我国房地产税制的现状及改革构想

房地产税制是维护房地产市场公平竞争，实现国家对房地产业宏观调控的有力杠杆。然而，我国现行的房地产税制却存在税费不分、税制不统一、税制结构不合理等诸多问题。严重影响了其对房地产业应有的宏观调控作用。因此，适时地推进房地产税制的改革应是当务之急，应统一内外税制，合理界定税费的范围，建立统一、规范、合理的房地产税收体系。     

西部地区人力资本投资与知识化发展

人力资本投资在推动知识化发展的过程中存在自增强机制，通过促进人力资本保值增值，进行人力资源合理配置，改善配置环境和配置政策、完善配套措施，有助于充分发挥这一机制的功能，从而实现西部地区知识化发展。     

上海生态农业发展影响因素研究

文章分析了上海生态农业发展的影响因素,并利用计量模型进行检验,认为影响上海生态农业发展的主要因素有农业基础设施、农业劳动力资源、农业产业化水平、农业科技实力状况。     

The Change in Productive Efficiency in Telecommunications in the United States

The question addressed here is whether the adoption of incentive regulation, which has become an important regulatory tool in the telecommunications industry in the USA, has resulted in a change in the technical efficiency of local exchange carriers in the USA. After providing an overview of the nature of incentive regulation, a methodology for measuring technical efficiency and its change is introduced. This is a multiple-output/multiple-input distance function approach to measuring technical efficiency. The results of implementing this approach for 19 local exchange carriers for the 1988-2001 period indicate that in the production of local service, intrastate toll/access service, and interstate access to local loops, there was no change in technical efficiency between the 1988-1990 period and the 1991- 2001 period, something that incentive regulation was specifically designed to promote.     

The Change in Productive Efficiency in Telecommunications in the United States

The question addressed here is whether the adoption of incentive regulation, which has become an important regulatory tool in the telecommunications industry in the USA, has resulted in a change in the technical efficiency of local exchange carriers in the USA. After providing an overview of the nature of incentive regulation, a methodology for measuring technical efficiency and its change is introduced. This is a multiple-output/multiple-input distance function approach to measuring technical efficiency. The results of implementing this approach for 19 local exchange carriers for the 1988–2001 period indicate that in the production of local service, intrastate toll/access service, and interstate access to local loops, there was no change in technical efficiency between the 1988–1990 period and the 1991–2001 period, something that incentive regulation was specifically designed to promote.     

Inequalities in Income Distribution in Slovenia

This article presents an empirical analysis of income distribution based on income tax data for Slovenia in 1991-2000. It presents evidence of rising inequalities in income distribution (gross income, gross wages and pensions). These results are supported by coefficients of variation, Gini coefficients and by the Lorenz curves. Inequalities increased rapidly in the 1991 to 1993 period. After a significant decrease in 1994 and a steady increase from 1995 to 2000, the peak value from 1993 was not surpassed. Atkinson's requirements for dominance comparisons are not violated. Inequalities are also present in the distribution of the benefits of economic growth among income groups.     

Age Discrimination in Employment in Canada

Issues pertaining to age discrimination in employment in Canada are analyzed with a view toward highlighting lessons that may be learned from the Canadian experience—an experience that is taking on increased policy importance. Reasons for the increased attention to age discrimination issues are outlined, followed by a portrayal of the age discrimination legislation and court interpretations in Canada, especially as they pertain to mandatory retirement. Enforcement aspects are discussed, as is the evidence on age discrimination in employment and the effectiveness of legislation with respect to age discrimination and mandatory retirement. The article concludes with a discussion of the lessons to be learned from the Canadian experience, especially with respect to the poorly understood but complicated relationship between age discrimination and mandatory retirement. Policy recommendations for strengthening age discrimination legislation are also outlined. (JEL J14 , J24 , J71 )     

Public participation in forestry in Turkey

Recently public participation in forestry has been seriously considered in Turkey. Participation is however quite a challenge for a country with a long tradition of top-down management and a strong bottom-up dependence on public provisioning. In such a setting, it may not be surprising that the experiences with public participation in forestry in Turkey are mixed. There are some positive initiatives like the creation of farmer's cooperatives and NGOs, but their role is quite limited and small of scale. This paper is bringing together different views based on existing studies in Turkish related to Turkey's experience with implementing public participation in forestry.     

Is wealth found in the soil or in the brain? Investing in farm people in Malawi

Should a typical developing country invest more in agriculture or education? At what stage of development is it optimal to invest more in each of these sectors? These are important questions that governments of developing countries grapple with when designing investment plans. In this paper, I propose a soil–human capital conceptual framework of development and use it to explain estimates of agricultural returns to schooling in Malawi. I use panel survey data for Malawi and rely on the exogenous education policy changes and spatial variation in access to schooling to identify effects of schooling on agricultural incomes. In addition, I correct for selection into income activities within a panel data and instrumental variables estimation framework. I find annual agricultural returns to schooling in Malawi of 3%–4% after correcting for selection and unobserved heterogeneity and 7% in the uncorrected specifications. I also find consistently higher returns to schooling in the nonagricultural sector for those not living in the village of birth and higher returns in the agricultural sector for those living in the village of birth. Given the size of the farm sector, wealth in Malawi is still in the soil, but that future growth in wealth depends on human capital investments.     

Monetary stabilization in countries in transition

The best way to prevent hyperinflation when domestic prices are liberalized is to initiate the transition from a planned economy to a market economy with a currency reform. In the following period, moderate inflation and flexible exchange rates are suitable to facilitate relative price adjustments. Only after the bulk of alignments has been accomplished can a switch in the exchange rate regime be convenient. The nominal peg of a stable reference currency lowers the level and the variance of domestic inflation rates. The credibility of an exchange rate target may best be achieved by combining a currency board (objective sustainability) with a crawling peg (political sustainability). Price stability can be realized in the long run by reducing the annual depreciation rate in regular, preannounced steps.     

新形势下政府解决中小企业融资问题新探

我国经济现在处于新的国际局势和经济环境之下,文章从中小企业融资的现状入手,发现中小企业自身和银行之间存在双方都难以跨越的障碍,这需要政府和社会从中推动和调解,并从社会和政府的角度提出建议和对策,加大对中小企业融资的政策支持力度,共同发展中小企业。     

Trends in co-authorship in economics since 1985

It has been often noted (McDowell and Melvin, 1983; Barnett et al., 1988; Piette and Ross, 1992; Sutter and Kocher, 2004) that the share of co-authored papers in economics has been increasing steadily. The purpose of this study is to investigate some of the theories as to why co-authorship has been increasing in the economics profession. Using data on the publication records of faculty at 129 US colleges and universities that offer doctoral degrees in Economics, Poisson and logit regression models are estimated to explain co-authorship. Results indicate that the likelihood of co-authorship is greater for papers that combine quantitative analysis with another field and for papers published in higher quality journals. Further, co-authorship appears to differ in the many subfields of economics, with the field of Economic History and History of Thought (Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) categories N and B) to be the least likely to co-author and the fields of Financial Economics (JEL category G) and Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics (JEL category Q) to be the most prone to co-authorship.     

Diversity in innovation and productivity in Europe

The diversity in innovation patterns across manufacturing and service industries and in their outcomes in terms of hourly labor productivity are investigated in this article considering six European countries. The Schumpeterian insights into the variety of innovation are developed in this work by identifying different innovation–performance relationships for industries and countries, relying either on the dominant role of product innovation, or on the diffusion of process improvements. Moreover, the “push” effect of innovation is combined with the “pull” effect of demand, by considering the impact of the dynamics of consumption and investment at the sectoral level. The results point out a “North-South” divide across EU countries, with the three countries of Northern Europe closely associated to the model of productivity growth based on product innovation, and the three Southern countries, mainly relying on the mechanisms by which process innovation is at the root of productivity improvements.     

Gender Differences in Time-Poverty in Rural Mozambique

Based on time-use data from a 2013 primary household survey, this study examines the nature and extent of time-poverty experienced by men and women in peasant households in Mozambique. The main findings indicate that while women's labor allocation to economic activities is comparable to that of men, household chores and care work are almost entirely women's responsibility. The heavy burden of responsibilities leave women significantly time-poorer compared to men. Women's time-poverty worsens when the burden of simultaneous care work is taken into account. In addition, due to multitasking, the work tends to be more taxing. The examination of determinants of time-poverty shows that common measures of individual economic power, such as assets and education, do not necessarily affect the time-poverty faced by women.     

Country Differences in Material Deprivation in Europe

This paper assesses to what extent differences in the characteristics of individuals (micro‐level perspective) and country‐specific factors (macro‐level perspective) can explain country differences with respect to material deprivation levels. Thus, our work aims to simultaneously consider the macro dimension and the predominantly individually‐oriented study field of material deprivation using multilevel techniques. We make use of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions. Our results show that country‐specific factors seem to be much more relevant than individual effects in explaining country differences in material deprivation. We estimate that the introduction of country‐specific factors reduces the proportion of total variance due to between‐country differences in deprivation by 72.7 percent, while individual‐level variables reduce this proportion by only 9.4 percent. We also show, through interaction variables, that the effect of sociodemographic characteristics can be shaped by institutional and structural factors, especially by the level of GDP.     

Agricultural Roots in Intergenerational Transfers in China

Economists have been interested in the motivations of intergenerational transfers, for different motivations affect the effectiveness of anti-poverty public transfers. However, one’s motivation is largely shaped by culture and social conventions. This paper sheds light on the influence of rice cultivation in intergenerational transfers in China. This is also the first time that economists consider cultural factors in the study of intergenerational transfers. Cultivating rice requires elaborate irrigation systems and large amounts of labor input so that rice farmers have to cooperate extensively with their neighbors, which has gradually shaped people’s value to be more inter-dependent. Based on micro-level data from CHARLS and sub-national rice data from China, our empirical results show strong evidence that individuals from rice regions are more likely to provide economic support for their parents. A one-percentage point increase in the share of rice in the total grain planting area will raise transfer incidence by 0.2–0.4 percentage points, and rice region residents transfer on average 300–400 yuan more in 2011 and about 1,000 yuan more in 2013 to their parents than those from wheat regions. Meanwhile they are more inclined to rely on their adult children for elderly support. Urban citizens are less affected. Using instrumental variable estimation, we are able to prove the effect is causal. With future continued deepening of population aging in China, relying on children for old age support may become more and more unrealistic, the government needs to coordinate the relationship between public transfer and private transfer to ensure the quality of life for the elderly.     

Trade-offs in sulfur emission trading in Europe

How to implement emission trading is one question in the current negotiations on a new sulfur protocol in Europe. Whereas the current protocol stipulates a 30 percent uniform reduction, national emission ceilings included in the proposed new protocol imply differentiated reductions. In addition, emission and fuel standards are proposed. This paper examines the costs and environmental impacts of emission trading. Emission trading combined with regulations is a new element in the paper. Calculations using the RAINS (Regional Acidification INformation and Simulation) model suggest that overlaying emission trading on regulations not only reduces the cost savings but has beneficial impacts as well: ecosystem protection is not changed and significant decreases in environmental benefits for countries are largely avoided. Emission trading can also be used to decrease emissions and increase ecosystem protection. If combined with existing legislation, emission trading minimizes losses in expected environmental benefits for some countries, and most countries gain. However, the initial distribution of emission ceilings has to be used so that some countries are not confronted with higher costs. Trade-offs appear to exist between the use of emission trading to achieve cost savings on the one hand, and ecosystem protection and distributional equity on the other.     

Recent trends in age-specific mortality in India

"In this paper we have analyzed the data from the Sample Registration System [SRS] on mortality by age and sex [in India] since 1970. Some of the major conclusions emerging from this analysis are: (i) Mortality has declined more rapidly among infants, children under 15 years and women of reproductive ages....(ii) Among adults, mortality has declined more rapidly among females than among males, the differential gain being largest in the age span 25-49. But in ages under 15, there is no evidence to suggest a gender differential in mortality decline. (iii) Among children and women of reproductive ages, mortality has declined more rapidly in urban areas than in rural areas but the reverse is true in the case of adult men.... The paper also analyzes the trends in mortality in major states of India during 1970-86." The authors observe a significant shift in patterns between 1978 and 1979, and conclude that this may be limited to changes in SRS data collection techniques.     

论社会分工、企业分工和企业网络分工——对分工的再认识

社会分工是人类在生产过程中形成的一种生产关系 ,它的产生和发展是由社会生产力的发展所决定的。服务业的产生可以称为第四次社会分工。社会分工形成的机制是市场 ,在当前条件下 ,政府也参与社会分工的调节。企业内部分工是社会分工的产物 ,产生于工场手工业阶段。在资本主义条件下 ,企业内部分工是资本所有者的一种生产安排。社会分工与企业内部分工存在替代关系 ,二者的替代取决于这两种分工的生产效率。企业网络分工是介于社会分工和企业分工之间的一种分工 ,适合于具有密切联系和相互依赖的企业。随着经济发展和科学技术的进步 ,社会分工、企业分工和企业网络分工将不断发展和深化     

对我国财政预算管理法治化建设的思考

预算管理作为财政工作的核心,目标是保证政府行为不偏离纳税人的公共利益。改革开放以来,我国预算管理法治化建设取得显著成就,但与发达国家相比还有很大差距。促进我国预算管理法治化进程,需要进一步完善预算法律体系,提高预算编制质量,适时引入中长期预算框架,强化预算执行中的约束机制,加强预算监督。