国外促进低碳经济发展的税收政策及启示

欧盟、美国、日本等国家在促进低碳经济发展方面都有本国的税收政策,应基于中国国情并借鉴国外先进经验,着力打造适合中国国情的低碳经济。为此,需进一步完善税收政策,坚持有所为、有所不为的原则,从而实现经济增长与可持续发展。     

Labor Markets,Class Interests,and the Technology of Production

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and multiple natural disasters, the sustainable development agenda has regained popularity, although the meaning of the term “sustainable development” remains contested. I follow the conceptualization emerging from the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012 of three interlocking dimensions: economic, environmental, and social. Focusing on the social-environmental nexus of sustainable development, I consider the relationship between gender equity and the environment before turning to one of the most popular interventions for gender equity in the developing world, microfinance. Although microfinance typically is examined along the social-economic nexus (improving gender empowerment via earned income opportunities), I explore its relationship to environmental sustainability and make suggestions for improving the capacity of microfinance in this area.     

Non‐linear finance–growth nexus

This paper revisits the question of whether the finance–growth nexus varies with the stages of economic development. Using a novel threshold regression with the instrumental variables approach proposed by Caner and Hansen (2004) to the dataset used in Levine et al. (2000) we detect overwhelming evidence in support of a positive linkage between financial development and economic growth, and this positive effect is larger in the low‐income countries than in the high‐income ones. The data also reveal that financial development tends to have stronger impacts on capital accumulation and productivity growth in the low‐income countries than in the high‐income ones. The findings are robust to alternative financial development measures and conditioning information sets.     

城市形态与可持续发展——以欧美国家棕色土地规划设计为例

21世纪城市规划设计的原则是如何规划和设计更为可持续发展的城市,城市形态与可持续之间的关系是当前国际环境研究领域热点议题之一。与此同时,棕色土地的可持续发展正受到欧美国家的大力扶持,棕色土地的规划设计再利用直接影响到城市形态,关系着城市集聚地产生、成长、形式、结构、功能和发展。对欧美国家棕色土地规划背景与发展进行研究,并以英国诺丁汉城市棕色土地更新与整治为例,试图从中找到适合我国棕色土地再利用的原则与方法,特别是地区工业用地再利用的可持续发展。     

Trade,aid and migrations: some basic policy issues

The link between trade policy and international migration is explored using data from the United States and Europe. "We conclude that restrictive trade policies in industrialised countries have most likely added to migration pressures. We then turn to the broader question of the effects of income growth in the sending countries on the propensity to migrate. We argue that, in relatively poor countries, an increase in income will be associated with higher migration flows. For middle income countries, however, income growth will lead to lower migrations. In the medium run, therefore, the relationship between development levels, as measured by GDP per capita, and the propensity to migrate follows an inverse-U pattern. Econometric analysis of aggregate migration flows from Southern Europe provides considerable support for such conjecture."     

投资规模、投资效率与经济增长的动态关系研究

投资规模扩大和投资效率提高是推动经济增长的重要动力。通过向量自回归模型实证检验中国投资增长、投资效率与经济增长的动态关系,发现投资增长和投资效率提高均能促进中国经济增长,但中国经济发展长期高度依赖投资规模的扩张,投资效率没有得到相应提高,经济增长的可持续性正面临挑战。为实现可持续发展,中国经济需要转变发展方式,实现投资规模驱动型增长方式向投资效率提高驱动型增长方式的转变。     

BARRIERS TO ENTRY AND DEVELOPMENT*

We ask whether barriers to entry are a quantitatively important reason for the income gap between developing countries and the United States. We develop a tractable general equilibrium model that captures the effects of barriers to entry and the other main distortions typically considered in the development literature. We carry our model to the data and ask it to match the main development facts from the Penn World Table. We find that this requires large barriers to entry in developing countries, which account for about half of the income gap with the United States.     

Dynamic sustainability assessment: The case of Russia in the period of transition (1985-2008)

Russia has experienced twenty years of economic and social change, which had a substantial impact on the regional and sectoral patterns of the development of its economy, infrastructure, the quality of the environment and the well-being of its people. The current economic revival offers new opportunities and presents new challenges for the sustainable development of Russia.The paper employs the UN Sustainable Development framework of indicators and assesses sustainability of Russia using multi-criteria evaluation methods, namely the uncertainty randomization multi-criteria evaluation method “Analysis and Synthesis of Parameters under Information Deficiency” (ASPID). The analysis covers economic, environmental and social trends in Russia's development in 1985-2008 and assesses sustainability of this development from the point of view of multiple criteria.The results show the potential of employment of multi-criteria methods for the sustainability assessment at the macro level and offer useful insights into multidimensional nature of sustainability and the role of priority setting in the evaluation process. Such an analysis reveals the degree of harmoniousness of sustainable development policy. It shows how different sets of priorities determine the outcome of multidimensional analysis of sustainability and could potentially help in assessing progress and designing new policy instruments. This paper is one of the first to apply multi-criteria methods to the macro sustainability analysis in the dynamic setting.     

Sustainability,Optimality, and Development Policy

Considering sustainability a matter of intergenerational welfare equity, this paper examines whether an optimal development path can also be sustainable. It argues that the general “zero‐net‐aggregate‐investment” condition for an optimal development path to be sustainable in the sense of the maximin criterion of intergenerational justice is too demanding to be practical, especially in the context of developing countries. It further argues that while the maximin criterion of sustainability may be appealing to the rich advanced industrial countries, for the poor developing countries it implies equalization of poverty across generations, and as such is too costly a moral obligation to be acceptable. The paper suggests that a compromise development policy that follows the optimal growth approach but adopts certain measures to mitigate both the intergenerational and intragenerational welfare inequalities may be more appropriate for these countries. Some of the principal elements of such a policy are highlighted.     

A grey dynamic model for the evaluation of regional sustainable development and its emoirical study

Currently,traditional development issues,such as economic stagnation,as well as new challenges like environmental degradation and globalization,need attention.Sustainable development,including economic,environmental,and social elements,is a main goal of decision-makers.The key to sustainable decision-making is to evaluate and forecast the status quo of sustainable development.Policy makers need a tool based on scientific information to forecast the effects of future actions on sustainability and make policies for sustainable development.This paper analyzes the relation of the economy,environment and social welfare by the grey dynamic model.The proposed method use time series and basic indicators of ecological system,including economic,environmental and social sub-systems.It is applied to Heilongfiang Province and Jiangsu Province.The results have proved different status quo of sustainable development in these two regions,and suggestions are proposed,such as optimization of industrial structure and eco-industrial development.The conclusion is that there is no unique sustainable path,and accordingly,policy makers shouM choose different criteria and strategies to make efficient sustainable decisions for each region.     

A grey dynamic model for the evaluation of regional sustainable development and its empirical study

Currently, traditional development issues, such as economic stagnation, as well as new challenges like environmental degradation and globalization, need attention. Sustainable development, including economic, environmental, and social elements, is a main goal of decision-makers. The key to sustainable decision-making is to evaluate and forecast the status quo of sustainable development. Policy makers need a tool based on scientific information to forecast the effects of future actions on sustainability and make policies for sustainable development. This paper analyzes the relation of the economy, environment and social welfare by the grey dynamic model. The proposed method uses time series and basic indicators of ecological system, including economic, environmental and social sub-systems. It is applied to Heilongjiang Province and Jiangsu Province. The results have proved different status quo of sustainable development in these two regions, and suggestions are proposed, such as optimization of industrial structure and eco-industrial development. The conclusion is that there is no unique sustainable path, and accordingly, policy makers should choose different criteria and strategies to make efficient sustainable decisions for each region.     

The Dark Side of the Generalized System of Preferences

The Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) was established to promote the exports of low‐income countries to industrialized countries in order to support their economic growth and development. However, the design of these schemes is rather complex and the effects of GSP have been found to be controversial. In our empirical analysis, based on an extensive dataset covering most of world trade, we find that GSP tends to foster developing countries' exports in the short‐run, but hampers them in the long‐run. Also, GSP granting countries are able to promote their own exports initially, while in the long‐run their exports decrease. Taken together, GSP does not seem to be a suitable instrument to promote sustainable economic growth and development of low‐income countries.     

INCOME INEQUALITY,MEDIA FRAGMENTATION,AND INCREASED POLITICAL POLARIZATION

The increasing polarization of congressional voting has been linked to legislators' inability to reach consensus on many pressing economic issues. We examine two potential factors driving polarization: greater income inequality and the increasingly fragmented state of American media. Using cointegration techniques, we find evidence indicating that media fragmentation has played a more important role than inequality. Periods of rising media fragmentation are followed by increased polarization. If recent patterns of media structure and income inequality persist, a polarized policymaking environment will likely continue to impede efforts to address major challenges, such as the long‐run fiscal imbalances facing the United States. (JEL D72, D31)     

A cost-benefit analysis for the economic growth in China

Currently, traditional development issues such as income inequality, depletion of natural resources, environmental pollution as well as retardation of infrastructure have occurred in China. In the future, more pressures would be imposed on China by the continuous fast development of industrialization, and with transfer of the world manufacture center to China. Sustainable development, including its economic, environmental and social elements, is a key goal of decisionmakers. This paper develops a methodology on cost benefit analysis of economic growth at macroscopic level to identify issues of China's sustainability. In order to address some important issues on how to make policies to improve the quality of economic growth, the CBA framework developed in this study analyses economic-ecological-social interaction, building three accounts that reflect three dimensions of sustainable development that includes 26 sub-models in all, and finally is integrated into an index as Net Progress Proceeds (NPP). The estimation methods of these submodels, such as cost of environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources and defensive expenditures are described in detail. Based on the framework and methods, this paper examines the costs and benefits of economic growth in three aspects of economy, ecology and society. The results illustrate that NPR of China's economic growth had been negative for a long time and has just became positive since year 2000 but was quite low. Even the best was only 1.6% in 2002 (the worst was − 24.2% in 1982). Based on the comparison between three accounts, we can draw a conclusion that ecological cost is the dominant factor that affects China's NPR. The empirical results show that if no other innovative measures or policies are taken in the future the costs of growth would outweigh its benefits, resulting in un-sustainability. Basically, the long-term economic growth would be unsustainable due to increasing environmental damage and depletion of natural resources. There are a few limitations that we consider need to be improved in our CBA framework and method, nevertheless they have many options that can be explored by policy makers, to make the development path more sustainable.     

The effect of NAFTA on internal migration in Mexico: a regional economic analysis

Trade facilitates growth in some regions of a country while shrinking others, and therefore to benefit from trade, labour may need to be able to migrate. This mobility is particularly crucial in a developing country with high income inequality like Mexico. We seek to answer the following questions: What characteristics facilitate or hinder that internal migration? Has trade liberalization changed the pattern of internal migration in Mexico? We first predict regional economic growth resulting from changes in Mexico-US tariffs by sector. We find that trade liberalization appears to have largely benefited the manufacturing sector. Next, using a spatial gravity model of migration, we find that while economic growth from trade openness drew workers to urban regions in the northern Border States of Mexico, much of the trade-driven migration occurred before NAFTA. Second, contrary to popular belief, migration from largely rural states appears to have decreased since NAFTA. We also find evidence that migration to the United States increased after NAFTA. Last, we find that income disparity in both the destination and origin region deters migration and that this effect increases after NAFTA. Thus, we see evidence that within-region income disparity can hinder migration, potentially exacerbating income disparity among regions.     

Measuring sustainable development — Nation by nation

Sustainable development represents a commitment to advancing human well-being, with the added constraint that this development needs to take place within the ecological limits of the biosphere. Progress in both these dimensions of sustainable development can be assessed: we use the UN Human Development Index (HDI) as an indicator of development and the Ecological Footprint as an indicator of human demand on the biosphere. We argue that an HDI of no less than 0.8 and a per capita Ecological Footprint less than the globally available biocapacity per person represent minimum requirements for sustainable development that is globally replicable. Despite growing global adoption of sustainable development as an explicit policy goal, we find that in the year 2003 only one of the 93 countries surveyed met both of these minimum requirements. We also find an overall trend in high-income countries over the past twenty five years that improvements to HDI come with disproportionately larger increases in Ecological Footprint, showing a movement away from sustainability. Some lower-income countries, however, have achieved higher levels of development without a corresponding increase in per capita demand on ecosystem resources.     

我国中小旅游企业的财政支持研究

为了改善在整个旅游业中发挥基础性和主控性作用的中小旅游企业所面临的困难和挑战,以英国、美国、日本三个发达国家支持中小旅游企业发展所采取的财政政策为例,在对我国中小旅游企业的发展现状进行剖析的基础上,提出应适当借鉴发达国家的先进经验。从加大财政投入、资金融通、税收优惠、服务体系构建等几个方面归纳出财政支持的具体对策,以有力促进中小旅游企业的可持续发展并进而提升其行业地位。     

Frontiers and sustainable economic development

Exploiting new resource “frontiers,” such as agricultural land and mineral reserves, is a fundamental feature of economic development in poor economies. Yet frontier-based development is symptomatic of a pattern of economy-wide resource exploitation in developing economies that: (a) generates little additional economic rents, and (b) what rents are generated are not being reinvested in other sectors. Such development is inherently unsustainable. The following paper explains this phenomenon, and provides evidence that long-run expansion of agricultural land and oil and natural gas proved reserves across poor economies is associated with lower levels of real income per capita. The paper proposes a frontier expansion hypothesis to explain why the structural economic dependence of these economies on frontier land expansion and resource exploitation is not conducive to sustained long-run growth. The key to sustainable economic development in poor economies will be improving the economic integration between frontier and other sectors of the economy, targeting policies to improved resource management in frontier areas and overcoming problems of corruption and rent-seeking in resource sectors.      

Veblen and Kropotkin on Human Evolution

This paper studies the spillover effects of economic fluctuations in the United States on economic activity in Latin America and the Caribbean. Fluctuations in U.S. GDP growth have spillover effects that stimulate real growth and accelerate price inflation across many countries. Underlying these spillover effects are significant movements in private consumption, and to a larger extent, private investment. Openness to the United States has significant effects that accelerate growth of exports and/or imports across many countries. The net effects on the trade and current account balances vary across countries. Overall, the evidence supports concerns about adverse spillover effects of a slowdown in the U.S. economy on neighboring countries, necessitating careful mobilization of countercyclical domestic tools to hedge against potential risk and mitigate the severity of economic downturns.