官员规模、公共品供给与社会收入差距:权力寻租的视角

官员规模、公共品供给效率以及社会收入差距是当下社会比较关注的问题,本文试图把三个问题纳入到一个故事框架下来分析和解释。生产的进行需要官员提供资源帮扶,这需要通过雇佣下级官员来做到;当私人利益进入上级官员的收益函数时,上级官员就会促使资源的供给"人为"稀缺来设租,从而便于下级官员从生产者处收取资源租金;而资源租金的收取使得下级官员的收益高于其外部选择权收益,从而增加了下级官员职位的竞争性,又由于上级官员对下级官员职位任命权的垄断,使上级官员从下级官员处收取职位租金。分析表明,权力的设租寻租行为是造成社会收入差距出现的一个重要原因;在一个能较好限制官员关注私人收益的社会中,官员规模较小、公共品供给效率较高且因权力寻租而造成的社会收入差距较小。     

企业社会资本指数的设计及测量

企业社会资本的测量一直是学术界的一个难题。通过界定企业社会资本概念,明确企业社会资本主体,以企业生产方式和管理层次为主线,从企业资源获取能力的效果出发,对企业社会资本的测量进行了探索性研究。构建的企业社会资本指数来源于财务报表及公开数据,具有一定的可操作性和实用性,不仅丰富了企业社会资本测量的内容,而且为该研究领域提供了新的方向。     

The Influence of Socioeconomic Factors on Economic Growth

The main goal of this paper is to analyse the relationship between social capital and economic growth taking into account the role of fiscal policy from theoretical and empirical points of view. To achieve this goal, “Human Capital and Public Capital Effects on Economic Growth” is focused on the effects of two traditional factors: human capital and public capital effects on economic growth. “Social Capital Effects on Economic Growth” considers qualitative variables introducing some socioeconomic effects on economic growth process analysis. In this case, social capital the main variable will be considered. “Empirical Analysis,” an empirical analysis is developed considering the case of European countries prior to the EU enlargement. Finally, in Conclusions,” the main conclusions will be resumed.      

DOES BIG GOVERNMENT HURT GROWTH LESS IN HIGH‐TRUST COUNTRIES?

Social trust is linked to both public sector size and to economic growth, thereby helping to explain how some countries combine high taxes with high levels of economic growth. This paper examines if social trust insulates countries against the negative effects of public sector size on growth, documented in several studies. We note that the effect is theoretically ambiguous. In panel data from 66 countries across 40 years, we find no robust evidence of insulation effects: when excluding countries with uncertain trust scores, our results suggest that big government hurts growth also in high‐trust countries, and that the mechanism is by lowering private investments. (JEL H10, O11, P16, Z10)     

Do budget maximizing public officials increase the probability of property reassessment?

County governments in Pennsylvania face non‐binding limits on their property tax rates. These are considered non‐binding because they do not place a limit on tax levies or expenditures. Assuming local public officials have monopoly power, tax rate limits can be circumvented by reassessing the property tax base. A two‐stage process was hypothesized in which the probability of reaching tax rate limits first was determined and the probability of reassessment then was determined. The effect of budget maximizing government officials at each stage was tested for 66 Pennsylvania counties over the 1970–1995 period. The empirical results showed that variables associated with budget maximizing behaviour influenced the choice in each stage. Public expenditure growth increased the probability of reaching the tax rate limit in the first stage while reaching the tax rate limit increased the probability of reassessment in the second stage. The estimates also showed that economic, fiscal and taste variables were significant determinants of these probabilities.     

Corruption and the public display of wealth

We study an agent–client model of corruption, in which potential corruptors are uncertain about the probability with which officials are subjected to an audit, either high or low. We characterize a signaling equilibrium, in which officials who are less likely to be audited engage in public conspicuous consumption, whereas those who are more likely to be audited do not. In this equilibrium, officials are better off than in the equilibria without conspicuous consumption. The signaling equilibrium exists if the officials' bargaining power vis‐à‐vis potential corruptors is sufficiently high, which implies that corruption can be curbed by creating competition among officials.     

Modelling the dynamics of corruption and unemployment with heterogeneous labour

This paper presents an endogenous growth model with heterogeneous labour, endogenous unemployment, and public sector corruption. Unlike most previous studies, the model does not separate public officials and private individuals into two distinct groups. Instead, taking up bureaucratic appointment as a public servant is modelled as an occupational choice, which then allows for the endogenous determination of the proportion of public officials, the share of corrupt officials among them, and the public investment efficiency of the economy. The dynamics of endogenous corruption and unemployment are studied using numerical policy experiments based on a stylized representation of a middle-income African economy with high corruption and unemployment. The main finding is that, large-scale public infrastructure push has no effect on raising growth in an economy with high corruption. However, if preceded by social and anti-corruption policies that successfully induce a structural change, it will then be effective in raising growth.     

Group cooperation of village officials in Chinese rural resettlement: A lab in the field

We examine decisions made by village officials in a public goods game and their impact on villagers' attitudes toward a resettlement project in seven rural villages in China. The data comes from two sources: (i) a laboratory experiment with village officials, and (ii) a survey of villagers. Villages whose officials exhibited more cooperative behavior in the laboratory reported higher support levels from the villagers. We find that teams with higher average contribution levels in the PGG game relayed the resettlement news to their villagers earlier than other teams and also possess greater altruistic preferences.     

GROWING LIKE SPAIN: 1995–2007

Measured total factor productivity (TFP) fell in Spain during the boom years of 1995–2007. Using administrative data from the quasi-universe of firms, we show that there was an increase in misallocation, which was more severe in sectors where connections with public officials are more important for business success. We write and estimate a simple model of cronyism in which heterogeneous firms invest in political connections. Our quantitative exercise concludes that the institutional decline over this period costed 1.9% growth in TFP per year and a 0.8% annual increase in the resources spent by firms in establishing political connections.     

Corruption, inflation and growth

We present a model in which the embezzlement of tax revenues by public officials leads the government to rely more on seigniorage to finance its expenditures. This raises inflation which depresses investment and growth via a cash-in-advance constraint.     

The Budget Deficit, Public Debt, and Endogenous Growth

This paper analyzes the effects of public debt on endogenous growth in an overlapping generations model. The government fixes the budget deficit ratio. If the deficit ratio stays below a critical level, then there are two steady states where capital, output, and public debt grow at the same constant rate. An increase in the deficit ratio reduces the growth rate. If the deficit ratio exceeds the critical level, then there is no steady state. Capital growth declines continuously, and capital is driven down to zero in finite time.     

Prisons, drug interdiction, and preschool programs: Alternative human capital investments

Public opinion surveys indicate that Americans list crime high in their priorities for government attention. Inevitably, public officials seeking office promise to reduce crime (the issue of crime is politicized). Simple solutions, without regard to their effectiveness, are politically popular and get votes for elected officials. The result is that social policy is made on the basis of popular solutions, followed by the spending of vast amounts of government revenue on ineffective measures. Not only is much of those funds wasted, a loss to society is further aggravated in that these resources could have been invested in programs that would yield the desired benefits. This paper examines two expensive crime-fighting measures that are failed policies and suggests one alternative type of human capital investment that is cost effective.     

Human Fallibility, Complementarity, and Fiscal Decentralization

This paper examines economic growth properties under alternative fiscal organizations when a bureau's decisions are fallible. A country consists of J jurisdictions, which need a public service. In a centralized government, one authority decides on services in every jurisdiction. In a decentralized government, J authorities are in charge of each public service. An authority can have high ability or low ability, and an authority with high ability draws a good project with higher probability. We first show that the decentralized government provides the same average quality of public services, with lower variance, than does the centralized government. We then apply this result to an economic growth model where the value of the Solow residual is a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) function of public services. We show that there is a critical value of the degree of complementarity below which fiscal decentralization is more desirable than fiscal centralization for an expected economic growth, and the decentralized government has a lower variance of GDP growth.     

Corporate social responsibility and financial performance: A non-linear and disaggregated approach

The present paper examines the relationship between Corporate Social Performance (CSP) and Corporate Financial Performance (CFP), using both accounting-based (Return on Assets and Return on Capital) and market-based (Excess Stock Returns) performance indicators. We use Bloomberg's Environmental Social Governance (ESG) Disclosure score covering the S&P500 firms in the period 2007–2011 which allows for the examination of both linear and nonlinear relationships to be considered. The results of the linear model suggest that there is a significant negative relationship between CSP and Return on Capital. However, the non linear models provide evidence of a U-shaped relationship between CSP and the accounting-based measures of CFP, suggesting that in the longer run CSP effects are positive. Most prominent among our results is that fact that by disentangling the ESG Disclosure score into its environmental, social and governance sub-components, we find that a U-shaped relationship exists only between the governance sub-component and CFP. A straightforward implication of our findings suggests that in order for CSR to serve the interests of the shareholders, a long-run planning and considerable resources should be dedicated at this direction, given that CSR expenditure pays off only after a threshold of CSP has been reached. Furthermore, the fact that governance is the key driver affecting the CSP-CFP relationship suggests that CSR investments should be directed to this component.     

地方政府竞争、企业上市方式与政企间利益输送——来自中国家族企业上市公司的经验证据

中国转轨经济下的财政分权体制和政治晋升锦标赛激励地方政府官员将政策资源向有利于自身政绩的方向倾斜。文章研究发现,与买壳上市家族企业相比,直接上市家族企业获得了更多的银行贷款、政府补贴和税收优惠,但同时通过更高的资产回报、过度投资和负担更多的超额雇员服务于地方经济和社会目标。文章分析了地方政府热衷于推动新企业上市并给予大量政策扶持的原因,对于市场化进程中制定相关政策指导地方政府行为具有重要参考价值。     

标尺竞争、地方官员自利行为与财政支出结构偏向

中国特色的财政联邦主义在本质上表现为财政分权与政治集权相结合,所以中国式标尺竞争就表现为"为增长而竞争"的晋升锦标赛。论文基于政治委托代理的研究视角,运用经济学理论中的"经济人"假设来研究地方官员的行为逻辑,研究表明:一方面,作为理性的经济人,地方政府官员必然追求本届政府或个人任职期限的短期政绩最大化;另一方面,为了能使自己在政治锦标赛中获胜,各个地方政府在配置财政资源时会竞相模仿从而使财政支出出现"结构趋同",这种趋同性会随着政治锦标赛的升级而一直处于锁定状态。所以,地方官员自利行为是导致财政支出结构偏向的根本原因。     

International Factor Mobility, Government Size and Welfare

An examination of the available data reveals that the size of government varies considerably across time and countries. By making use of a simple general equilibrium model, this paper demonstrates that size of government is affected by the availability of capital and labour within an economy. Specifically, this paper utilises a model of a closed economy that produces one-private and one-public good. Both goods are produced by means of capital and labour. Production functions are subject to constant returns to scale and perfect competition prevails in all markets. The elasticity of substitution between the public and the private good is greater than unity and there is no international factor mobility in the initial equilibrium. The size of government is measured by total spending on the public good as a proportion of the total expenditure on the private and public goods. It is shown that capital (labour) inflow can decrease (increase) the size of government. Capital inflow increases welfare if the private good is relatively capital intensive whereas labour inflow increases welfare if the public good is relatively capital intensive.     

Ben Fine (2001) Social Capital versus Social Theory: Political Economy and Social Science at the Turn of the Millennium

Book reviewed in this article:
Ben Fine, Social Capital versus Social Theory: Political Economy and Social Science at the Turn of the Millennium     

The role of Provincial Government Spending Composition in growth and convergence in China

China’s development policy since 1978 has differed across regions. With rapid aggregate growth has come widening regional inequality. The fiscal decentralisation reforms in 1994 shifted political pressure onto provincial officials to boost local growth through local public investments. These investments affect regional convergence by counteracting regulatory frictions in factor accumulation, and can also determine steady-state growth. However, the effect of public spending allocations across physical and human capital on growth and convergence processes is empirically unexplored for Chinese provinces. We take provincial time-series data on public spending by category, finding local public spending and its components augment convergence rates differently across regions. Spending on education and health contributes significantly more to growth and convergence than capital spending, confirming that the public capital-spending bias is not a local growth-optimising strategy. We suggest a policy of aligning local government promotion incentives to human capital targets to correct local resource misallocation.     

The Political Economy of Xenophobia and Distribution: The Case of Denmark*

For the first time in some years, a conservative government came to power in Denmark in 2001, due primarily to the citizenry's disaffection with social‐democratic policies on immigration. We represent political competition in Denmark as taking place over two issues—the size of the public sector and immigration—and model political equilibrium using the party unanimity Nash equilibrium (PUNE) concept, which generates equilibria on multi‐dimensional policy spaces where parties form endogenously. By fitting the model to Danish data, we argue that citizen xenophobia may be expected to decrease the size of the Danish public sector by an amount between 12% and 36% of one standard deviation of the probability distribution of citizens' ideal points of the size of the public sector.