Predatory Short Sales and Bailouts

This paper extends the literature on predatory short selling and bailouts through a joint analysis of the two. We consider a model with informed short sales, as well as uninformed predatory short sales, which can trigger the inefficient liquidation of a firm. We obtain several novel results: A government commitment to bail out insolvent firms with positive probability can increase welfare because it selectively deters predatory short selling without hampering desirable informed short sales. Contrasting a common view, bailouts can be optimal ex ante but undesirable ex post. Furthermore, bailouts in our model are a better policy tool than short selling restrictions. Welfare gains from the bailout policy are unevenly distributed: shareholders gain while taxpayers lose. Bailout taxes allow ex ante Pareto improvements.     

International bailouts, moral hazard and conditionality

The large international bailouts of the 1990s have been criticized for generating moral hazard at the expense of the global taxpayer. We argue that this criticism is misleading because international bailouts create no, or very few, costs to the international community. Instead, the problem is to ensure that bailouts are not used to facilitate bad domestic policies, thus creating moral hazard at the expense of domestic taxpayers. This may require a shift towards ex ante conditionality, in the sense that the availability and size of official crisis lending need to be conditional on government policies before the crisis.     

The Effects of Bailouts and Soft Budget Constraints on the Environment

This paper investigates the effects of financial relief programs, commonly referred to as ‘bailouts’, on pollution. A partial equilibrium soft budget constraint model of the firm is developed to identify the effect of bailouts on the emission decisions of firms. The results from the model indicate that the expectation of bailouts increases ex ante emissions. A more stringent emissions tax is required to achieve the same level of emissions if bailouts are available than if bailouts are not available; however, a tradable permit system will maintain the same emissions level if bailouts are available as when bailouts are not available.     

How transition paths differ: Enterprise performance in Russia and China

We use enterprise survey data to analyse and contrast the determinants of enterprise performance in China and Russia. We find that in China, enterprise growth and efficiency is associated with rapid increases in factor inputs, and with ownership to a lesser extent, but not greatly correlated with industry-specific or institutional factors. However, in Russia, enterprise growth is not associated with improvements in factor quantity (except for labor) or quality. The main determinants of company performance are instead demand and institutional factors at a regional level. The findings are robust across a variety of specifications.     

Are sports teams multiproduct firms?

The appropriate conception of team outputs is investigated by estimating a two-output factor demand system for baseball teams, relative to which single-output models are rejected. This finding is robust to alternative approaches to testing and model choice. The factor demands are those of the symmetric generalized McFadden cost function, which has several advantages in this context. The team factor inputs are the skill characteristics of players, the prices of which are obtained hedonically. In addition to investigating one- versus two-output models, the estimation results are used to obtain demand and substitution elasticities, factor input elasticities with respect to output, cost elasticities, and measures of economies of scale and scope. Although the results support a multiproduct conception of team production, output separability is not rejected, suggesting that team outputs may sometimes be adequately treated as a production aggregate.     

论家族企业的生命周期与发展战略的选择

企业发展战略是影响我国家族企业持续发展的重要因素。在生命周期的不同阶段,家族企业要选择与之相适应的发展战略。在初创期,家族企业可选择的战略主要有依附战略、夹缝生存战略、资源战略、区域市场战略、高技术高起点战略。在成长期家族企业可选择成长型战略和竞争性战略以壮大发展规模。在成熟期家族企业可选择多元化战略和购并战略以获得持续发展。而在衰退期,家族企业可通过选择稳定型战略、重组战略或退出战略以延长其发展的生命周期。     

Beliefs, Bailouts and Spread of Bank Panics

This article highlights the spread of bank panics across countries, as the public reassesses governments' propensity to bailouts. Policymakers decide whether to save collapsing banking systems by weighing social costs of crises against the costs associated with raising taxes to finance rescue packages. Policymakers know those social costs of bank liquidation whereas the public does not. In this setup, financial crises may result from the public's self‐fulfilling prophecies about equilibrium outcomes, as lenders' expectations impinge on the taxation cost of bailouts. It follows that a banking crisis in a country leads creditors to reexamine policymakers' willingness to bailouts in other countries, which eventually makes their banks more vulnerable to self‐confirming depositors' runs.     

Transfer Pricing and Strategic Taxation of Globally Joint Inputs

This paper models strategic taxation policy of home and host governments when a multinational enterprise sets transfer prices on globally joint inputs such as research and development. Tax credit and deduction allowances, as well as no taxation of foreign-earned profits, result in identical optimal transfer-price solutions and national income effects in both countries. An equilibrium home-tax solution is to tax foreign-earned profits at a higher rate than domestically earned profits. The multiantional responds by shifting profits abroad through transfer-pricing mechanisms.     

Market Structure and Interfirm Integration in the Petroleum Industry

Since March 2008 we have witnessed a flurry of government "bailouts," directed to assist financial institutions. What has made these more or less acceptable to the public is the hope that they are temporary, implemented in a state of emergency, and that they offer market solutions and won't structurally change capitalist relations. However, no temporary stimulus and bailouts can address the systemic instability in financial capitalism identified by Post Keynesians and Institutionalists.     

Long-run supply responses under self-management

The determination of optimal production is analyzed in a competitive self-managed firm when all inputs are treated as variable. It is shown that the relationship between output and product price depends on a parameter of production technology that relates returns to scale to optimal factor proportions. On this basis, the enterprise planning problem can be reformulated to provide simple analytic results that can be illustrated diagrammatically and could be tested empirically. The approach highlights the sensitivity of results to technical assumptions.     

金融危机下高技术产业自主研发投入与对策

自主研发投入是高技术产业生存和发展的基础,本文经过对我国高技术产业发展的特点的分析,认为美国次贷危机对中国高技术产业自主研发（R＆D）投入的影响主要来源于内外两个方面,对内影响企业盈利能力的主要因素是产品出口需求下降,而外部融资环境中对企业R＆D投入的影响主要是科研活动经费外部资金来源的变化,全球剧烈动荡的经济和金融环境也使高技术产业面临更大的风险,对高新技术产业R＆D投入产生不利的影响。本文实证研究采用与高技术行业科研外部资金来源、企业规模、经营管理水平相关的7个涉及以上两个路径的指标,根据高新技术产业17个细分行业最新的13年数据,运用面板数据计量模型对高新技术产业的自主R＆D投入进行分析。结果表明,宏观经济变化和外部资金来源对R＆D投入有明显的影响,面对经济危机,政府对高技术产业R＆D的扶持决不仅仅是提供资金,更需要建立一个全面协调的扶持高技术产业的完整政策体系,提高企业的核心竞争力。     

Substitution between energy,capital and labour within industrial companies: A micro panel data analysis

Based on micro panel data for industrial companies, we estimate factor demand models with electricity, other energy, labour and machine capital as flexible inputs using both the translog and the linear logit specification. As opposed to the few previous micro (cross-section) data studies we find that both electricity and other energy are complements with capital. Substitution between electricity and other energy is limited. The own-price elasticity for electricity is −0.21 in the translog model and −0.19 in the linear logit model. The corresponding own-price elasticities are −0.45 and −0.23 for other energy, −0.08 and −0.05 for labour and −0.45 and −0.34 for capital.     

International Provision of Trade Services, Trade, and Fragmentation

This paper examines the special role that trade liberalization in service industries can play in stimulating not only trade in services but also in goods. International trade in goods requires inputs from several services industries (trade services, such as transportation, insurance, and finance) in order to complete and facilitate international transactions. Restriction on the ability of national service providers to provide these services across borders and within foreign countries creates additional costs and barriers to international trade above those that would arise in otherwise comparable intranational exchange. As a result, trade liberalization in services can yield benefits, by facilitating trade in goods, that are larger than one might expect from analysis of the services trade alone. This paper explores this idea using simple theoretical models to specify the relationships between services trade and goods trade. The paper also notes the role of services trade in a model of international industrial fragmentation, where production processes can be separated across locations but at some cost in terms of additional service inputs. The incentives for such fragmentation can be larger across countries than within countries, owing to the greater differences in factor prices and technologies available. However, the service costs of international fragmentation can also be larger, especially if regulations and restrictions impede the international provision of services. As a result, trade liberalization in services can also stimulate fragmentation of production of both goods and services, thus increasing international trade and the gains from trade even further.     

Seasonal adjustment,demography, and GDP growth

Seasonal adjustment removes the predictable seasonal variation in GDP. If there is seasonal variation in factor inputs, then seasonal adjustment factors may be correlated with those inputs. This correlation can obscure statistically the importance of those inputs for GDP. This effect is apparent for the demographic composition of the labour force for Canada. Seasonal adjustment also changes the time‐series properties of GDP. Accounting for the seasonal pattern and trend change in demography suggests that the period of reduced volatility in GDP growth for Canada, the ‘Great Moderation,’ can be traced to the changing demographic structure of the labour force.     

G VC嵌入、无形资产要素与装备制造企业价值创造效率

将GVC因素引入企业价值创造体系中,基于效率视角揭示无形资产对企业价值创造的影响机理,以及GVC对该影响的调节机理,构建机理框架模型并提出研究假设。基于效率视角,选择无形资产对企业价值创造影响的评价方法并构建相应测度模型。基于中国装备制造企业数据进行实证研究,测度各无形资产要素对企业价值创造的影响方向和影响强度,以及GVC对无形资产影响的调节作用。最后,提出GVC下提升中国企业价值创造效率的策略建议。结果发现：品牌资产、知识产权、技术创新、产品功能和人力资源质量对企业价值创造均具有正向影响,而人力资源数量和有形资产则具有负向影响;GVC因素对企业价值创造具有正向影响,但影响强度不大;GVC对无形资本对企业价值创造效率的影响具有正向调节作用;通过嵌入GVC、重视企业品牌建设、加强企业技术创新和知识产权积累、提升企业人力资源质量等策略,可以有效提升企业价值创造效率。     

Assist or desist? Conditional bailouts and fiscal discipline in local governments

Central government bailouts of local governments are commonly viewed as a recipe for local fiscal indiscipline, as local governments learn that the center will come to the rescue in times of trouble. However, little is known about the consequences of bailouts granted conditional on local governments first making efforts to improve the situation. We examine a case in which the Swedish central government provided conditional grants to 36 financially troubled municipalities. We use the synthetic control method to identify suitable comparison units for each of the 36 municipalities. To compare the development of costs and the fiscal surplus of admitted municipalities to that of their most similar counterparts during the decade after the program, we then estimate fixed effects regressions on the resulting sample. The analysis suggests that conditional bailouts did not erode, and may even have improved, fiscal discipline.     

Notes on Growth Accounting

Growth accounting breaks down economic growth into components associated with changes in factor inputs and the Solow residual, which reflects technological progress and other elements. After a presentation of the standard model, the analysis considers dual approaches to growth accounting (which considers changes in factor prices rather than quantities), spillover effects and increasing returns, taxes, and multiple types of factor inputs. Later sections place the growth-accounting exercise within the context of two recent strands of endogenous growth theory—varieties-of-products models and quality-ladders models. Within these settings, the Solow residual can be interpreted in terms of measures of the endogenously changing level of technology.     

Nationalizations,bailouts and efficiency

ABSTRACT

We develop a theoretical model in which there are public and private firms and a government. When firms become insolvent, the government can intervene with bailouts or nationalizations. The government only intervenes when the bankruptcy of a firm entails social costs. In this setting, we analyze how government interventions affect allocative and productive efficiency. Nationalizations of private firms after unprofitable investments lead to increased allocative efficiency despite private ownership. The effort level chosen by the managers and employees working for a firm is also affected by the possibility of government interventions, reducing the productive efficiency advantage of private firms.     

能源企业技术创新能力对财务绩效的影响——基于企业规模的门槛效应研究

能源消费和供给的重要性使得政府给予能源企业技术创新更多关注和支持，能源企业经营存在较大风险使得能源企业技术创新能力对财务绩效的影响呈现一定特殊性。以我国能源企业2013-2018年技术创新投入与产出能力指标为样本数据，采用因子分析法和动态面板门槛效应模型，在评价能源企业技术创新能力的基础上，分别研究能源企业技术创新投入和产出能力对财务绩效的影响及企业规模门槛效应。研究结果表明，能源企业的技术创新投入和综合能力对财务绩效的影响存在显著的门槛效应，而产出能力的表现并不显著。研究结果可为国家和能源企业的技术政策制定和创新投入决策提供参考。     

Input substitution,aggregation, and engineering descriptions of production activities

This paper presents experimental evidence on the effects of aggregation over micro units on the Allen partial elasticities of substitution between factor inputs. In contrast to all past work on aggregation, the micro technologies are described with engineering, process analysis models.