转移支付与地区经济收敛

转移支付是政府调节区域经济的重要政策手段 ,本文分析了 1 994年新财税体制改革以后转移支付与地区经济收敛的关系 ,发现转移支付总体上没有达到缩小地区差距的效果 ;对转移支付决定的因素分析 ,则解释了现行转移支付不能缩小地区差距的原因 ,最后提出了相关的政策建议。     

转移支付对黄河流域环境治理的效果分析

以省级政府为研究单元,以纵向和横向转移支付政策为主导的两类转移支付政策环境治理效果为主要指标,利用空间计量模型,对我国2007—2014年黄河流域沿线7个省份环境治理状况进行计量分析,评价不同转移支付政策对黄河流域环境治理的效果。结果表明:1转移支付政策将会显著影响省级政府对环境治理的效果,纵向转移支有助于增加黄河流域的财政投入;横向转移支付对环境规制强度有明显的提升作用。2黄河流域省份产业选择和财政支出行为将直接影响环境治理的效果。高污染行业比重过大与地方环境治理财政能力不足都会限制转移支付政策的实施效果。3省级政府环境治理程度与毗邻省市的环境治理程度呈负相关关系,这种竞争关系最终影响黄河流域环境治理效果。根据本文的研究,提出了三个针对性的政策建议:第一,将纵向转移支付和横向转移支付两种方式融合,配套环境指标考核机制,实现对黄河流域环境治理整体性推动;第二,通过产业升级,转变对高污染—高产出企业的经济依赖;第三,均衡各地方政府之间的利益关系,保障毗邻政府双方更好地参与并共同协作保护环境资源。     

中国政府间转移支付制度的建立、目标与绩效分析

一、我国转移支付制度建立的历史背景和目标选择 （一）我国转移支付制度建立的历史背景 财政转移支付（Transfer Payment）最早是由著名经济学家庇古在1928年出版的《财政学研究》提出的,随着国家干预的加强,转移支付在政府财政支出中所占比例日益扩大,作用不断加强。政府间转移支付是指一个国家的各级政府之间在既定的职责、支出责任和税收划分的框架下财政资金的相互转移。包括上级政府对下级政府的各项补助、向上级政府的上解、共享税的分配、发达地区对贫困地区的补助等。     

分税制改革、财政分权与中国经济增长

本文在Zhang和Zou（1998）与Lin和Liu（2000）的框架下实证检验了中国1986n2002年财政分权与经济增长的关系，发现我国的财政分权效应存在显著的跨时差异和地区差异。我们认为，分税制改革后各级政府之间政策协调能力的加强是促进财政分权积极作用的重要原因之一。同时，体制变革的因素、转移支付的设计和政府财政支出的构成也影响了财政分权与经济增长之间的关系。     

财政转移支付对地区经济增长的影响研究

现代国家普遍实施中央财政转移支付政策促进地区经济发展。文章运用1995—2013年动态空间面板数据模型实证检验了我国的财政转移支付对地区经济增长的影响。检验结果表明,我国财政转移支付对地区经济增长具有促进作用,但地区经济增长收敛微弱,并据此提出相应的政策建议。     

公共财政框架下我国的财政转移支付问题

文章从公共财政要求出发,以我国政府间财政转移支付制度为研究对象,采用理论和实证方法对我国财政转移支付制度进行了分析和研究,阐述了我国政府现阶段所实行的财政转移支付制度的现状和存在的主要问题,分析了我国现行转移支付制度存在问题的深层次原因,探讨了完善我国财政转移支付制度的有效对策措施。     

我国省对县(市)一般性转移支付的绩效评价——基于DEA二次相对效益模型的研究

一般性转移支付是我国转移支付制度的重要组成部分,它是中央财政为了平衡地区间财力差异、促进基本公共服务均等化为目的的重要制度安排。然而,中央财政以均等化为目标、以标准财政收支差为依据对省(市、自治区)拨付一般性转移支付资金,以及省对县(市)级政府拨付该项资金时,并没有规定具体用途,因此,县(市)级地方政府拥有对这部分资金完全的自主支配权。在多重目标,尤其是经济增长目标的压力下,一般性转移支付资金可能被挪用和挤占,上级政府实现公共服务均等化的政策意图难以达到预期的效果。本文的目的是:从制度层面论述一般性转移支付政策目标与效率评价的内在联系;探讨DEA二次相对效益模型对一般性转移支付绩效评价的适用性;从基本公共服务资金配置和提升效率两个方面,构建了省对县(市)一般性转移支付绩效评价体系;以云南省的县(市)为样本,对一般性转移支付绩效进行实证模拟评价;提出建立绩效评价是完善省对县(市)一般性转移支付制度的重要内容。     

改革与完善财政转移支付制度的建议

1·明确划分各级政府之间的事权、财权。从制度层面分析各级政府的职能,以公共产品的有效供给为准则,用法律形式合理界定中央政府和地方政府的事权范围,使之内涵清晰化、责任明确化,在此基础上兼顾公平与效率原则划分财权,为建立规范的财政转移支付制度创造条件。2·明确财政转移支付的目标。科学确定财政转移支付的政策目标是规范财政转移支付制度的根本依据。我国财政转移支付的目标应定位于确保全国各地都能提供最低标准的公共服务,重点用于经济欠发达地区和能源、交通、通讯、环境保护等基础产业以及教育科技、医疗保健、就业培训等公益…     

调整政府间财政关系的国际经验借鉴——以澳大利亚为例

本文阐述了澳大利亚各级政府之间的财政关系、事权与支出责任的划分,对澳大利亚的均等化转移支付制度进行了分析.通过结合中国现行转移支付制度存在的主要问题,并对澳大利亚的转移支付制度进行借鉴,为优化中国转移支付制度结构,实现转移支付制度财权与事权合理划分,规范政府间财政关系提供相关的政策建议.     

我国经济适用房制度问题分析

自我国经济适用房制度实施以来,各种问题时常出现,也不断遭到民众的质疑。本文对比了政府转移支付和经济适用房制度的内在关系．指出经济适用房制度类似于转移支付．会对接受者的生产动力产生影响,同时也会对接受者长期收益产生侵蚀,并在此基础上提出相关政策建议。     

Pleasure and belief in Hume's Decision Process

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce explicitly pleasure and belief in what aims at being a Humean theory of decision, like the one developed in Diaye and Lapidus (2005a). Although we support the idea that Hume was in some way a hedonist – evidently different from Bentham's or Jevons' way – we lay emphasis less on continuity than on the specific kind of hedonism encountered in Hume's writings (chiefly the Treatise, the second Enquiry, the Dissertation, or some of his Essays). Such hedonism clearly contrasts to its standard modern inheritance, expressed by the relation between preferences and utility.

The reason for such a difference with the usual approach lies in the mental process that Hume puts to the fore in order to explain the way pleasure determines desires and volition. Whereas pleasure is primarily, in Hume's words, an impression of sensation, it takes place in the birth of passions as reflecting an idea of pleasure, whose “force and vivacity” is precisely a “belief”, transferred to the direct passions of desire or volition that come immediately before action. As a result, from a Humean point of view, “belief” deals with decision under risk or uncertainty, as well as with intertemporal decision and indiscrimination problems.

The latter are explored within a formal framework, and it is shown that the relation of pleasure is transformed by belief into a non-empty class of relations of desire, among which at least one is a preorder.     

Globalization,Neoliberalism and the attack on social security

Neoliberal political movements advocate privatization of public pension systems. Globalization imposes pressure on nations to conform to neoliberal policy views with respect to the design and structure of social insurance, including public pension systems. The paper begins with an investigation of the economic, ethical and ideological dimensions of the privatization debates in the U.S.; it argues that privatization advocates may be largely moved by ideology, since the other reasons advanced appear weak or unfounded. The second part discusses the history of Social Security, the purposes for its creation, and some of its economic effects. Differences between public and private pension systems are considered. A brief international comparison of some aspects of public pension system finance and benefit structures is presented. The final section considers the ethical, macroeconomic and distributional implications of privatization, prefunding and payroll tax funding, and argues for a pay as you go system financed with income taxes. In order to promote equity, economic security, community, and social cohesion, public pension systems should be universal in coverage. In order to reduce the inequality, income insecurity, and aged poverty generated by market economies, public pension systems ought to be progressive: benefit/contribution ratios should be inversely proportional to income, and progressive income taxes should finance the system. To promote economic growth, the systems should be financed on a pay-as-you-go basis, and should not be prefunded except for an emergency reserve. The fiscal policy recommendations partially depend upon the theory developed by Abba Lerner in the 1940s, and recently advanced by Wynne Godley and Randy Wray: Lerner's “principle of functional finance.”     

John Stuart Mill's Theories of Wealth and Income Distribution

Although he was much influenced by David Ricardo when he wrote the classical part of his Principles , John Stuart Mill was not a Ricardian when he penned his theories of wealth and distribution. They are based on a triple foundation. First, a belief that economics is a moral discipline. Second a theory of custom-driven human behavior. Third, an empirically formed conviction that the institutions of state, education and business cooperate to structure the distribution of income. On the basis of these presuppositions, Mill formulated 1) an institutional theory of the formation of human and non-human wealth and 2) an even more institutional theory of distribution demonstrating how the aforementioned institutions malignantly skew the distribution of income to the advantage of the propertied classes and to the extreme disadvantage of the working class. As a social economist, Mill recommended institutional reforms designed to eradicate the poverty of the working class.     

Forecasting the price of gold

This article seeks to evaluate the appropriateness of a variety of existing forecasting techniques (17 methods) at providing accurate and statistically significant forecasts for gold price. We report the results from the nine most competitive techniques. Special consideration is given to the ability of these techniques to provide forecasts which outperforms the random walk (RW) as we noticed that certain multivariate models (which included prices of silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium, besides gold) were also unable to outperform the RW in this case. Interestingly, the results show that none of the forecasting techniques are able to outperform the RW at horizons of 1 and 9 steps ahead, and on average, the exponential smoothing model is seen providing the best forecasts in terms of the lowest root mean squared error over the 24-month forecasting horizons. Moreover, we find that the univariate models used in this article are able to outperform the Bayesian autoregression and Bayesian vector autoregressive models, with exponential smoothing reporting statistically significant results in comparison with the former models, and classical autoregressive and the vector autoregressive models in most cases.     

Interest on reserves and inflation

The payment of interest on reserves has been a common practice in inflationary economies. This policy may seem paradoxical since it involves returning part of the seigniorage, generated by the inflation process, with the intention to finance the fiscal deficit. This paper argues that the motivation for this policy can be captured by the discretionary regime, where the policymaker pays interest on reserves because he is concerned with the erosion of real liquidity by inflation, which is in part beyond his control. However, this policy is an unlikely outcome in the commitment regime, where the policymaker is in full control of inflation.     

Planned adaptation in risk regulation: An initial survey of US environmental, health, and safety regulation

In principle, we want regulatory programs to be based on current realities, as reflected for example in the best knowledge of relevant experts. That would imply that old rules now on the books should be consistent with today's knowledge base, not just what was known when a rule or standard was originally set. This paper reports on a survey of US programs, examining how often existing rules are actually updated in light of better knowledge, and identifies five programs that attempt to make policy routinely adaptive. These programs exhibit what we term Planned Adaptation: they both revise rules when relevant new knowledge appears, and take steps to produce such improved knowledge. While Planned Adaptation is rare, it is used in several nationally prominent programs, including air pollution, airplane safety, and drug safety. Planned Adaptation is a policy tool that deserves more attention.     

Information infrastructure: Who builds broadband networks?

This paper examines the essential difference between the U.S. and Japan, when one considers information infrastructure. There are seven perception gaps between the U.S. and Japan concerning Information Infrastructure policies. These gaps must be understood in order to compare the countries' governmental policies in this area. In looking at the present circumstances, the essential question to answer concerns who is to build, own and operate the network(s) of the infrastructure. Liberalization is certain to be a central factor in the ongoing telecommunications debates. Now that customers have had a taste of the liberalized market-place, the movement toward more open markets will be difficult to stop. When considering options, it is necessary to pay close attention to standardized network access and the increasingly important role software plays. These issues are causing us to take a new approach to the traditional role played by regulators. They also force a closer look at the appropriate structure of utility companies. This paper addresses the above issues in hopes of stimulating dialog on the new telecommunications infrastructure paradigm.     

海岛地区产业演替及资源基础分析--以舟山群岛为例

改革开放以来,舟山市产业构成发生了显著变化,其经济发展过程可以划分为三个阶段。1992年前,是以产业结构渔业占绝对地位的单一结构阶段;1993—1998年,以旅游业为主的第三产业快速发展阶段;上世纪末以来,又进入了新一轮的经济发展时期,即工业产值比重快速增加阶段。根据海岛的自然资源基础和特点,在新世纪的经济发展过程中,舟山市应定位为生态型的港口旅游城市。以港口及临港工业为主导,以海岛旅游和海洋经济为特色,大力发展第二产业和第三产业。海岛地区的主导产业应体现海岛资源优势及区位优势,以集群性环保型产业为主。同时由于海岛地区淡水资源缺乏,主导产业也应着重选择低耗水型产业。     

风险视角下企业治理结构和研发创新——基于委托代理模型的研究

本文基于委托代理模型,从风险的视角研究企业治理结构对研发创新能力的影响。本文构建了一个包含创新活动的委托代理模型进行理论分析,利用动态DEA 模型测算创新能力,并使用2015-2018年我国上市制造业企业数据进行实证检验。实证部分检验了理论结论:委托代理问题不利于企业提升研发创新能力,且客观风险和主观风险厌恶会加剧该负面影响。基于此,本文认为上市企业应根据企业自身研发活动特点有针对性地改善企业治理结构,提出了适当延长代理人任期、推动股权激励计划、提升代理人的风险承担能力等建议。