日元升值的经验及其政策启示

目前人民币升值与当年日元升值的国内外经济形势存在诸多相似性,日元升值的经验教训可为应对人民币升值提供有益借鉴.日本应对日元升值的主要经验教训有:货币政策缺乏独立性、金融自由化过快、监管放松、产业政策与货币政策调整失误等.从这些经验教训中可获得重要政策启示:应对人民币升值应实行内部均衡优先的独立货币政策,实施稳健的金融改革和有效的金融监管,采取提升产业竞争力的产业政策以及推行渐进式的货币调整政策.     

人民币外汇市场压力与我国货币政策相互作用研究

外汇市场压力与货币政策关系密切,货币政策及央行外汇干预会对外汇市场压力的集聚和缓解产生作用,同时外汇市场压力也会影响货币政策的执行效果.笔者采用理论与实证相结合的方法,运用非模型依赖法EMP指数和我国货币政策变量等内生变量建立VAR模型,实证结果表明人民币升值压力与货币政策变量具有一定的相互作用关系,通货膨胀率对人民币升值压力没有显著影响,而人民币升值压力则会一定程度上使通货膨胀加剧.     

人民币汇率问题:国际压力传导渠道分析

出于国内政治利益考虑,美、日等发达国家频频向中国施压,要求对人民币进行升值、增加汇率制度弹性.人民币汇率制度调整受到了来自国际层面的巨大压力.发达国家主要通过以下渠道对中国施压:指控中国操纵汇率,利用多边机制将人民币汇率问题国际化,应用其国内政治规则和程序,借助外交手段或渠道,利用媒体左右国际舆论等.全面分析国际压力的传导渠道,有助于我们化解国际压力,在人民币汇率制度的改革和调整中保持主动.     

温和通货膨胀下的货币政策选择

2003年以来,我国摆脱了通货紧缩的阴影,进入了一个温和的通货膨胀时期.这一轮温和的通货膨胀主要源于货币信贷的过快增长,而基础货币投放过多主要源于外汇占款的快速增长.实证研究表明,我国通货膨胀率与M0、M1、M2以及贷款增长率之间都存在正相关关系.缓解和释放通货膨胀压力既需要运用数量型货币政策工具,更需要运用价格型货币政策工具.为了缓解通货膨胀压力,中国人民银行应该实行"双升"的货币政策,在调升人民币利率水平的同时调整人民币汇率,既升息又升值,但升息和升值的幅度不宜过大.     

人民币汇率走势回顾与展望

2006年我国人民币汇率的显著特征为汇率弹性明显增强、双向波幅扩大、总体呈小幅升值态势.2007年人民币汇率政策取向是,在稳定汇率的前提下,从政策上弱化和消除人民币升值的非理性预期;其核心内容为:货币政策将突出汇率政策;采取合适的政策组合;适时调整汇率水平;发展和完善外汇市场.展望2007年,对人民币汇率的基本判断为:汇率浮动空间将会进一步放宽,人民币汇率在双向波动中小幅升值.     

人民币汇率中长期升值趋势的探讨

目前市场上对人民币升值预期过高,压力过大,中国从稳定汇率的战略出发不可能在近期对汇率做出重大调整,但在中长期内,汇率制度的改革势在必行。如果中国经济能保持继续增长,人民币升值将是不可避免的。本文从国际收支的变化对汇率的影响、固定汇率与独立货币政策的冲突、现行汇率相对于均衡汇率的偏离等多个方面对人民币汇率中长期升值的趋势进行探讨。     

缓解人民币升值压力的对策初探

我国当前经济运行状况要求人民币升值平稳，缓解人民币的升值压力需要各种经济因素的调整配合。     

人民币升值压力下的政策搭配——基于Mundell-Fleming模型的探讨

国际收支双顺差是人民币升值压力的根源.针对目前宏观经济形势的新特点,本文从Mundell-Fleming模型的视角出发,认为目前比较适合在维持汇率政策基本稳定的前提下,搭配使用紧缩的货币政策和稳中趋松的财政政策,前者侧重总量调节和自身功能优化,后者侧重于结构调节与资源配置.我国应借助人民币升值的历史机遇,加快进行产业结构的调整与升级,转换外贸增长方式,推行以扩大内需为基点的经济发展战略,从源头上缓解升值带来的负面影响.     

投机性资本流动对人民币汇率的影响

自2005年7月21日人民币汇改以来,人民币已经从当时的8.27元/美元升值到2007年9月21日的7.51元/美元,升值幅度达到了9.2%.并依然面临较大的升值压力.问题随之而来,人民币升值的压力到底来自哪里?     

试述人民币升值的成因、影响及对策

在我国经济迅速发展的背景下,国内外均出现了一些迫使人民币升值的压力,而货币升值对一个国家的经济发展及对外贸易而言至关重要.文章从国内和国外两个层面阐述了人民币升值的压力,详细分析了人民币升值将会对我国产生的积极和消极影响,最后给我了目前我们应采取的应对人民币升值压力的措施.     

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.”     

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.     

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.     

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.     

The greenhouse effect: Damages,costs and abatement

The buildup of so-called greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — CO₂ in particular-appears to be having an adverse impact on the global climate. This paper briefly reviews current expectations with regard to physical and biological effects, their potential costs to society, and likely costs of abatement. For a worst case scenario it is impossible to assess, in economic terms, the full range of possible non-linear synergistic effects. In the most favorable (although not necessarily likely) case (of slow-paced climate change), however, it seems likely that the impacts are within the affordable range, at least in the industrialized countries of the world. In the third world the notion of affordability is of doubtful relevance, making the problem of quantitative evaluation almost impossible. We tentatively assess the lower limit of quantifiable climate-induced damages at $30 to $35 per ton of CO₂ equivalent, worldwide, with the major damages being concentrated in regions most adversely affected by sea-level rise. The non-quantifiable environmental damages are also significant and should by no means be disregarded.The costs and benefits of (1) reducing CFC use and (2) reducing fossil fuel consumption, as a means of abatement, are considered in some detail. This strategy has remarkably high indirect benefits in terms of reduced air pollution damage and even direct cost savings to consumers. The indirect benefits of reduced air pollution and its associated health and environmental effects from fossil-fuel combustion in the industrialized countries range from $20 to $60 per ton of CO₂ eliminated. In addition, there is good evidence that modest (e.g. 25%) reductions in CO₂ emissions may be achievable by the U.S. (and, by implication, for other countries) by a combination of increased energy efficiency and restructuring that would permit simultaneous direct economic benefits (savings) to energy consumers of the order of $50 per ton of CO₂ saved. A higher level of overall emissions reduction — possibly approaching 50% — could probably be achieved, at little or not net cost, by taking advantage of these savings.We suggest the use of taxes on fossil fuel extraction (or a carbon tax) as a reasonable way of inducing the structural changes that would be required to achieve significant reduction in energy use and CO₂ emissions. To minimize the economic burden (and create a political constituency in support of the approach) we suggest the substitution of resource-based taxes in general for other types of taxes (on labor, income, real estate, or trade) that are now the main sources of government revenue. While it is conceded that it would be difficult to calculate the optimal tax on extractive resources, we do not think this is a necessary prerequisite to policy-making. In fact, we note that the existing tax system has never been optimized according to theoretical principles, and is far from optimal by any reasonable criteria.During the academic year 1989–90 Dr. Ayres was at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria.During the summer of 1989 Mr. Walter was a member of the Young Scientists' Summer Program at IIASA.     

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.     

SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY: TRACING THE FLOW OF BASIC RESEARCH THROUGH MANUFACTURING AND TRADE

This paper describes flows of basic research through the US economy during the late 20th century. In addition, the paper studies the effect of the flows on scientific papers in industries and fields. This article differs from others in its use of measures of science rather than technology. Together, its results present a picture of the structure of basic research flows in a modern, science-intensive economy. Basic research flows are large within petrochemicals and drugs, and within software and communications. Flows of chemistry, physics, and engineering are common throughout all industries – biology and medicine are almost confined to petrochemicals and drugs; and computer science is nearly as restricted to software and communications. In general, basic research flows are more concentrated within scientific fields than within industries. Our findings concerning the production of scientific papers indicate that the effect of a 1% change in academic R&D spillovers significantly exceeds that of industrial spillovers. In addition, within-field effects exceed effects between-fields, while within- and between-industry effects are roughly equal. It follows that scientific fields limit basic research flows more than industries do, perhaps because large firms implicitly span a range of industries.     

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.     

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.