Generational incidence of savings taxation versus capital-income taxation

This paper examines the incidence of capital taxation in a model in which the taxation of capital is clearly justifiable and using analytical techniques from the tax reform literature. The taxation of capital has long been a controversial issue, with much of the literature concluding that savings/capital-income should not be taxed. Recently, however, Blackorby and Brett have shown in a model with several desirable features that it can be optimal to tax capital, and they provide a simple yet compelling argument in favor of both savings taxation and capital-income taxation. We use the Blackorby–Brett model (i.e. a model in which the taxation of capital can be justified) to revisit the question of the incidence of capital taxation. We focus on the generational incidence of capital taxation; that is, the incidence on a young generation and an old generation. However, an interpretation in terms of the incidence on "capital" versus "labor" (as is traditional in the tax incidence literature) is also provided.     

Variety,Globalization, and Social Efficiency

The standard formal presentation of the Dixit‐Stiglitz‐Krugman (DSK) model of monopolistic competition with a constant‐elasticity‐of‐substitution (CES) utility function supposes a sufficient number of firms so that the elasticity of demand facing each variety is approximated by a constant elasticity of substitution. Such a formulation forces economies of scale to be frozen so that firm size never changes. We use a Bertrand‐Nash interpretation of the equilibrium that allows the elasticity of demand facing each variety to depend on the number of varieties, thus allowing the gains from globalization to reflect both the increase in variety and the exploitation of economies of scale. We also develop a precise expression for per capita real income with any number of sectors and examine the age‐old question of the socially optimal number of varieties.     

日本经济长期停滞的成因之争与政策选择

多年来,日本各界人士就长期经济停滞的原因提出了多种观点。把这些观点可归纳为“结构因素主导论”和“景气因素主导论”两大类。分析两者的基本观点和政策主张,以及双方的意见分歧,笔者认为两类观点都有失之偏颇之处．只有正确认识日本经济基础层面的问题和不同政策的作用,使两者合理配合,才能有效地发挥应有的政策效果。     

Optimal programs in the Robinson, Solow and Srinivasan model

In the present paper, results are obtained on the optimal "choice of techniques" in the long run in a model proposed by Robinson, Solow and Srinivasan. We establish a convergence of good programs to the golden-rule stock and show the existence of optimal programs. We also construct an example of a maximal program that is not optimal.     

Tax Deductions for Losses and Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets

This paper examines how tax deductions related to uninsured personal losses may be Pareto-improving if there are inefficiencies in insurance markets in the context of adverse selection by including individuals with different risk types. In the absence of moral hazard, we provide a positive view of loss deduction policies by showing that they more easily reach a separating equilibrium than does the free market in the Rothschild and Stiglitz equilibrium concept.     

Optimal Exchange Intervention in an Inflation Targeting Regime: Some Cautionary Tales

Devaluations and fiscal retrenchments coming from developed countries are buffeting less developed countries. Many emerging market countries have adopted inflation targeting as “best practice,” but now they are being advised to enhance their inflation targeting regimes with foreign exchange intervention. Here we use a DSGE model to tell some cautionary tales about this advice. A Taylor rule guides interest rate setting, while foreign exchange interventions are used as a second tool of monetary policy. These interventions are effective in our model since domestic and key currency bonds are imperfect substitutes. We derive optimal (Ramsey) intervention policies in response to foreign devaluations and fiscal retrenchments, and find that they are rather complex. So, we compare the optimal responses to policies that simply smooth real or nominal exchange rate movements. Our results suggest that discretion may be the better part of valor: pure inflation targeting may come closer to the optimal policy than exchange rate smoothing. A secondary result may also be of some interest: foreign exchange interventions have a stronger impact on inflation and output in an inflation targeting regime than do sterilized interventions; the Taylor rule augments the effects of a given intervention.     

Consumption Behavior,Annuity Income and Mortality Risk of Retirees

Previous empirical studies have found that individuals do not draw down their assets after retirement which is at odds with the predictions of a simple life cycle model without uncertainty. Hurd (Econometrica 57(4):779–813, 1989; Mortality risk and consumption by couples, 1999) explains such saving behavior of retired singles and couples by adding lifetime uncertainty to the simple life cycle model. We tested whether predictions about consumption during retirement of this extended life cycle model hold for a sample of older Americans. We used data from the Health and Retirement Study supplemented with data from the Consumption and Activities Mail Survey. In line with theory we found that, on average, total consumption is greater than their annuity income after retirement and that this difference increases with the level of initial wealth. For older singles but not for couples our results suggest that, as predicted by the extended theoretical model of Hurd, the on average negative consumption growth decreases with higher mortality rates.     

Competitiveness and Subsidy or Tax Policy for New Technology Adoption in Duopoly

We consider a problem of subsidy or tax policy for new technology adoption by duopolistic firms. The technology is developed in and transferred by a foreign country to the domestic country. It is free but each firm must expend some fixed set-up cost for education of its staff to adopt and use it. Assuming that each firm maximizes the weighted average of absolute and relative profits, we examine the relationship between competitiveness and subsidy or tax policies for technology adoption, and show that when firm behavior is not competitive (the weight on the relative profit is small), the optimal policy of the government may be taxation; when firm behavior is competitive (the weight on the relative profit is large), the optimal policy is subsidization or inaction and not taxation. However, if firm behavior is extremely competitive (close to perfect competition), taxation case re-emerges.     

基于MATLAB的基金最优投资计划

根据组合投资中"存款期长者优先"的投资准则。应用线性代数的知识建立了基金投资的最优化模型,给出了求解此类问题的MATLAB通用程序,利用该程序可以准确快捷地制订出基金存取计划。     

Global Implications of Monetary and Fiscal Policy Rules in the EMU

In order to analyze successful strategies for economic policy in a global environment both international interdependencies and the strategic behavior of global players must be considered. We use a global model of the world economy (the MSG2 Model) to show the effects of dynamic policy optimization in the presence of various supply and demand shocks to different world regions. We show that fixed rules are generally superior for supply shocks, while demand shocks call for more active or discretionary policies.     

Strategic R&D policy in a quality-differentiated industry with three exporting countries

We examine strategic research and development (R&D) policy for quality-differentiated products in a third-market trade model. We extend the previous work by adding a third exporting country, so that the market structure is international triopoly. We show that the presence of the third exporting country affects strategic R&D policies. With three exporting countries, the lowest-quality exporting country gains from taxing domestic R&D and the middle-quality exporting country gains from subsidizing domestic R&D under both Bertrand and Cournot competition. As in the duopoly case, however, the optimal unilateral policy for the highest-quality exporting country depends on the mode of competition. Various cases of policy coordination by exporting countries are also examined.     

广告定价策略与价格离中现象

文章运用博弈论方法，推导广告促销条件下厂商的均衡定价策略和广告发布策略。本文所建立的定价模型适用于保险企业、利用电视购物频道推销产品的厂商以及通过互联网发布价格和产品信息的零售商。     

Second-Best Pollution Taxes and the Structure of Preferences

We characterize optimal taxes on polluting and nonpolluting goods in Ramsey and Mirrlees second-best environments. The polluting good tax differs from the Pigouvian tax by Ramsey terms in the first and by Stiglitz/Mirrlees plus another adjustment term in the second. These terms can be positive, negative, or zero. If preferences are weakly separable in public and private goods, with the private good subutility weakly separable in labor and produced goods, nonpolluting goods are taxed uniformly and the concept of a tax differential between polluting and nonpolluting goods is well defined. The differential is then less than the Pigouvian tax in the Ramsey framework, but it can be greater, equal to, or smaller than the Pigouvian tax in the Mirrlees second best. In Mirrlees second best, if preferences are separable in labor supply and other goods, the second-best tax differential is identical to the Pigouvian tax.     

Food crisis and export taxation: the cost of non-cooperative trade policies

This paper aims to assess the rationales for export taxes in the context of a food crisis. First, we summarize the effects of export taxes using both partial and general equilibrium theoretical models. When large countries aim to maintain constant domestic food prices, in the event of an increase in world agricultural prices, the optimal response is to decrease import tariffs in net food-importing countries and to increase export tariffs in net food-exporting countries. The latter decision improves national welfare, while the former reduces national welfare: this is the price that must be paid to keep domestic food prices constant. Small net food-importing countries are harmed by both decisions, while small net food-exporting countries gain from both. Second, we illustrate the costs of a lack of regulation and cooperation surrounding such policies in a time of crisis using a global computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, mimicking the mechanisms that appeared during the recent food price surge (2006–2008). This model illustrates the interdependence of trade policies, as well as how a process of retaliation and counter-retaliation (increased export taxes in large net food-exporting countries and reduced import tariffs in large net food-importing countries) can contribute to successive augmentations of world agricultural prices and harm small net food-importing countries. We conclude with a call for international regulation, in particular because small net food-importing countries may be substantially harmed by those policies that amplify the already negative impact of a food crisis.     

税收资本化、地方公共服务对房地产价值的影响——基于Tiebout-Oates模型的多组团式中心城市的实证检验

文章以重庆地区28个区县的数据为样本,在蒂布特公共产品最优供给理论的基础上,用横截面数据的研究方法,检验了基于重庆地区数据的蒂布特一奥茨模型体系。文章发现：虽然重庆市的城市结构与美国城市结构有显著差异,并在模型中考虑到了这些差异的影响,但蒂布特的结论在重庆地区依然适用,从而佐证了蒂布特理论的正确性。结果表明：在重庆地区提高财产税会降低住房价值,因而发生税收的负的资本化;改进地方公共服务的质量会抬高住房价值,因而发生公共服务的正的资本化。文章在对计量结果进行分析的基础上,提出了相应的政策建议。     

Accounting Recognition,Moral Hazard,and Communication*

Two complementary sources of information are studied in a multiperiod agency model. One is an accounting source that partially but credibly conveys the agent's private information through accounting recognition. The other is an unverified communication by the agent (i.e., a self‐report). In a simple setting with no communication, alternative labor market frictions lead to alternative optimal recognition policies. When the agent is allowed to communicate his or her private information, accounting signals serve as a veracity check on the agent's self‐report. Finally, such communication sometimes makes delaying the recognition optimal. We see contracting and confirmatory roles of accounting as its comparative advantage. As a source of information, accounting is valuable because accounting reports are credible, comprehensive, and subject to careful and professional judgement. While other information sources may be more timely in providing valuation information about an entity, audited accounting information, when used in explicit or implicit contracts, ensures the accuracy of the reports from nonaccounting sources.     

价格激励行为下物流外包的信号博弈研究

将价格激励行为引入到第三方物流的选择中,利用著名的＂二手车＂单价模型,分析物流提供商如何制定价格激励政策,促使物流外包企业制定有利于其收益的外包价格,以及在第三方物流的价格激励政策下,物流外包企业如何制定最优外包价格,使第三方物流在满足自身激励约束前提下,选择对外包企业最有利的行动,最大化外包企业的期望效用。     

Spatial Monopoly with Product Differentiation

Most theoretical work on the behavior of spatial monopoly focuses on the single-product case, while, in reality, a firm usually produces (or sells) many differentiated products. In this paper, 1 introduce a new model of spatial monopoly with a multiple-product firm where the firm chooses both the measure of product varieties and the price of each variety to maximize its profit. I also examine the monopolist's optimal decision and its economic effects on the spatial economy with a fixed and variable market fringe, respectively. For a class of preferences to product differentiation, I find that both the quantities produced and the consumer surpluses vary across three different spatial pricing policies. This finding is in contrast to the literature on a single-product spatial monopoly where those results are invariant across different pricing policies.     

Economic Impact of Competition Policy: A Look Beyond Consumer Surplus

Competition authorities try to mitigate negative distortionary effects on the markets by tackling abuse of market power or cartels and by controlling mergers. This study attempts to assess the impact of these endeavours by going beyond calculations of lumpsum effects on consumer surplus. We revise the simulation of Van Sinderen and Kemp (Economist 156(4):365–385, 2008) who use a cut in income taxes as a modelling device to simulate the impact of anti cartel policies. Our approach avoids attributing effects caused purely by changes in taxation to market power and uses changes in the Lerner index as the impuls. We have updated the model to enable simulating the impact of competition policies on productivity and R&D in order to get a balanced view on the effects. We find that the re-distribution of surplus from producers to consumers supported by ACM in this new setting is likely to have a positive effect on productivity, GDP, wages and consumption, and a small positive effect on employment. This differs from the outcome of Van Sinderen and Kemp, who did not find a positive impact on productivity, due to an overestimation of the employment growth.     

Motivation of Parent–Child Co‐residence Behavior: Evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study

This paper examines the motivations of parent‐child co‐residence behavior in China using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. We test three possible motives: social norms, self‐interest and altruism. We find that social norms play an important role in household co‐residence behavior, showing that the belief that “sons take care of parents” is strong, and children in different birth orders take different responsibilities. Taking the one‐child policy as a natural experiment, we compared co‐residence behavior between only‐child and multi‐child families. This allowed us to test whether children in multi‐child families with wealthier parents more often co‐reside in order to compete for a bequest. We find that parents' wealth is more appealing to children in multi‐child families. The results support the life cycle theory that co‐residence decisions are motivated by self‐interest. We also find some evidence of altruism when parents and children make co‐residence decisions. These findings provide some insights for designing future elder‐support policies in China.