Culture and the demand for non-life insurance: Empirical evidences from middle-income and high-income economies*

This paper investigates the impact of culture on non-life insurance expenditure using a panel dataset covering 27 middle-income countries and 40 high-income countries in the period 1980–2014. Based on the two-step system GMM estimator, it is found that several cultural dimensions such as masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and power distance significantly explain the spending on non-life insurance in middle-income countries, while masculinity is the only cultural factor that significantly explains spending on non-life insurance in high-income countries. Traditional drivers of the demand for non-life insurance, such as per capita income, economic freedom and urbanization, also behave differently comparing between the two income-based groups of countries. These findings provide useful recommendations for business firms and policymakers around the world, especially transitional economies, to promote and sustain the development of the non-life insurance sector, which is an important engine for growth and prosperity.     

Culture,financial crisis and the demand for property,accident and health insurance in the OECD countries

Culture has been known to play an important role in explaining differences in consumption behaviour across countries. Yet, we know very little how it affects spending on non-life insurance products. This paper attempts to shed some light on how cultural characteristics impact the demand for property, accident and health insurance, focusing on the OECD countries in the period 2000–2017. We find, via the system generalized method of moment estimations, that cultural characteristics such as individualism, long-term orientation, masculinity and uncertainty avoidance were the drivers of the expenditure on property insurance, whereas long-term orientation, uncertainty avoidance and hypometropia explained accident and health insurance spending across the OECD countries. In the presence of the global financial crisis, cultural effects on property insurance spending turned out to be relatively minor, with the exception of individualism. These findings provide valuable information for non-life insurance companies, consumers and policy makers in the OECD countries.     

我国非寿险需求影响因素的实证分析

运用1985-2005年的相关数据,考察了经济增长、消费者的保险意识、风险水平、保险价格和保险市场供给因素对非寿险需求的影响。结果表明:经济增长、消费者的保险意识、风险水平对非寿险需求有显著的影响;而非寿险价格和非寿险市场的供给因素对非寿险需求的影响并不显著。对上述结果进行了进一步的讨论。     

Threshold effects in the patent-growth relationship: a PSTR approach for 60 developed and developing countries

ABSTRACT

This study analyzes whether there is a threshold effect in the innovation-growth relationship. Using data from the period 2008–2017, we perform an analysis using 60 countries in the whole sample and a split-sample analysis in which we separate developed countries (36) from developing countries (24). The results for the panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) model indicate that there is a threshold effect in the innovation-growth relationship. We find that below the threshold, the effect of innovation measured by the number of patents is not significant for developed and developing countries. However, surpassing the optimal threshold, the effect becomes positive only for the whole sample and developed countries. Furthermore, findings also indicate that research and development expenditure, domestic and foreign investments stimulate economic growth.     

1990-2013年国际人口迁移特征、机制及影响研究

在全球化背景下国际人口迁移呈持续增长态势。利用"2013年全球国际人口迁移趋势"和"2013年经合组织国家国际人口迁移展望"数据,分析1990-2013年国际人口迁移的规模、流向、结构等的变动趋势及区域特征,揭示国际人口迁移的主要动力机制,包括发达国家和发展中国家之间经济社会发展的巨大差距、经济全球化、世界经济政治格局变动、国际移民政策调整和人口规模等,以及国际人口迁移对迁入国和迁出国经济发展、劳动就业、财政收支、人口增长等方面产生的影响。     

Government consumption,government debt and economic growth

This paper compares the effects of government consumption and government debt on economic growth using data from 83 countries, including both developed and developing markets, over the period from 1960 to 2014. Linear regressions reveal that the negative effects of government consumption are relatively higher than the negative effects of government debt. A nonlinear investigation further suggests that the restrictions on government expenditure to prevent negative growth are more important for countries with lower trade openness, lower inflation, or greater financial depth, whereas the restrictions on government debt are shown to be more important for countries with higher trade openness, lower inflation or greater financial depth.     

保险经济学研究述评

保险经济学是用一般经济理论来研究有关保险领域问题的一门学科。作为一门独立的学科 ,保险经济学在国外已经得到较大的发展 ,它所探讨的问题和分析方法在主流经济学和金融经济理论中也占有很重要的位置。然而在我国 ,该学科的研究还很不充分 ,很少有人使用规范的经济学研究范式对我国的保险业进行深入而细致的分析。本文按照保险经济学历史发展的逻辑顺序 ,对该学科发展过程中的几个重要方面做了简要评述 ,在此基础上分析了保险经济学在结合我国的实际情况时应注意的几个方面 ,以期引起这方面更深入的讨论。     

Impact of Internet use on economic well‐being of rural households: Evidence from China

The expansion of the Internet in developing countries has important implications for the economic development of rural areas. Although many studies have investigated various benefits of Internet use, little attention has been paid to find the relationship between Internet use and the economic well‐being of rural households. This paper, therefore, investigates the effects of Internet use on household income and expenditure, using a sample of rural households from China. Both endogenous treatment regression (ETR) and unconditional quantile regression (UQR) techniques are used to identify the homogenous and heterogeneous effects of Internet use, respectively. The ETR results show that Internet use increases household income and expenditure significantly. However, the UQR results reveal that Internet use has a larger impact at the upper distributions of household income and expenditure.     

Consumption patterns of food,tobacco and beverages: a cross-country analysis

This study considers the consumption patterns of food, tobacco, soft drinks, and alcohol in 43 developed and developing countries. Such an analysis is important for policy issues associated with tobacco, alcohol, and soft drinks. The results show that consumers in the developing countries spend a much higher proportion of their income on food than consumers in developed countries. The proportion of expenditure allocated to the other three commodities, tobacco, alcohol, and soft drinks, are similar in the two groups of countries. On average, people around the world allocate about one quarter of their income on food, 2.6% on tobacco, 3.2% on alcohol and 1.2% on soft drinks. The income elasticity estimates reveal that food is a necessity in most countries, while tobacco and alcohol are necessities in most of the developed countries and luxuries in a majority of developing countries. Soft drinks are a luxury in a majority of the developing as well as the developed countries. The own-price elasticities show that demand for all four commodities is price inelastic in all countries.     

New general theory of economic development: Innovative growth and distribution

Economic development, which refers to the process of progressive transformation of an economy, is a multifaceted term without a universal definition. This article presents the constitutive elements of economic development: growth, distribution, and innovation. Economic development has been ubiquitous with the economic progress of “developing” countries, but the changing economic circumstances of “developed” countries, such as stagnant growth, regional economic disparity within developed countries, and deepening income gaps among citizens of developed countries, have made this term also relevant to address the economic problems of developed countries. The mechanisms of economic development, with respect to both developed and developing countries, are elusive, and the existing theories have not been able to explain these mechanisms of economic development adequately. This article reviews the existing theories and presents a new theoretical framework to explain the process of economic development.     

住房抵押保险的国际比较及其启示

住房抵押保险在发达国家已经发展得非常成熟，而对于我国来讲它仍是一个新兴的、有待发展的保险品种。本文对一些典型的发达国家和地区在住房抵押保险的体系、激励机制和风险控制策略方面进行了探讨和比较，并由此得到对我国住房抵押保险发展具有积极意义的经验和启示。     

南南合作?南北合作?--发展中国家在国际区域经济一体化中的选择

国际区域经济一体化是当今世界经济发展的新潮流,也是发展中国家面临的国际发展环境。参与国际区域经济一体化已经成为促进发展中国家经济发展的重要途径。发展中国家应选择哪些国家作为经济联盟伙伴,西方发展经济学界的激进主义反对南北合作而主张南南合作,近年来世界银行的经济学家的研究结果却表明,对于发展中国家来说,南北合作优于南南合作。多元化地选择联盟国家是发展中国家在国际区域经济一体化中的基本战略。     

OPTIMAL ADJUSTMENT OF THE COMPOSITION OF PUBLIC EXPENDITURE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

This paper analyses how the composition of public expenditure should be adjusted to maximize the economic growth rate in developing countries. We first apply a theoretical framework to empirical data from 50 countries. We then demonstrate how each country should adjust public expenditure for the purpose of maximizing growth. Results show that developing countries in Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe have generally misallocated public expenditures in favour of defence, at the expense of public services. Other region‐specific results suggest that Asian developing countries should increase expenditure on education, and that Middle Eastern countries should decrease expenditure on education in favour of health.     

How Digital Economy Affects High-Quality Economic Development: Based on International Comparison

This paper estimates the size of the digital economy in 38 countries between 2005 and 2018 and conducts an empirical study on this foundation. The results show that the digital economy has a significant role in promoting high quality economic development, primarily through industrial digitalizaion. Further research shows regional heterogeneity in the impact of the digital economy, which is greater in developed countries. Analysis of the underlying mechanisms shows that the digital economy promotes high-quality economic development in both developed and developing countries by improving technological efficiency and technological progress. However, the effect of technological progress in developing countries is clearly weaker than that in developed countries. In addition, scale efficiency in developing countries are not strengthened by the digital economy. Therefore, high-quality economic development requires the digital transformation of traditional industries and promoting their integration with digital technologies.     

US state health expenditure convergence: A revisited analysis

This paper studies the evolution of US state health expenditure for a sample that covers 1966–2014. Our results provide evidence against the existence of a single pattern of behavior of personal health care expenditure across the US states. Rather, we can observe the existence of two statistically different convergence clubs. We cannot find evidence of convergence when we disaggregate health expenditure into its three main payers: Medicare, Medicaid and private health insurance expenditure, whilst we again find evidence of convergence clubs. However, the estimated clubs for Medicaid and private health insurance expenditure are statistically different that estimated for total health expenditure. Consequently, our results offer strong evidence of heterogeneity in the evolution of US health expenditure. The analysis of the forces that drive club creation shows that economic situation and some supply-side factors are important. We can also appreciate that some healthcare outcome variables are only related to private insurance health expenditure. The other health expenditures, thus, show a certain lack of efficiency which may be due to practices that have little benefit for patient health.     

Cross-country evidence on the relationship between regulations and the development of the life insurance sector

Using a global sample, this study sketches the impact of insurance regulations on the life insurance sector, revealing a significant negative association between supervisory control on policy conditions of life annuities as well as pension products and the development of the industry. A similar inverse relation is observed between the index of capital requirements and insurance development. These results hold when we control for demographic factors, economic factors, religious inclination, culture, as well as for other relevant regulations. We also find some evidence that while the overall supervisory power does not matter, the ability to intervene at an early stage could have a positive effect on insurance development. Additionally, the impact of some regulations appears to differ between advanced and developing countries.     

发展中国家金融发展的制度分析

制度是经济增长的源泉之一,是金融发展的动力.当前,包括中国在内的众多发展中国家金融发展水平落后于发达国家的根源在于发展中国家的制度存在缺陷.本文分析了发展中国家金融发展中所存在的各种制度缺陷,指出发展中国家未来的金融改革方向是加强制度建设,提高制度质量.具体措施主要有:健全法治,保护产权,不断改革和完善政治及行政体制,大力发展教育,加强文化建设,不断积累社会资本等.     

外包与技术转移:基于发展中国家异质性模仿的分析

本文构建了一个模型来研究外包以及依附于外包活动中的技术转移,对发展中国家经济发展的多重影响效应.我们的研究表明,在发展中国家为低模仿类型时,外包活动中发达国家对发展中国家的技术转移,有利于发达国家与发展中国家双方的福利增进;在发展中国家为高模仿类型时,技术转移有利于发达国家,而不利于发展中国家可持续发展能力的培育.我们的研究支持这样一种观点:外包条件下发达国家对发展中国家的技术转移,并不必然会带来发展中国家的经济可持续增长,一个不可忽略的必要条件是,发展中国家自身制度条件制约了外包与技术转移对发展中国家可持续发展能力的作用.     

Relevance of corruption on the effect of public health expenditure and taxation on economic growth

We investigate whether corruption distorts the positive effect of public health expenditure and taxation on growth through panel data analysis of 75 developing countries for the period from 1995 to 2014. The findings indicate that, although both public health expenditure and taxation can increase economic growth, in countries with more corrupt governments this effect is reduced.     

The long term impact of economic development in developed countries on developing countries since 1820

The linkages between the economic development of developed and developing countries are analyzed historically. The analysis is divided into epochs, distinguished by global trade regimes and by common characteristics of long term economic growth. The break throughs in long distance transport technology which occured during the industrial revolution created a global economy in which the rythm of economic activity in developing economies became linked to that of developed economies. The major transmission mechanisms were international trade, international migration and international capital flows. Exports were the main engine of growth in developing countries. But the effects of export expansion varied across countries. The speed of transmission of the industrial revolution to developing countries depended on their institutional readiness; countries with most developed capitalist institutions in factor markets were the first to develop. The extent of diffusion of the benefits of growth from export expansion within developing countries also depended on the nature of their institutions, both economic and political. Finally, policies with respect to international trade, investment and agriculture were also critical to the speed and diffusion of economic development.The research underlying this paper is the result of a twentyfive year collaboration with Professor Cynthia Taft Morris. She is indebted to the World Bank for financing the research in this paper as part of the background studies for the World Development Report 1991. She is also indebted to Sherman Robinson for his comments.