不完全契约视角下的财务治理机制分析

作为公司治理的重要内容,在本质上,财务治理是对公司财权进行的一整套制度安排。具体地说,这一套制度安排必须通过与企业有直接利益关系的各当事方缔结财务契约来实现。本文提出,构成财务治理基础的财务契约是一种不完全契约,这种契约的不完全性将会产生激励不足和约束失控两个主要影响。因此,我们的财务治理机制应该针对财务契约的不完全性来进行设计,力争最大限度地降低不完全财务契约造成的负面影响,提高财务治理的效率。     

中国股市脆弱性分析:一个新的理论解说

本文运用现代合约理论,金融制度学和金融脆弱性有关理论方法,首先通过对近几年来股市发展的纵向分析和主要股票市场之间的横向对比,发现我国股市异常脆弱.然后对我国股市异常脆弱的原因做出了一个新的理论解说,指出我国股市异常脆弱归根结底源于现有的制度安排缺陷和不正常的特殊合约关系.主要表现为:制度三重缺损造成的"中国式不完全合约"问题;股市合约化过程中自身合约安排不合理;政府在股市角色错位和不当干预造成的股市合约关系异化等.     

"龙头"企业与农户的合约选择--基于风险和风险态度的解释

和现有文献基于交易成本理论解释"龙头"企业和农户之间的合约选择不同,本文把农业项目的风险分解为生产风险和市场风险,运用委托--代理理论分析了风险和风险态度对"龙头"企业和农户之间合约选择的影响.分析表明,在不存在机会主义行为或市场风险为零的情况下,"龙头"企业和不同农户之间合约的选择取决于双方对风险的态度和农业项目生产风险的大小.     

制度变迁与乡村非正规制度——中国乡镇企业的财产形成与控制

各种非正规制度是如何促使在计划经济体系内部顺利实现了一种渐进式的制度变迁的 ?本文首先区分出了非正规市场、非正规合约的概念 ,并将影响非正规合约缔约过程的各种行为和人际关系称为非正规制度。非正规合约作为一种无形资产 ,它不仅创造收入流 ,而且能够形成为协约双方都带来利益增进、促使生产改善、效率提高的新的制度结构。本文分别说明了非正规制度对创新者的创新动机和对创新者权威和合法性的影响 ,同时说明了由非正规合约所形成的产权合约对乡镇企业早期资源动员和财产形成过程中合约的作用及作用的方式 ,回答了长期争论的市场化的交易是如何从计划经济体制内部产生出来的问题     

关于我国技术市场现状的分析及对策研究

<正> 一、关于技术市场的基本特征与功能 1、技术市场的基本特征。①信息非对称性:即在技术交易的过程中,技术合约当事人一方拥有另一方不知道或者无法验证的信息和知识。信息非对称既是技术交易需求产生的基础和前提,又决定了达成技术交易合约和履约的难度。②信息的不完全性:指技术研究开发过程中所固有的风险给合约当事人双方同时带来的难以预期的变化,主要是由不确定性决定的。③技术的公共物品属性:技术消费具有一定程度的非排他性,即具有一定的外部经济效果,并具有交易可重复性的特点。     

合约短期化与空合约假说——基于农地租约的经验证据

不完全合约理论关注于两个方面的研究:一是不完全合约的理论基础,二是剩余控制权的产权配置问题.研究发现,在农地流转租约中,不仅存在着不完全合约与关系合约问题,而且合约短期化与空合约也是普遍现象.本文基于农地租约的经验证据,分析农地租约不断加剧的短期化倾向,进而阐明不完全合约演变为空合约的逻辑机理.笔者指出,空合约依赖于信任与声誉机制而实现自我履约,能够降低合约的治理成本并改善其不完全性,从而形成不完全合约—关系合约—空合约的动态演化过程.     

新制度经济学的现状及其发展趋势

新制度经济学由旧制度经济学发展而来,早期旧制度经济学就是经济历史,忽视了产权和交易费用.新制度经济学主要新在产权和交易费用上,科斯、阿尔钦、德姆塞茨、施蒂格勒和张五常对其有重要贡献.中国的经济改革符合新制度经济学规律,中国应该感谢这些人.但是由<交易费用、风险规避与合约安排的选择>一文提出的风险和懈责问题及其而诱致的风险度量、投机及博弈理论等则对新制度经济学的发展产生了一些不良影响.坚持观察与验证假设是张五常和目前的新制度经济学分歧之所在,新制度经济学应该朝着合约的方向发展,这一点也为科斯所认可.     

现代金融架构下的农业商品契约

我国定单农业中简单远期合约的有限交易、局部信息和履约保证金制度的缺失,导致了定单农业的高违约率,构成了实施农业商品契约模式的现实障碍.现代金融体系的期货交易和保险工具,为规避农产品市场的价格风险提供了价格形成机制和风险外化出口,土地永佃制为现代农业金融架构奠定了经济基础.农业金融架构的发展和完善决定着农业商品契约模式制度安排的水平和规模.     

合约权利的安排与再安排--基于规范与实证两种视角的分析

不完全合约所产生的剩余控制权和剩余索取权的安排问题应该从签约前和签约后两个方面入手。签约前剩余权利的安排具有规范的性质,它往往会以效率为导向,主要影响因素有当事人的退出成本、个人主观判断、风险偏好以及监督难易程度等;签约之后的履约过程中,剩余权利的再安排更具有实证性质,主要取决于合约当事人的谈判力。     

宏观经济波动的契约论分析

契约的不完全性与执行契约的成本在劳动和资本市场上产生了租金,并导致代理人厌恶风险的行为,厌恶风险的行为又引起供给和投资函数的不稳定,要维持充分就业就要求价格具有较大的调整空间,而契约的不完全性的工资,价格及利率作为基租的事实,使得这些调整不会发生或非常缓慢发发生。信息不对称加上对新契约形式的风险规避产生了契约刚性,契约刚性和不完全契约以及由此产生的租金,厌恶风险的行为提供了宏观经济波动的微观分析基础。     

市场互联性、关系型合约与经济转型

本文通过将单一市场的关系型合约推广到互联的关系型合约,刻画了社会分工程度(市场范围)与微观治理机制(基于关系型合约的治理还是基于正式合约的治理)之间的互动关系:基于何种合约来治理受市场范围的影响,市场范围越小,关系型合约越重要,正式合约越不重要;反之则反是。特别地,从这个视角看,计划经济向市场经济转型的过程,是劳动分工不断深化和市场范围不断扩大的过程,在微观治理上是一个从互联的关系型合约不断向正式合约过渡的过程。中国的渐进式改革之所以成功,很大程度上是由于渐进式改革使原来自我实施的关系型合约没有受到很大程度的破坏,在正式合约缺位时,关系型合约仍然能够维持社会经济的运行;俄罗斯的激进式改革几乎在一夜之间破坏了自我实施的关系型合约的可维持性,而短期内又不可能建立依赖正式合约的治理模式,出现了微观治理失效。本文还解释了中国经济在缺乏正式的法律和产权体系下取得骄人绩效的“悖论”,即由于关系型合约的自我实施性,因而并不需要相应的正式制度安排。本文总体上支持“后华盛顿共识”的渐进改革路径,并为其提供了动态的微观机制。     

十字路口的农户家庭经营:何去何从

本文试图说明当前"地权分散化"、"耕地细碎化"和"规模细小化"的小农经济并非家庭联产承包责任制的产物,而是刚性资源禀赋条件下人地关系紧张的自然结果。农户家庭经营作为农业生产先天最适组织细胞必须得到坚持,但小农经济的先天性缺陷必须通过某种制度安排来予以调适。这一制度调适就是立足于家庭经营的现代农业合作社。但实践中各种"假合作社"很可能将这一制度安排引入歧途,本文详尽探讨了"假合作社"赖以存在的土壤,明确指出其并不是真正意义上的合作社,必须从根本上予以否定。论文进一步指出,现代农业合作社是一种弹性极强的组织形式,具有很强的向上和向下兼容性,可以包容"公司农场"、"公司+农户"等多种组织形式,适应不同经济条件的需要,具有广阔的历史前景。     

Planning and Urban Growth: An Anglo-American Comparison

Understanding the complexity of institutional change is a necessary step in gaining deeper knowledge of economic performance over time, and it is one of the main challenges in the research agenda of institutionalism. Institutional change can be studied using a variety of theoretical approaches. We study some of the main approaches to institutional change in original economic institutionalism and new institutional economics. First, after comparing the approaches of Émile Durkheim and Thorstein Veblen, we focus on the contributions of the instrumental value theory and other original institutional traditions in the study of institutional change. Second, new institutional economics improved on the weak points of rational choice institutionalism regarding institutional change and incorporated the “institutions-as-rules” approach (Douglass North) and the “institutions-as-equilibria” approach (Avner Greif, Masahiko Aoki). We analyze both approaches to institutional change. Furthermore, we present an updated nonintegral overview of approaches to institutional change, show several interconnections between original and new institutionalisms, and conclude that the dialogue between the different theories of institutional change is relevant and beneficial.     

Comparing Environmental Policy Instruments Within an Incomplete Contract Framework

This paper compares three different legal means—no environmental policy (the pollutee pays), full liability (the polluter pays), and pollution standards—to reduce and regulate neighborhood externalities within an incomplete contract framework. It turns out that the relative efficiency of these instruments depends, in general, on details. However, moderate standards are preferable to no environmental policy and tight (but not too tight) standards dominate liability. This provides under the given assumptions (neighborhood externalities, incomplete contracts) a justification for “sensible” standards for three reasons. First, unilateral allocations of property rights are biased that distort allocations even if ex post bargaining takes place. Second, a standard is superior in the following sense: if it is set equal to the outcome under any allocation of rights, it will be improved in the process of ex post bargaining. Third, unilateral property rights encourage strategic ex ante investments up to the point that committing to no bargaining would be beneficial (if possible).     

Is Tinkering with Institutional Quality a Panacea for Firm Performance? Insights from a Semiparametric Approach to Modeling Firm Performance

There is a large and growing literature on the impact of institutional quality on economic performance and the broad consensus is that “good” institutions facilitate better economic performance. The literature that provides micro‐level support for the policy discourse about institutional quality does not, however, account for significant intra‐country variation in reactions of firms to changes in business environments, even within the same industry, and it generally ignores the possibility that the impact of institutional quality on firm performance may not be neutral. In this paper, we analyze the impact of institutions on firm performance using an approach that enables us to overcome these problems with the stylized approach. Using cross‐country firm‐level data, we demonstrate that not only does the marginal impact of institutional quality vary significantly within countries, but also that the impact is economically significant only at the two extremes of the distribution. We view this as prima facie evidence that policies that tinker with institutional quality on the basis of the popular wisdom about the impact of these institutions on the average firm may not have the desired or expected impact, at least at the micro level.     

A framework for the study of firms as constitutional orders

Much of the literature on corporate performance focuses on institutional restructuring, and implicitly assumes that constitutional factors are determined exogenously. Existing theories of the firm—whether a “goal paradigm” or an “exchange paradigm”—provide useful insights; but we find them incomplete because they miss the extent to which companies build unique and meaningful constitutional orders. Building on Vanberg (Const Polit Econ 3(2):223–253, 1992), we investigate the extent to which the field of constitutional political economy (CPE) can improve our understanding of organisations, by providing a typology of CPE that can be applied to a study of firms. We make a distinction among (1) operational; (2) institutional; and (3) constitutional levels of management, and based on the CPE literature argue that “constitutional” considerations help us to define the boundaries of a firm and its operational environment.     

中国经济发展中的中央与地方政府边界研究——基于不完全契约理论的视角

本文从不完全契约理论的视角分析了中央政府和地方政府的关系,并且基于此从经济效率的角度分析了中央政府与地方政府的边界.我们的分析表明,集权会损害地方政府的积极性,分权会提高地方政府的积极性;中央政府究竟是采用集权还是采用分权,除了要考虑中央政府和地方政府相互之间的外部性外,还要考虑基准到底是中央政府的效用函数还是社会总效用函数.中央政府和地方政府的边界会随着经济的发展而不断变迁,这个变迁过程是一个效率改进的过程.     

二元体制下我国军民融合深度发展的法治实施困境与对策

军民融合发展是统筹经济建设与国防建设、实现富国强军与构建一体化国家战略体系和能力的必由之路。我国军民融合从初步融合走向深度融合,涉及多方主体的关系调整与利益重塑,需要在法治轨道上通过法律规范与法律运行两个维度整合各类主体力量、配置各类要素资源。目前,军民融合法治实施受制于“军”“民”二元分离体制结构的现实约束,在法律规范层面处于制度供给不完备状态,在法律运行层次面临主体实践不协调困境。二元体制下破解军民融合深度发展的法治实施困境,宜从静态规范层面和动态运行层面综合调整军民融合行为。一方面,通过适时制定和颁布具有统一效力的军民融合发展法,清理、废止和修订不适应军民融合发展需要的法律法规和政策文件,在规范层面建立健全统一完备的军民融合发展法律法规体系;另一方面,探索建立“委员会统一领导、各小组分工负责”的军民融合法治实施领导体制和统一领导、军地协调、顺畅高效的军地联合法律执行机制,形成诉调对接、诉仲结合的军民融合案件多元化纠纷解决机制暨法律适用机制,在法律运行层面建立协调高效的军民融合发展法律实施体系。     

Religion and Economic Development in History: Institutions and the Role of Religious Networks

I argue that the role of religion on economic performance is mainly through the networks of small religious groups. These groups form social networks that enable individuals to conduct non-formal contract enforcement mechanisms. I analyze the effects of religions on societies, focusing mainly on the institutional aspects that affect the capabilities of creating social capital via networks which enhance cooperation and decrease transaction costs. Since the interaction between institutions and organizations is expected to shape the institutional evolution and economic performance of an economy, religions that have a communal form of organization rather than a vertical (hierarchical) structure, thus allowing many different denominational sub-communities within a society, can be more beneficiary for development and growth. Such institutions may not only provide allocative and production efficiency, but also adaptive efficiency that is a key to long-run growth. However, these effects may turn negative depending on these institutions’ role in causing group hostility and exclusion.     

The concept of “lawfulness” in economic matters. Reading Ibn Rushd (Averroes)

Abstract

In the Middle Ages the major concept through which economic matters are analysed and evaluated is the “lawful”, in Arabic jâ’iz, concept. It claims to establish whether a gain, a profit, a contract is lawful or not: that is the main question theologians examine when they are addressing the issue of appreciating any economic fact. In our study, we analyse the criteria of the “lawfulness” as found in the economic parts of Ibn Rushd's work entitled Bidâyat al-mujtahid wa nihâyat al-muqta?id (English translation: The Distinguished Jurist's Primer). Our thesis is inspired essentially by Raymond De Roover's studies on the economic thought in the Middle Ages. De Roover shows that the criteria for lawfulness are to be found in the nature of the contract between partners: a gain is lawful if the contract which generates it is lawful. Our study essentially consists in a text analysis.