财政补贴、竞争能力与国有企业改革

财政约束硬化是国有企业转换机制的重要前提条件,但是经济转轨国家的实践表明,对财政约束硬化在大部分转轨国家都没有做到.尽管产权学论者和外部环境论者都给出了自己的解释,但都不说明政府为什么对硬化国有企业财政约束"知而不能为之"的原因.本文通过建立政府、国有企业和民营企业三者间动态博弈模型研究发现,政府对国有企业预算约束是"软"或"硬"不能简单的一概而论,财政对国有企业的预算是"硬"还是"软"内生于经济体制改革的进程和改革的方式选择,以及国有企业本身的竞争能力.因此,转轨国家应该考虑国有企业自身竞争能力情况,在改革不同阶段采取灵活的财政手段,保证转轨过程中全社会福利水平的提高,从而顺利推进国有企业改革的进行.     

国有企业预算约束硬化与财政分权

软预算约束导致国有企业低效率。在向市场经济转轨的过程中,国有企业软预算约束问题仍然存在。硬化国有企业预算约束是改革的一项重要内容。在要素自由流动的条件下,从中央向地方的财政分权引起地方政府之间的竞争;竞争提高了对亏损国有企业进行救助的机会成本,从而有助于硬化国有企业的预算约束。     

财政分权:促进国有企业效率提高的可置信承诺机制

中国的渐进式改革是政治集权下的财政分权改革。财政分权增强了地方政府发展地方经济的激励,导致地方政府间争夺经济资源的竞争。这种竞争提高了救助低效率国有企业的机会成本,可以作为一种承诺机制,硬化国有企业的预算约束,进而促进经济增长。     

国有企业预算约束硬化了吗?——对1996-2000年信贷约束政策有效性的实证研究

国有企业预算软约束能否转变成硬约束 ,是我国传统计划经济体制能否实现向市场经济体制转型的标志和关键。 1 996— 2 0 0 0年政府实施的信贷政策和刺激需求的政策成功地实现了“软着陆”、防止了金融危机的爆发 ,在使有效需求不足状况得到改善的同时 ,国有银行出现了“惜贷”行为。然而这种“惜贷”行为并不是国有企业预算软约束硬化的表现 ,因为国有银行对国有企业预算软约束的体制根源没有改变 ,国有银行既没有更大的动力监督国有企业贷款使用 ,也没有能力阻止国有企业不良贷款继续攀升和停止增加对国有企业贷款。从这个意义上说 ,这期间的信贷约束政策不是有效的。该结论的政策含义是 ,无论体制改革还是政策制定 ,只有使国有银行有足够强的激励去监督国有企业贷款使用 ,并使国有企业对其努力的收益有稳定的预期 ,信贷约束政策才会有效率     

财政分权的中国模式与OECD模式——分税制是财政集权吗

本文在完整的财政分权内涵上比较分析了1995—2009年中国与OECD国家的财政分权情况,结果发现,不管是收入还是支出,中国中央与地方政府的财政分权程度都远远高于发达国家,呈现出中国政治集权下的财政分权和OECD政治分权下的财政集权两种模式。中国的财政支出分权程度与经济增长和财政均等化存在显著的正向相关关系,而这在OECD国家是不显著的。在中国的财政分权结构中,结构偏向的经济性支出成为地方政府财政支出重点和经济增长的重要推动力量;扩张的预算外支出成为增加财政收入的重要途径。所谓“事权与财权匹配”问题的实质是公共职责不清晰和预算软约束的地方政府收支扩张的财政机会主义倾向。财政分权改革的后续深化方向是在明确规范化地方政府公共职责和硬化预算约束的基础上适度财政集权化。     

政策性负担、道德风险与预算软约束

本文在一个动态博弈的框架下 ,考察了政策性负担与转轨经济中企业的预算软约束问题。在信息不对称情况下 ,政策性负担将导致国有企业经理的道德风险 ,从而导致国有企业的低效率 ;当市场竞争达到一定程度时 ,政策性负担必然带来国有企业的预算软约束。而且 ,预算软约束同企业的公有制性质无关 ,在同样承担政策性负担的条件下 ,私有企业比国有企业更容易产生预算软约束 ,并且要求政府提供更多的补贴。当国有企业承担政策性负担时 ,政府剥夺企业的生产自主权往往是一种次优的制度安排     

银行重组、金融稳定和软预算约束：中国经济转型时期的国家-银行关系及其政策含义

本文区分了银行软预算约束和非金融企业软预算约束、银行重组和软预算约束、制度性和政策性软预算约束、软预算约束和“太大不能倒闭”等概念,讨论了银行软预算约束的内涵和外延,总结了中国的银行软预算约束的特点,为讨论中国的银行问题提供一个软预算约束的视角和理论框架。本文认为：（1）银行软预算约束揭示了国有商业银行改革的内在逻辑。1994年以来,国家主导的一系列国有商业银行重组和改革本质上是对银行软预算约束政策的补充和强化。从这一逻辑出发,转型以来国有商业银行重组和改革的特征可以概括为“软预算约束下的银行改革”。（2）银行软预算约束解释了中国在国有商业银行长期处于技术性破产状态下仍然得以实现银行体系稳定的主要原因。是中国在没有建立正式存款保险制度、中央财政控制能力下降的情况下,得以实现银行体系稳定的一个关键性制度安排。中国的金融稳定模式可以概括为“软预算约束下的金融稳定模式”,银行软预算约束对于讨论转型时期中国金融稳定的成本-收益、是否具有普遍借鉴意义等问题具有重要的政策含义。（3）银行软预算约束体现了国家-国有商业银行关系的本质,是讨论国有商业银行改革和发展必需关注的制度环境和分析前提,对于进一步讨论国有银行体制、政府-企业关系、政府作用和定位等具有重要的理论和政策含义。     

企业、银行和政府三方还贷博弈研究

预算软约束已成为国有企业改革的阻碍因素,并影响经济转型期的政企、银企关系,而政府对于债务的软预算约束是企业信贷违约的原因之一,根据企业还贷过程中相关利益者的相互博弈,建立一个企业、银行、政府之间三方博弈模型来分析它们之间的行为及其目标差异对企业信贷违约的影响。模型分析表明：政府出于政治和经济利益的考虑,通过补贴银行和企业来实施对企业还贷的软预算约束,而银行在衡量了政府补贴和清算得失之后有可能对企业再贷款。解决预算软约束和企业信贷违约的关键在于＂政府、银行、企业＂之间的关系处理,企业完全按市场化运作,建立科学的法人治理结构,让政府从企业中逐步退出,硬化企业的预算约束环境,从而降低企业的信贷违约的概率。     

财政压力、信贷市场化和所有制结构

本文利用面板门槛模型进行经验研究发现，在信贷市场化程度较低时，财政压力对所有制结构并不起作用，只有在信贷市场化程度较高且政府的预算约束被硬化时，财政压力才会有效促进非国有制经济占比的提高。这表明只有在信贷市场化改革硬化了中国地方政府的预算约束时，财政压力才开始推动中国非国有经济占比的提高。本文的研究进一步深化了熊彼特—希克斯—诺斯的制度变迁“财政压力说”，并为其提供了经验证据。     

国有企业海外投资困境分析——一个逆向软预算约束的视角

当前国有企业海外投资面临着严峻的困境,亟待破解,而逆向软预算约束为我们提供了崭新的分析思路。国有企业海外投资中存在各种形式的逆向软预算约束,是造成其海外投资困境的重要原因,而强调政绩的官员晋升与政绩考核制度、委托代理问题及市场的弱约束力等是造成逆向软预算约束深层次的制度根源。为此,需要转变政绩观,优化政绩考核体系;深化政府财政体制改革,完善预算制度;大力发展混合所有制经济,完善公司治理机制;完善市场价格机制,抑制国有企业垄断。     

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.”     

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.     

Bayesian estimation of duration models: An application of the multiperiod probit model

The multiperiod probit model is presented and Bayesian estimation using the Gibbs sampler with data augmentation is described. As an empirical illustration, the multiperiod probit model is then used to estimate a duration model using employment duration data for the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Bayesian estimation with unobserved heterogeneity is shown to be a simple extension of estimation of a duration model with no unobserved heterogeneity. More importantly, perhaps, some numerical problems encountered by other authors using Maximum Likelihood are avoided.I would like to thank M. Baker, G. Koop, A. Melino and D. Poirier for helpful comments and discussions. I would also like to thank M. Baker for providing his data.     

Scenarios and creativity: Thinking in new boxes

To be creative and make change happen, leaders must do more than simply ‘think outside the box’, as the traditional business manuals suggest, using the popular American expression. After all, the space outside the box is infinitely expansive. Moreover, there can be no guarantee that a solution to the problem will be found. The answer: ‘Think in new boxes.’ This requires developing the right new box; in other words, useful new models, a helpful new approach to a problem. That is the real art of practical creativity. This short article outlines the approach (Thinking in New Boxes) and its application to classic scenario planning with a few examples. The authors also present the ‘Expressway to Scenarios’, an approach that wins in impact and practicality what it loses in deep analysis, by having top executives involved in key steps.     

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.     

How chaebol restructuring after the 1997 crisis has affected corporate decision and performance in Korea: debt financing,ownership structure,and investment

ABSTRACT

Korean chaebol firms, characterized by excessive debt financing and overinvestment, experienced restructuring after the 1997 crisis. By reducing debt financing and thus overinvestment, they tried to reorganize financing structure and ownership structure. Chaebols’ debt reduction turns out to have improved performance. However, polarization between chaebol and non-chaebol firms has become more significant. Even after the crisis, firms that give higher cash flows to a controlling shareholder take more capital investment, indicating that agency problems still exist within chaebols. Chaebol-affiliated firms continue to be more active in R&D than non-chaebol firms. However, the pattern is limited to the group of top 10 chaebols after the crisis.

Abbreviations: KFTC: Korea Fair Trade Commission     

On the Role of Paradigms in Understanding Economic Globalization

Any adequate analysis of economic globalization necessarily requires fundamental understanding of the worldviews underlying the views expressed with respect to the nature and role of economic globalization. This paper is based on the premise that any worldview can be associated with one of the four basic paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. It argues that any view expressed with respect to economic globalization is based on one of the four paradigms or worldviews. It, therefore, discusses four views with respect to the nature and role of economic globalization which correspond to the four broad worldviews. The paper emphasizes that the four views expressed are equally scientific and informative; they look at the nature and role of economic globalization from a certain paradigmatic viewpoint. Emphasizing this example in the area of economic globalization, the paper concludes that there are opportunities for each paradigm to benefit from contributions coming from the other three paradigms.     

A Humean theory of choice of which rationality may be one consequence

For the reader who considers economic theory of choice as a special case of a more general theory of action, Hume's discussion of the determinants of action in the Treatise of Human Nature (1739?–?40), in the Enquiry on Human Understanding (1748) and in the Dissertation on Passions (1757) deserves attention. However, according to some modern commentators, Hume does not seem to have given any evidence that would favour what nowadays we would consider as the kind of rationality involved in modern theories of rational choice. On the contrary, this paper arrives at the conclusion that consistency between preferences and choice, like the usual properties of completeness and transitivity, may be considered as outcomes of a mental process, described by means of a decision algorithm that aims to represent Hume's theory of choice.     

The concept of freedom and its relation to economic development--a critical appreciation of the work of Amartya Sen

Following a brief review of the conception of freedom as employedin economic discourse, this paper focuses on the evolution ofthe concept of freedom in the work of Amartya Sen. It tracesthe development of Sen's thought from the capability analysisof the late 1970s to his more recent separation of freedom intoits opportunity and process aspects. While broadly appreciativeof Sen's development of the concept of positive freedom, thepaper identifies some difficulties arising from his definitionof capability as a set of options as well as from his separationof the opportunity and process aspects of freedom. Aspects ofthe relationship between Sen's conception of freedom and thatof Marx are discussed briefly in the context of Sen's recentdiscussion of the market as a source of freedom.