De gevolgen van de directe prijsbeheersing voor de internationale handel

Summary This paper contains a theoretical analysis of how a maximum price being put on homogeneous commodities affects international trade if rates of exchange are fixed. The consequences of a calculation scheme for fixing prices of differentiated products are also investigated.A maximum price that is lower than the import price is an impediment to import. This leads to oscillations of the import price if demand in the importing country is sufficiently high. The maximum price has no influence if it is higher than the import price. A maximum price that is equal to the export price (which is independent of the supply of the exporting country) retards the decline of export that would occur in consequence of a rise in home demand or a rise in costs of production. As soon as the average revenue per unit of product exported exceeds the maximum price, suppliers will try to export as much as possible. Importation of substitutes is stimulated indirectly and exportation of substitutes is discouraged, whereas the opposite effects occur with respect to complementary goods, materials used in the production process, and goods for the production of which the same materials and factors of production are used.If demand rises, a calculation scheme used for price control will reduce imports and stimulate exports. The calculation scheme reacts only on rises in costs of production that are not recognized officially by the government: imports will be smaller, and exports higher, than in the case of a free determination of prices. Calculation schemes check the importation of substitutes and stimulate their exportation, whereas the opposite effects may occur with respect to complementary goods, or due to changes in the production.In case of a general control of prices when inflation prevails, the whole set of price effects will affect the balance of payments. However, the final result will be uncertain, since some price effects tend to enhance the surplus of the balance of payments whereas others tend to reduce it. At the same time, income effects may affect the balance of payments in the adverse sense.National price control impedes the optimum allocation of resources in an economic community. This is due to the fact that it distorts trade.     

Measuring Core Inflation in South Africa

Measures of core inflation convey critical information about an economy. They have a direct effect on the policymaking process, particularly in inflation‐targeting countries, and are utilised in forecasting and modelling exercises. In South Africa, the price indices on which inflation is based have been subject to important structural breaks following changes to the underlying basket of goods and the methodology for constructing price indices. This paper seeks to identify a consistent measure of core inflation for South Africa using trimmed means estimates, measures that exclude changes in food and energy prices, dynamic factor models, and wavelet decompositions. After considering the forecasting ability of these measures, which provide an indication of expected second‐round inflationary effects, traditional in‐sample criteria were used for further comparative purposes. The results suggest that wavelet decompositions provide a useful measure of this critical variable.     

Share ribs redux

Attempts to examine how commodity price changes affect internal income distribution in competitive Heckscher–Ohlin settings have typically focused on factor-intensity differences among sectors, with each sector having a different factor being used most intensively, as captured by its factor distributive share having maximal value. This paper adopts this specification, but adds the restriction that the  shape  of the profile of distributive factor shares, from most to least intensively used, be the same among commodities. The focus is on the importance of the amount by which the most intensively used factor differs from the next as well as the rate of decline of shares for the less intensively used factors in any industry. Strong Stolper–Samuelson results are obtained for some share ribs, and oscillating factor returns for others.     

Modelling Intercontinental Tourism Consumption in South Africa: A Systems‐of‐Equations Approach

This paper investigates the pattern of inbound tourists' consumption in South Africa, examining four main intercontinental markets and five different tourism goods. The empirical investigation develops an almost ideal demand system (AIDS) model and it extends recent research by allowing tourists to base their spending decision on the real effective price differences between South Africa and their home country. The results show that tourist spending in South Africa is a luxury good, and tourists react normally to a change in the relative price of goods. The cross‐price elasticities suggest that the preferences of different markets influence their view of substitutability and complementary effects between various products in South Africa.     

因子分析的SPSS应用--以2010年1-9月全国零售商品价格分类指数分析为例

首先,可以找到三个因子来综合反映全国十六个类别零售商品的价格分类指数的绝大多数信息。根据较有实际意义的第三个因子的分析结果来看,第6、3、1月份和＂食＂＂衣＂＂药＂的价格指数综合变化较大,从而说明普通百姓的生活成本较大,尤其是低收入阶层。其次,分析还表明,因子分析在损失很少的信息量的情况下,可以起到很好的简化变量个数的作用,当然,对于越多的变量个数及变量之间相关性越强的数据,这种作用也就越是明显。     

美国进口的影响因素与奥巴马政府调整的结构性困境

本文讨论多种变量对多种进口商品的作用程度.由4种变量(进出口价格指数、汇率、国民收入、银行贷款利率)对美国5种进口商品(工业原材料、石油及制品、资本品、机动车辆、消费品)施加影响的AR模型输出结果显示:在所有考察的影响因素中,国民收入是决定进口水平的最重要方面.美国进口变化影响因素的现实背景,使美国政府在制定经济政策时...     

我国房地产宏观调控政策的目标选择

我国房价上涨是一连串事件相互作用的结果。在流动性过剩和人民币升值以及国家宏观政策将"经济过热"作为调控目标的大背景下,应明确提出将房地产调控目标从"控制房价上涨"转变为"遏制房价过快上涨和防范金融风险"的双重目标上来。具体来说,要将住宅与房地产区别开来调控,将住宅当成准公共产品进行规划和开发,要建立多层次的住房保障体系。     

Prices and Economic Change in Medieval Sweden

Abstract

The article explores relative price changes in medieval Sweden, with a focus on grain, beer, salt, oxen, butter, wax and iron. Supplementary data are provided on copper and hops. Most of these goods declined substantially in price relative to grain. The magnitude of the relative price shifts reflects technological and organisational change. Price cuts tended to be larger for goods that possessed a high knowledge content, such as iron, copper, and beer, or were involved in a more efficiently organised international trade, such as salt. This parallels the notion that north-western Europe, at least from the sixteenth century, developed a distinctive pattern of relative prices, with low prices of industrial goods and high prices of food. It is striking that Sweden, a peripheral economy of medieval Europe, exhibits these traits even before the sixteenth century. The great expansion of the European economy of the early modern period appears as a continuation of the innovations of the late medieval era.     

Globalisation,concentration and footloose firms: in search of the main cause of the declining labour share

Over the last two decades the share of national income which accrues to labour has followed a marked downward trend across a host of industrialised countries. This paper reassesses the relative importance of several potential causes of this phenomenon. Overall, the findings suggest that lower trade costs and factors often associated with economic integration such as international low-wage competition and industry concentration have contributed to the decline in the labour share. However, their effects have been limited when compared to the effects of skill-based technological change and cyclical price changes of intermediary goods.     

Patterns of Trade and Growth across Cones

This paper examines the implications of the Heckscher-Ohlin (HO) Model for the patterns of production and trade that will emerge as a country grows. It focuses primarily on world equilibria that include two or more cones of diversification. Starting with the textbook model of two factors and two goods, growth paths for production and trade are derived in terms of a country's capital-labor ratio relative to that of the world. With additional goods and countries, multiple cones create a ladder of comparative advantage that a country will climb as it accumulates capital relative to the world. With additional factors as well, more complicated patterns can emerge. In a three-factor model based on Krueger (1977), a country with fixed land, growing labor, and faster growing capital can first work its way down the ladder of comparative advantage before climbing back up. Using a graphical representation due to Leamer (1987) of a more general three-factor model, cones of diversification with large numbers of goods take the form of polygons that a growing country may pass through, then cross between. In all cases, the lesson of the HO Model is that growth causes repeated and extreme changes in patterns of specialization and trade over time.     

金融危机背景下石油价格波动对我国经济影响实证分析

通过选取我国宏观经济数据中反映消费、投资、贸易、价格水平四方面22个经济指标数据,运用因子分析法提取主因子,之后采用VAR模型,分析我国石油价格波动对宏观经济产生的影响。结果表明:贸易对石油价格的变化最为敏感,前期的波动较大;石油价格上涨对消费存在逆向影响,随着价格上涨消费的变化达到低点后缓慢回升;石油价格上涨对物价水平和投资的影响相对不明显。     

基于因子分析的中国服务贸易影响因素研究

通过对1985—2010年的相关数据进行因子分析,可以得出影响服务贸易的三个因子：国内消费需求、宏观经济现状及预期、货物贸易及人力资本的拉动。在不同时期,三个因子的重要性不同。我国发展服务贸易,应从市场规模和经济结构两方面入手,让其相互促进、相互配合。     

Sectoral Price Movements under the Yen Appreciation

This paper analyzes the movements of tradable goods prices in Japan. The import price indices and the export price indices are matched with the domestic wholesale price indices at the most detailed level available for Japan, and the pricing behavior in the yen appreciation period (1985–1995) is examined. In the import-side analysis, we investigate how far the price movements under currency appreciation deviate from the law of one price. We find that internal–external price differentials have surprisingly expanded for most of the products since 1985. For a number of commodities, the import prices do not decline as far as the exchange rate appreciates, and the domestic wholesale prices do not decrease as far as the import prices decline. Although the expanded price gaps cannot necessarily be interpreted as a result of deliberate trade barriers, they suggest that some sort of handicap is imposed on imported goods and the large fraction of rent generated by the yen appreciation is intercepted in the middle. In the export-side analysis, the relationship between the globalization of firms' activities and export pass-through is investigated. Our cross-sectional regression analysis indicates that the export path-through rates tend to be low when the value added ratios of foreign production of Japanese firms are high. Low export pass-through under currency appreciation is often interpreted as a result of firms' attempts to keep their foreign market share, but the globalization of firms' activities may be another important factor in lowering the pass-through.J. Japan Int. Econ.,December 1997,11(4), pp. 611–641. Department of Economics, Keio University, 2-15-45 Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108, Japan.     

我国通货膨胀的测度及其影响因素的实证分析——兼论我国现阶段的通货膨胀形势

2010年下半年以来,我国日益严峻的通胀形势引起广泛关注。文章首先通过对5个主要价格指数1990-2010年的数据进行因子分析,得到的通胀一紧缩因子作为对通货膨胀的测度。进而建立多变量时间序列变动因素分析模型对影响通货膨胀的11个指标进行实证分析,得到三个公因子即成本及经济增长因子、需求因子和货币因子,并通过计量回归模型得出这些因子对我国通货膨胀的量化影响。文章还讨论了我国现阶段的通胀形势,对我国的通货膨胀的容忍区间进行了分析,认为现阶段我国通货膨胀在1．87％-4．87％范围内是合理的。     

人民币汇率传递对我国物价水平影响的实证分析:2005～2008

本文考察了2005年7月至2008年2月期间人民币汇率变动对我国物价水平的影响。研究表明,人民币名义有效汇率变动对进口价格的传递是不完全的,当人民币名义有效汇率每变动一个百分点时,进口价格指数仅变化0.22个百分点;人民币名义有效汇率与国内物价水平存在负相关性,这与以往的研究结论恰好相反,对此,本文从人民币升值预期和人民币均衡汇率两个视角作了解释;全球商品价格指数并非影响我国国内物价水平的最重要因素,我国经济体具备较强的抵御外来冲击的能力。     

房价压力会刺激文化消费吗?

文章应用CFPS2010、2012、2014年的调查数据,以房价收入比指数作为"房价压力"的代理变量,探讨了房价压力对文化消费的影响机制。在我国房价收入比畸高的社会环境下,消费者同时受到"释放压力型"消费需求的驱使和可支配收入减少的预算约束,为了缓解生活压力,获得心理慰藉,增加了对相对廉价且非必需的文化消费品的需求,即口红效应成为房价压力影响文化消费的传导机制。研究发现：控制户主受教育水平、家庭其他生活压力、地区经济发展水平和文化消费氛围等因素,在城镇中仅拥有一套及以下住房资产的家庭中,高"房价压力"显著提升了居民文化消费需求。在影响机制研究中,首先,通过验证房价压力对总消费的抑制作用剥离了财富效应的影响,其次,通过验证房价压力对大额消费品和小额消费品影响的异质性,证实了房价压力对文化消费影响口红效应的存在性。进一步将研究样本按照消费文化类型、收入阶层和受教育阶层分组后发现：开放的消费文化下高"房价压力"对居民文化消费的促进作用更强,中等收入阶层在高"房价压力"下进行"释放压力型"文化消费的需求最强烈。高学历层次居民在面对"房价压力"时更倾向选择文化消费作为释放压力的渠道。     

垄断市场情况下企业中间产品的内部转移定价分析

随着企业集团的不断发展,企业内部的交易也越来越多,内部转移价格也成了影响企业责任中心业绩评价的一个重要因素。如何正确的确定企业内部产品的转移价格,对企业的经营和营利有着至关重要的影响,本文主要论述了中间产品在市场上处于垄断情况下的企业内部转移价格的制定的影响因素以及在各种因素的影响下如何选择适合的内部转移价格,从而使公司实现利润的最大化。     

Public debt and relative prices in a cross-section of countries

This paper examines the effects of debt and distortionary labor taxation on the long-run behavior of the relative price of nontraded goods. At the theoretical level, in a two-sector open economy model we demonstrate that higher public debt, associated with higher taxation, contracts labor supply in both traded and nontraded goods sectors. Relative prices move inversely with relative supply shifts which, in turn, depend on relative factor intensities. At the empirical level, for a panel of advanced economies, we find statistically significant effects of public debt and taxes on the relative price of nontraded goods, with higher debt and taxes associated with higher relative prices.     

REPORT OF THE WORKING PARTY ON THE ACCESSION OF CHINA (Ⅱ)

7.Pricing Policies 50. Some members of the Working Party noted that China had made extensive use of price controls, for example in the agricultural sector. Those members requested that China undertake specific commitments concerning its system of state pricing. In particular, those members stated that China should allow prices for traded goods and services in every sector to be determined by market forces, and multi-tier pricing practices for such goods and services should be eliminated. Those members n...     

The Response of Trade Prices to Exchange Rate Changes

The present paper examines export and import pricing behavior following exchange rate changes in small, open economies. Using a monopolistic model, this study reveals that export and import prices should change but not in proportion to exchange rate movements. The policy implication of the results is that the pricing to market phenomenon could be a critical factor in explaining the evolution of the external trade balance with strategic interaction present in the case of prices on tradable goods. Consequently, the use of an exchange rate policy in the case of external imbalances should be a central issue within the broader context of how market structure and conduct affect the optimal traded goods prices.