分析框架。通过深入分析和实证检验发现,在此期间中国的结构性通缩是由于大宗商品价格波动、国内外经济形势等周期性因素,以及产能过剩、巴拉萨-萨缪尔森效应等结构性因素综合作用的结果,其中周期性因素是诱因,结构性因素是主因。未来需在保持稳健货币政策的同时,更加注重供给侧结构性改革,在优化结构方面进行政策布局,改善供给侧环境与机制,激发微观主体活力,全面提高全要素生产率,实现产能过剩部门的市场出清和经济结构的优化调整。     

Foreign direct investment,exports and economic growth: ADRL and causality analysis for South Africa

The article empirically investigated economic growth as a function of foreign direct investment and exports in South Africa. The article applied the autoregressive distributed lag model, known as the ARDL bounds testing approach to cointegration for the long run relationship between economic growth, foreign direct investment and exports. The error correction model was used to examine the short run dynamics; and the VECM Granger causality approach was used to investigate the direction of causality. The article confirmed cointegration between economic growth, foreign direct investment and exports. The article indicates that both foreign direct investment and exports spur economic growth contrary to some studies, which found that FDI does not cause economic growth. The VECM Granger causality analysis found unidirectional causality between economic growth and foreign direct investment running from foreign direct investment to economic growth, unidirectional causality between foreign direct investment and exports running from foreign direct investment to exports and bidirectional causality between economic growth and exports. The article confirms the FDI-led growth hypothesis for South Africa. On the policy front, the government could stimulate foreign direct investment through incentives to investors, creation of a good macroeconomic environment and a careful utilisation of loose monetary policy to grow the economy.     

An investigation of the effect of monetary factors on agriculture

This paper uses an econometric model to assess some of the effects of macro monetary factors on U.S. agricultural markets. Attention is focused on impacts of decreasing (increasing) the level of domestic credit on agricultural trade, prices, inventory accumulation, and domestic disappearance. Results show that tight monetary policy lowers prices and increase demand for domestic agriculture; however, the upward pressure on the exchange rate seriously deteriorates the position of U.S. exports in international markets.     

国际金融危机下的财税政策选择

我国长期面临劳动力相对过剩、储蓄资金过剩的不利局面,在国际金融危机冲击下,不仅出口需求锐减,双过剩矛盾也更加显现。这既是目前经济增长的障碍,也是经济增长的源泉。一方面,要大力实行扩张性财政政策,减税增支,推动内外需求,拉动当前经济增长;另一方面,应充分利用劳动力和储蓄资金充裕的有利条件,因势利导,大力推动产业升级、调整经济结构,通过构建经济机制、完善税制,为未来的可持续发展奠定良好基础。     

当前启动内需与宏观经济政策的着重点

要通过启动内需而保增长,就必须有效调整货币政策和财政政策,实行积极的财政政策和适度宽松的货币政策。本文通过多方面分析,指出当前在我国启动内需的宏观经济政策调控中应该更多地注重运用财政政策,慎用货币政策,并就如何更加有效地运用财税政策提出相关建议。     

Cross‐Country Spillovers from Fiscal Consolidations

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, many OECD countries adopted fiscal consolidation strategies to reduce their debt‐to‐GDP ratios. This paper investigates the effects of fiscal consolidation on trading partners’ growth through trade linkages. Using a measure of exogenous fiscal shocks in export markets, fiscal consolidation spillovers are found to slow down domestic growth and decrease employment. To the extent that fiscal consolidations are synchronised, fiscal policies have large spillover effects on output. Spillovers of fiscal consolidations on growth are found to be initially larger between countries belonging to currency unions, though this larger impact vanishes over the medium term. Larger spillovers of fiscal consolidation coincide with lower bilateral exports, higher bilateral imports and relative increases in unit labour costs in currency unions. Spillovers of fiscal consolidation are also found to be more detrimental to domestic growth during economic downturns in export markets.     

What drives portfolio investments of German banks in emerging capital markets?

After decades of steady liberalization and financial market development, emerging capital markets experienced unparalleled capital inflows in the aftermath of the emerging markets crisis of the 1990s. This paper studies portfolio investment decisions of German banks in emerging capital markets from 2002 to 2007. The use of a dynamic time-series cross-section framework and the micro database External Position Report provided by Deutsche Bundesbank permit insights into the various determinants of portfolio investments in ECMs. For example, there is evidence that German banks take into account the various dimensions of financial market development in their portfolio investment decisions and anticipate the special risks inherent in emerging markets. Proxies for the overall development and efficiency of capital markets have the highest economic significance of all variables. The introduction of depositary receipts programs has a positive impact on stock market investment. Moreover, there is evidence that global risk aversion exerts a significant influence in times of financial turmoil.     

扩大内需政策的效率审视

我国扩大内需政策拉动了投资需求,却难以启动消费需求,其效率低下。政策之所以低效既有内因也有外因,内因是政策缺陷,主要表现为政策缺乏可行性、针对性、必要的力度以及积极财政政策的固有弊端,外因是不理想的制度环境,表现为与消费活动三个基本构成要素消费主体、消费客体及消费环境相关的制度或体制问题,包括不合理的收入分配制度、易导致产品同质化的行政区经济管理体制和重工轻农的财政投资体制。要提高扩大内需政策的效率,就要注意政策行为的科学性,并推进各相关制度的改革。     

Crisis, Adjustment, and Reform in Thailand's Industrial Firms

New data on Thailand's industrial firms shed light on the originsof the East Asian financial crisis and on the response of themanufacturing sector to the structural adjust-ment program supportedby the international financial institutions. Before the crisis,Thai firms had declining profitability, but they neverthelessmaintained high levels of investment, often in domesticallyoriented areas (notably the auto sector). Thai firms financedthese investments with short-term borrowing from financial institutions,which in turn borrowed short term on foreign markets. That only40 percent of firms provided audited financial statements totheir banks meant that the financial sector had poor informationfor assessing the true riskiness of these investments. The financialstructure was thus vulnerable even to small shocks. How well did the adjustment program deal with the crisis? Thaifirms had difficulty increasing their exports quickly becauseof investment in the wrong sectors, a decline in regional demand,and bottlenecks that included red tape and poor customs administration.Because of the poor export response, the brunt of adjustmenthad to come through compression of demand and of imports. Inretrospect, the macroeconomic program— which assumed quickexport recovery— was too tight.      

No significant service gap between west Germany and the USA

Conclusions The analyses show that a significant “services gap” does not exist between west Germany and the USA. Such a gap is not even evident in the area of low-skill service activities, such as in catering, once the marginal employment relations — the importance of which is understated by the official statistics — are included. This finding invalidates the empirical basis for economic policy proposals for an expansion of employment in service branches as a way out of the employment crisis. It is evident that a solution to Germany's current employment problems can only be found in a strategy that increases the scope for employment at the macro-economic level, i.e. irrespective of sectoral developments and whatever the implications of this for the distribution of the various types of activity. Having said this, the heavy bias in the output structure of the German economy in favour of industrial output suggests that an additional employment potential does exist in services, especially personal services.     

Unit labour costs still higher in east than in west Germany

Conclusion The rapid wage growth in east Germany during the early years of German unification are a millstone around the neck of medium-term economic development in the new federal states. Because labour costs have raced ahead of productivity, unit labour costs have risen to a level substantially higher than that prevailing in the old federal states: there has been no improvement in the relationship between east and west German unit labour costs in recent years. Comparatively high wages at low productivity have led to an unfavourable profitability situation for many east German firms, which, in turn, has reduced investmen and slowed productivity growth. If firms in the new federal states are to break out of this vicious circle “it is essential that the level of collectively agreed wages does not rise for a number of years. Productivity growth would then create the scope for an improvement in profitability, which, in turn, is a necessary precondition for investment and the creation of competitive jobs… Only if a fundamental correction towards a relation (between labour costs and productivity) corresponding to that in west Germany is realised in east Germany can a self-sustained growth process be expected.”⁷ Yet in 1997 there is again no chance of a change of course of this nature.     

中国货币互换协议的动因分析

本文将我国货币互换协议的历程划分为三个时段,对其背后的动因进行了分析,揭示出:(1)次贷危机前的动因主要是,寻求亚洲区域合作,增强抵御外来冲击的能力,促进区域经济发展;(2)次贷危机中的动因主要是,提供短期流动性,稳定市场预期和信心,促进对外贸易和投资,防止经济增长放缓;(3)次贷危机后的动因侧重于推动人民币国际化、促进经济增长。三个时段的动因带有历史承接性,但又体现出一定的"时变性"。另外,与美国同期对比后发现,我国中央银行对货币互换协议进行了期限上的创新以将其用于对外贸易、投资,并兼顾人民币国际化,从而多元化了其目标。     

The Netherlands: An employment policy role model?

Conclusion While in recent years the level of social security benefits in the Netherlands has been reduced somewhat —whereby to some extent this involved the employers shouldering additional costs (e.g. for disability pensions) —the benefits for unemployment and other social bene-fits remain high in international comparative terms. Despite a slight decline in social benefits as a share of GDP, public sector spending as a whole is, at around 50%, slightly higher than in Germany, although the Netherlands has not had to cope with extraordinary burdens such as have resulted from German unification. The successes achieved by the Netherlands on the labour market have been exaggerated. Firstly, the real level of unemployment is likely to be actually rather high in international terms, at least once one dispenses with a narrow definition and takes account, in particular, of the large number of occupationally disabled. Secondly, the fall in the unemployment rate is far from spectacular. Although the increase in the number of wage and salary earners has been substantially higher in the Netherlands than in west Germany, this in no way represents a comparable increase in the volume of employment—measured in working hours—as the incidence of part-time employment has increased far faster there than in west Germany. The Netherlands has achieved-slightly-higher growth than west Germany. This success is largely due to a very moderate growth of wages and salaries, amounting to a real depreciation of the guilder against the D-Mark, an economic policy strategy that can be successful in a small country, but one which, if applied by a large country such as Germany, would merely initiate a beggar-thy-neighbour race to lower real exchange rates.     

“外冷”不足以大幅拖缓中国经济

中国经济增长的头号功臣不是出口,而是投资。内需才是中国经济增长的真正引擎。     

Labor Markets and Adjustment in Open Asian Economies: The Republic of Korea and Malaysia

This article deals with the adjustment following external shocksin two open Asian economies: the Republic of Korea and Malaysia.There were important differences in the economic structure ofthe two countries as well as significant differences in theway external events produced "crises" that interrupted theirdynamic economic growth. Detailed analyses of economic cyclesin the two decades preceding 1987–88 show that the behaviorof factor markets, particularly the markets for labor and foreignexchange, helped Korea to adjust quickly to the shocks but inMalaysia actually caused the crisis to deepen. For economies heavily dependent on exports, the unit cost oflabor in dollars is of central importance as an index of thecompetitiveness of exports and hence of their ability to mounta sustained recovery after a difficult period. Accordingly,the heart of the analysis is the determination of the unit costof labor and the factors affecting its change throughout thecycles. Concentration on this critical variable helps to spotlightthe crucial differences in the factor markets of the two economies.     

西方金融危机的深层透视及其启示

引起当前西方经济走向萧条的真正原因不是政策失误、监管疏忽和金融投机,不是次贷危机引起金融危机、金融危机引起经济危机。社会化的产品及其所包含的剩余价值为资本家个人所占有,决定了生产与消费脱节的可能和必然,决定了投资不足和投资需求由热到冷,触发生产过剩并引起经济危机。现代金融资本通过对利润的有力掠夺,进一步破坏消费市场,通过诱导过量生产、制造虚假繁荣,引领经济循环。只有建设社会主义经济方式、合理的微观企业制度基础和科学的金融体制才能避免金融危机、经济危机和停滞衰退。     

Corporate investment during the financial crisis: Evidence from China

China's growth model suggests that the 2008 financial crisis may have affected the Chinese economy differently from what one observes in mature market economies. In this paper, we examine how Chinese corporate investment responded to the financial crisis by using 1689 listed nonfinancial firms during Q12006–Q32010. We document that (1) the overall impact of the financial crisis on Chinese corporate investment is negative; (2) among three channels conveying the effect of the financial crisis, namely, the demand channel, the financial constraints channel, and the uncertainty channel, the demand channel dominates; (3) financial assets held by a nonfinancial firm are important in explaining the firm's fixed investment behaviour; (4) as compared to non-state firms, state-controlled firms are less affected by the financial crisis and more active in engaging in financial assets investment; and (5) foreign ownership can be seen as a buffer against the negative effect of the financial crisis and foreign-involved Chinese firms are less active in financial assets investment as compared to domestic firms.     

"天量"信贷政策的效应及其调整

2009年上半年中国为应对金融危机冲击、保增长,货币信贷投放激增,适度宽松的货币政策演变为过度宽松的货币政策.过度宽松的货币政策导致了短期通缩和长期通胀预期并存的尴尬局面.为了确保货币政策目标的实现和发挥货币政策促进经济增长的作用,适度宽松是货币当局的理性选择.但是,在执行货币政策中应掌控货币政策的宽松度,理顺货币政策的传导机制,加强对银行信贷的监管.     

论我国后短缺期治理通货紧缩的宏观调控

我国从建国以来到 1 996年一直处于短缺经济和通货膨胀的困扰之中 ,然而到 1 997年却出现了通货紧缩现象。我国在短缺经济时期形成的宏观调控已经不适应后短缺时期 ,为此在 1 998年断然采取了以扩张性财政为主的扩大内需的宏观调控 ,遏制了经济下滑势头。经过分析 ,本文提出了积极推进体制转轨 ;创造条件促进民间投资 ;推动从限制消费向促进消费的战略转变 ;从需求管理转向供给管理 ,促进结构调整 ;金融政策与财政政策协调配合等政策建议 ,以激活经济