中国"超额货币"成因的进一步检验

中国的超额货币一直是理论界颇有争议的话题,因而关于超额货币成因的理论假说有很多种。基于对以往的理论假说进行总结与质疑的基础上,利用货币需求的收入弹性与价格弹性对交易方程式进行调整,并利用中国1991-2003年的数据对调整后的模型进行检验,结果发现:货币需求的收入弹性与价格弹性的变化是导致中国超额货币存在的主要原因。     

中国劳动力市场名义工资粘性程度的估算

本文完成了对中国劳动力市场名义工资粘性程度的首次估算,发现中国的名义工资粘性处于世界较低水平。这具有重要的宏观政策含义:一方面表明中国的劳动力市场具有很强的"自我调节"经济波动的特性,另一方面说明中央银行扩张性的货币政策将更多地带来物价水平上涨,而不是产出增加。在此基础上,本文还区分了劳动者的收入、工龄、户口、企业类型、行业等特征,对不同人群的工资粘性进行了细致测算。进一步,本文创新地区分并估算了名义工资的向上粘性与向下粘性,发现自2002年以来,中国劳动力市场的向下粘性不断增大,而向上粘性的变化趋势并不明显。     

Is there the threshold effect of cigarette price on smoking prevalence? A cross-country panel data analysis

This article shows new cross-country evidences by empirically investigating the joint effects of cigarette price levels and joining the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) on smoking prevalence in 74 countries over the period of 2000, 2003, 2005 and 2006. We assessed cigarette price elasticity for three national income levels using different databases on cigarette price from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), demographic and socioeconomic country characteristics from the World Bank and adjusted smoking prevalence rates published by various yearly WHO reports on the global tobacco epidemic from 2000 to 2010. A panel threshold regression was used to capture the nonlinear effects that cigarette prices on smoking prevalence at the three national income levels endogenously determined by estimation. Our findings supported the evidence that joining the WHO FCTC would have a positive effect on reducing cross-country smoking prevalence, especially among countries with low- and medium-income levels. Moreover, some simulated results show that a price hike of 10% would reduce smoking prevalence in countries with national income levels equal to or less than US$1900 and by 7.2% in countries with national income levels between US$1900 and US$2510 more than those with national income levels that are higher than US$2510.     

中国大中城市房地产需求弹性地区差异的实证分析

房地产需求价格弹性和收入弹性是反映房地产市场需求特征的两个主要指标.国外在这方面的研究比较充分,而我国学术界对房地产需求弹性的测算和解释仍缺乏系统研究.本文通过对我国35个大中城市房地产需求弹性的实证研究,结果发现我国房地产需求弹性的特征是:(1)房地产需求价格弹性总体上缺乏弹性,而收入弹性是富有弹性.(2)房地产需求弹性具有显著的地区差异性.因此,我国的房地产业政策,必须根据房地产市场的地区差异性而进行调整,在增加房地产有效供给而满足人们房地产消费需求的同时,打击房地产投机需求,适当抑制房地产投资需求.     

What determines public education expenditures in Russia?1

Recent studies suggest that the allocation of expenditures in education is important for growth. The state of public education spending in many transition economies highlights the need for an assessment of the nature of education expenditures in these countries. This paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature by estimating the determinants of education expenditures in the Russian Federation. Results from panel data analysis show that revenue and the student‐population ratio have a positive impact on education expenditures while the effect of population density is negative. Three regional variables also show significant impact. The income and price elasticity of public education expenditures are estimated to be 0.57 and ?0.18, respectively, a result comparable to studies from other countries. The results presented here provide insight into how fiscal institutions and the structure of the political process in Russia may affect the degree of resource allocation in the educational sector during the transition process.     

中国汽车需求预测:基于Gompertz模型的分析

人均收入水平是影响汽车拥有率的决定性因素.本文在前人研究的基础上,运用Gomp-ertz模型研究汽车拥有率和人均收入之间的非线性关系.本文选取的研究对象既包括当今的发达国家,又包括众多发展中国家,尤其是亚洲的欠发达国家.通过对各国的时间序列数据和多国的横截面数据做回归,并对汽车拥有率及其收入弹性做国际比较,研究发现Gompertz方程能够很好地解释各国汽车拥有率发展共有趋势:在一国经济发展过程中,汽车拥有率先加速增长,在经历了一个拐点后,减速增长,最后无限趋近于共有的餍足点,本文设为0.62;而收入弹性呈先上升,在达到最大值后下降的状态.本文重点分析了近年来中国的汽车拥有率问题,并预测出中国的汽车拥有率拐点在人均GDP YIP=12 000,汽车拥有率VIp=0.2281上,假定中国人均GDP的增长速度在3%-7%的范围内,这个拐点将发生在2015-2042年之间,那时的汽车总量将大于259 996 496辆.此外,收入分配不均对中国的汽车拥有率有着重要的影响.     

美国金融危机对我国进出口贸易冲击的实证研究

中美两国互补型的直接贸易关系紧密,美国金融危机导致美国国内收入水平的下降、美元贬值以及物价水平波动易通过直接贸易溢出对中国进出口贸易状况形成冲击。研究发现,危机通过收入效应对我国贸易状况产生的溢出较弱,而通过价格效应对我国贸易状况产生了明显溢出,并且对我国的出口贸易冲击较大。出口贸易对美国价格水平变化冲击的响应强度、持续时间和衰减方式都发生了显著变化。     

A Calibrated Trade Model of Agglomeration

This paper explores just how good the idea of international agglomeration of industry can be at explaining observed economic differences between countries. An international trade model with industrial agglomeration is outlined and calibrated to real data from the world's 10 largest countries by population, in order to assess how well it can explain the gap between rich and poor countries, observed trade volumes, price differences, and other types of data. The model is revealing in showing that, given the existing location of labor, an asymmetric exogenous distribution of firms is enough to generate income disparity and other stylized facts.     

Estimating fundamental and affordable housing price trends: a study based on Singapore

Policy-makers often impose some cooling measures on the housing market when housing prices rise fast. Such policies yield limited success if housing prices are driven up by fundamentals. Estimating a fundamental price trend from observed price data is a challenge. We present an empirical methodology to separate housing price trends into fundamental and affordable components. Deviating from the common practice, we replace current income by a long-run income measure constructed from household incomes at different quantiles. This income measure provides a more suitable basis for constructing affordable house price levels. It also serves as a better fundamental variable, especially for segmented housing markets like that of Singapore. These price trends provide policy-makers with useful information to intervene into property markets to achieve desirable outcomes. Analysing Singapore data using this methodology shows the magnitudes of the price gaps between actual and fundamental prices and how housing affordability fluctuates over price cycles.     

Housing price and entrepreneurship in China

Housing price has increased dramatically in China during the past decade. The appreciation of house value could relax credit constraint and thus encourage entrepreneurship. However, a house serves as both an important investment channel and a prerequisite for marriage in China. The continuous high return of investment in housing and intensified marriage market competition make house purchase a priority for young people and their parents, which would crowd out entrepreneurial activities. Using two large datasets, we find that high housing price in general discourages entrepreneurial activities for urban adults. For house owners, while house value appreciation has a positive wealth effect, the ratio of mortgage over income has a negative effect. For non-owners, a higher ratio of housing price over income corresponds to a lower probability of entrepreneurship. This study highlights the negative consequences of surging housing price on entrepreneurship in developing countries.     

Estimating the elasticities of gasoline demand: an instrumental variable approach

This article uses a new identification strategy to estimate the demand for gasoline. I show that the monthly gasoline price is endogenous to gasoline demand at the state level, and that gasoline tax and domestic oil first purchasing price together are strong and valid instruments to correct for the endogeneity bias. In addition to estimating the price elasticity, this article also provides an estimate of the income elasticity. These updated estimates are critical factors in evaluating the environmental effect of gasoline tax and forecasting gasoline consumption.     

Income and price elasticities of electricity demand in Australia: Evidence of state‐specific heterogeneity

This paper estimates country‐wide and state‐level income and price elasticities of electricity demand in Australia for the period 1999Q1–2013Q2 using the National Electricity Market data and the autoregressive‐distributed lag model. The results suggest that the long‐run income and price elasticities are inelastic and are statistically significant with theoretically consistent signs. The country‐wide income and price elasticities are estimated to be 0.41 and ?0.38, respectively. It is also found that there exists state‐specific heterogeneity in both speed and magnitude of the electricity consumption adjustment in response to changes in income and electricity price. These results have important policy implications, including the need to use state‐specific elasticities in the scenario analysis of the energy pricing policy.     

Income Shocks,Inequality, and Democracy*

In this paper, motivated by contradictory evidence on the effect of income on democracy, we investigate the hypothesis that it is income shocks – major income fluctuations relative to the trend – rather than marginal year‐on‐year variation in income levels that lead to non‐trivial changes in the quality of political institutions. Empirical results provide support for this hypothesis, and show how income inequality plays a crucial role in the effects of economic shocks on democracy. In particular, negative income shocks reveal a positive effect on democracy in countries with high inequality, and vice versa.     

国际垂直专业化对发展中国家的影响与启示

二战以后,在国际垂直专业化迅速发展的过程中,发展中国家越来越多地被卷入全球化生产的链条。作者应用相关理论模型,分析了国际垂直专业化对发展中国家国际分工、收入分配以及技术进步等方面的影响,并在此基础上就包括中国在内的发展中国家如何应对国际垂直专业化的发展趋势提出政策建议。     

中国进出口价格弹性研究

本文通过建立中国进出口弹性模型和行业计量经济模型,测算和研究了中国进出口弹性问题.主要研究结论是:第一,中国中长期出口价格弹性和进口价格弹性分别为-0.8579和-1.0774;第二,中国大部分行业的出口价格弹性小于1,特别是农业、石油及天然气开采业、纺织业、化学工业、仪器仪表及文化办公用机械制造业以及社会服务业价格弹性绝对值都在0.5左右.适当提高价格对增加这些部门的收入是有利的;第三,中国大部分行业进口需求价格弹性小于或接近于1;石油及天然气开采业的进口价格需求弹性为异常值,为 1.3148,说明:对于原油这样的战略性物资应该反市场操作,中东出现安全时价低时吃进以为战略储备,而出现危机时抛出以平抑国内原油市场价格的加速上扬.     

关于城乡收入差距产生原因及经济影响的思考

我国城乡居民收入差距非常明显并且有不断扩大的趋势,这主要是由于农民从事农业劳动收入低以及农民工工资水平低造成的.城乡居民收入差距的现实从多方面影响我国经济的持续、健康发展,必须彻底解决这一问题.根本出路在于农地产权制度创新,建立现代农业,这离不开政府的大力支持.     

城镇化、区域发展不均衡与房地产价格*

现阶段,城镇化和由于区域发展不均衡所引起的人口流动对我国房价影响显著,但现有文献对该问题较少涉及,本文针对该问题进行了研究。本文首先分别从房地产市场的需求和供给出发建立模型,推导出均衡房价的决定方程,从理论上推演了各省份农村居民和外省份人口需求对本省份城镇房价的影响。在此基础上,本文对我国各省份城镇化和区域间人口流动对房价的影响进行了实证检验。研究发现：我国居民收入的提高、快速发展的城镇化进程和由于收入、福利以及基础设施在区域间分布的不均衡而引起的人口跨区域流动都在很大程度上推高了我国房价;后两者是我国房价收入比与发达国家相比偏高于发达国家的重要原因;城镇化和跨区域人口流动是我国东部地区房价上涨和房价收入比扩大的主要动力,但跨区域人口流动在中部地区,以及城镇化在西部地区对二者的影响均不显著。     

Welfare effects of energy subsidy reform in developing countries

We analyze the potential welfare effect of energy subsidy reforms. The income distributions of eleven developing countries from different geographical regions are simulated using the assumption that income is lognormally distributed. We use the concept of the compensating variation to measure how much compensation is required to compensate consumers for a price increase in formerly subsidized goods. The behavior of consumers is modeled by a standard Cobb–Douglas and a quasilinear utility function. In the Cobb–Douglas case, a fixed fraction of income is spent on the subsidized good, which does not change after a price increase. With quasilinear preferences, the optimal amount of the subsidized good does not vary with income, but does change as prices change. We show theoretically and empirically that the required compensating variation can be set below the saved expenditures on subsidies, so a budget neutral reform can have a positive effect on social welfare.     

Natural Resources and Missing Inputs in International Productivity Comparisons*

Standard theory for cross-country productivity comparisons assumes all countries use the same factor inputs in production. This assumption is violated when including natural resources, such as oil, gas and gold, because countries do not extract the full set of resources. In this paper we propose a solution by viewing it as a “missing goods” problem and assigning missing inputs a reservation price equal to the world resource price. We show that this has a substantial impact on relative productivity levels for countries heavily reliant on natural resources for generating their income. Under our new productivity measure, resource-rich countries are no longer uncommonly productive.     

Manufacturing consumption,relative prices,and productivity

I study the patterns of manufacturing consumption expenditures across a broad set of countries that differ in their level of development using disaggregated expenditure and price data. The relative price of manufacturing tends to decline with income and the real share rises with income, particularly for countries in the top half of the income distribution. I find that the nominal expenditure share of manufacturing displays a hump-shape pattern with respect to the level of income per capita. I document that the income elasticities of the relative price of individual manufacturing categories lie in a wide range. However, since most categories have a negative elasticity, the average elasticity for manufacturing is negative. In addition, most aggregations of individual categories, regardless of the criteria used, yield manufacturing sub-sectors that feature a negative income elasticity of its relative price and the variation across income in nominal expenditure shares tends to mask a larger variation across income in real shares. Using a standard development accounting framework, I report large differences in productivity across countries for manufacturing categories. I also find some differences in productivity across countries for manufacturing sub-sectors, but these differences are smaller than the differences between manufacturing and services and considerably smaller than the differences across individual manufacturing categories.