Investing in public investment: an index of public investment efficiency

Pritchett (J Econ Growth 5:361?C384, 2000) convincingly argued that the difference between investment cost and capital value is of first-order empirical importance especially for developing countries where public investment is the primary source of investment. This paper constructs a public investment efficiency index that captures the institutional environment underpinning public investment management across four different stages: project appraisal, selection, implementation, and evaluation. Covering 71 countries, including 40 low-income countries, the index allows for benchmarking across regions and country groups and for nuanced policy-relevant analysis and identification of specific areas where reform efforts could be prioritized. Research applications are outlined.     

Reforming the new economic mechanism in Hungary

Following steps taken towards recentralization between 1972 and 1976, the reform measures introduced in 1980 and 1981 have re-established the original directions of the New Economic Mechanism in Hungary. The NEM, established in 1968, had aimed at replacing plan directives by market relations among firms, limiting the scope of central price determination, linking domestic prices to world-market prices, and increasingly decentralizing investment decisions. The recent reform measures are evaluated and possible future changes are considered. Price setting, exchange rate and protection, wage determination and personal income, investment decisions, and organizational structure are examined.     

Foreign direct investment and institutional reform: evidence and an application to Portugal

We examine the role of geographic, economic, and institutional factors in attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Europe, using a cross-section of inward bilateral investments. We estimate and assess the expected benefits, the required reform efforts, and the efficiency of reform options corresponding to a convergence of Portuguese institutions to EU standards. We conclude that improving home institutions is likely to have a quantitatively very significant role in attracting FDI. Geographical and market size factors also play a role. Reforms promoting the independence of financial institutions and a leaner bureaucracy, lowering political risk and corruption, and improving the investment code may significantly affect the amount of bilateral inward FDI that is targeted to Portugal.     

Financial Liberalization and Institutional Development

This study empirically analyzes the effects of de jure financial openness on institutional quality as captured by indicators on investment risk, corruption level, impartiality of judiciary system, and the effectiveness of bureaucracy. We show that a higher degree of financial openness improves institutional quality mainly by reducing investment risks. We also study the effect of a single liberalization reform. Again, we find evidence for the beneficial impact of financial liberalization with the exception of corruption. We additionally show that the benign consequences of financial opening for the institutional development are even larger if financial liberalization is supported by simultaneous political liberalization, while financial deregulation in former socialist countries tends to worsen institutional quality.     

Markets,property rights,and the economics of joint ventures in socialist countries

This paper develops formal models of joint ventures between Western firms and enterprises in three socialist countries, Hungary, Rumania, and Yugoslavia. In each case, the optimal resource allocations from the point of view of each partner are derived. In all cases, we find that the desired resource allocations are suboptimal and are strongly influenced by the structure of property rights in the socialist economy and the extent to which that economy makes use of markets to determine prices.     

匈牙利科技观察

匈牙利每年投入研发经费10亿欧元左右,约占全国GDP的1％。根据新政府的设想,到2020年,研发投入将提高到GDP的1．5％～1．8％。匈牙利国际科技合作活跃,近年来采取多种办法解决人才流失问题,并吸引海外人才回流。根据国家中期科技和创新战略（2007-2013年）,未来匈牙利要形成知识和创新驱动型经济,以确保匈牙利有能力向国际市场提供有竞争力的产品和服务。匈牙利近年确定了一些高校为研究型大学,加强了对产业集群的引导和支持。但是匈牙利仍面临研究经费不足和人才流失的挑战。     

Lower coverage but stronger unions? Institutional changes and union wage premia in Central Europe

In this paper we use the national samples from the European Structure of Earnings Survey (ESES) to analyze the evolution of the wage premium of firm- and industry-level agreements in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland (the CE3) around the time of their accession to the EU. We find that despite a generalized reduction in union coverage in these countries, the union wage premium after accession to the EU became bigger and statistically more significant for Poland and Hungary, particularly for industry-level agreements. We interpret these findings in terms of the institutional reforms that occurred in the CE3 between 2002 and 2006. These reforms, which were prompted by the EU Commission's requirements for EU accession, increased the social partners' ability to bargain and enforce wage agreements, and made industry-level unions more effective in guaranteeing the protections provided by labor standards. Results are less conclusive for the Czech Republic, probably due to factors that attenuate the effect of bargaining coverage upon wages, e.g. a smaller effect of institutional reforms, a greater use of mandatory extension mechanisms, the more radical firm restructuring during transition in that country.     

铁路产业投资基金：控股权、 收益权与制度补偿

本文研究了铁路产业投资基金有关控股权、收益权与制度补偿等问题，运用实证分析法，对铁路投融资模式的选择及未来融资能力进行了探讨。本文的结论认为，铁路现有的投融资能力已难以支撑铁路大规模的建设需要，设立铁路产业投资基金势在必行。铁路行业的社会公益性、产权的单一性以及管理体制改革的滞后性，使得铁路产业投资基金具有一定的特殊性。发展铁路产业投资基金，首先需要优化基金的控股权，并通过相应的制度性补偿破解基金的收益瓶颈，实现以少量铁路资金带动数倍于己的社会资本投资铁路项目建设的目标。     

Economic Developments in the West Bank and Gaza Since Oslo

The performance of the Palestinian economy in 1994–2000 was uneven, but for the period as a whole, real per capita income declined despite the mobilisation of substantial amounts of foreign aid and despite considerable progress in establishing a basic institutional framework. This paper argues that economic growth and private investment, in particular, have been adversely affected by closures, by uncertainties about political developments and the direction of policies and policy reforms, by problems of governance, and by the excessive transportation and transaction costs related to the intensification of the permits system.     

Public Pension Fund Management: Best Practice and International Experience

As Japan's policymakers strive to reform the Government Pension Investment Fund, this paper reviews the core principles and best practices of public pension fund management, with a particular focus on governance and investment philosophy, as distilled from the experience of some of the largest and most advanced institutional investors. It proceeds to compare and contrast three distinct models of institutional fund management: the Norway model, the Yale/Australia Future Fund model, and the Canada model. The paper concludes by making some preliminary recommendations for the Government Pension Investment Fund reform.     

Uneven Development and Grounded Comparative Institutional Advantage: Lessons from Sweden and Mondragon

In this paper we use the theory of grounded comparative institutional advantage to analyze the possibilities for progressive development in the face of the uneven development patterns endemic to neoliberal capitalist development. We demonstrate that efforts to promote institutional structures to spur regional development, such as Swedish efforts to create high wage jobs via education, training, and technology diffusion, and the Mondragon Cooperative’s efforts to create and preserve manufacturing jobs via education, technology development and cooperative organization, can be a countervailing power to the forces of capitalist uneven development, if the state becomes a major allocator of investment funds. To succeed in creating stable, progressively-oriented industries in a region within a capitalist economy, there must be cushions for firms against downturns and sectoral shifts, mechanisms for the creation of cutting edge technologies, and a commitment to reallocate investment to key industries. Otherwise the forces of uneven development, spatially and sectorally, will tend to prevail. While the models developed by Sweden and Mondragon hold promise, this approach requires a major political commitment to the region, and a willingness to embrace some of the vagaries of international capitalism.     

农村养老保障制度变迁分析

农村的养老保障制度正经历着一场变革。旧的以家庭养老为主的保障模式已突显出制度供需的不均衡,但新的有效率的农村社会养老保障制度至今尚未形成。其主要制约因素是现有改革方案的低效率和传统的非正式制度安排。建立农村社会养老保障制度,应继续采取强制性制度变迁方式,着重加大政府对建立农村社会养老保障制度的财政投入和推进力度,尝试发展产品换保障模式,并大力培育农民的社会养老保障意识,提高农民对社会养老保障的认同程度。     

农地产权冲突、经济绩效与土地制度创新差异化原则——《农村土地承包法》的法与经济学分析

本文对《农村土地承包法》中农地产权安排的内在权利冲突及其在经济上的后果进行了分析,主要探讨农地承包制对农业投资水平和技术选择的影响。承包期限的延长对农业投入的影响是有限的、有条件的,承包制不利于规模经济技术的推广应用。农村土地制度的进一步改革需下放土地制度创新的权利并遵循地域差异化、产业差异化和所有权主体差异化原则。     

“笼中虎”：一个金融制度变迁故事的解读

中国既有的经济改革过程曾经出现过许多耐人寻味的制度变迁现象,＂笼中虎＂便属其中比较典型的一个。这种现象产生于经济体制转换伊始的特殊时期并贯穿于迄今为止的整个改革过程;它一直对中国金融制度变迁路径的选择产生着重要影响,却长期被人们视作偶或发作的短期金融＂症状＂而等闲视之。通过对这一现象的初步描述与解读,本文发现,＂笼中虎＂的产生机制深藏于由＂放权让利＂改革所触发的财政与银行体系汲取能力的相向变化过程。由于国家无力在短期内修复与重建残缺的内源融资制度,最终形成的政府主导型经济增长模式只有倚重以国有银行体系为核心的外源融资机制。作为这一过程合乎逻辑的制度后果,居民储蓄存款被迫承担起了支持长期经济增长的责任,而为了确保在银行体系账面上迅速积累的居民储蓄存款的稳定,国家又不得不慷慨兜揽了与此相关的几乎全部金融风险。尽管在既有的改革过程中＂笼中虎＂罕有发作甚至长期表现平稳,但对其潜在风险的担忧与防范却牢牢钳制着金融改革路径的选择。当随后的金融制度演进需要市场因素的成长时,才发觉金融市场化的空间已被既有的改革逻辑＂挤出＂,中国金融改革进程从此便注定长期遭受＂市场化悖论＂的困扰。     

The impact of sub‐national institutions

This paper assesses the effect of sub‐national institutions on the economic performance of Russia's regions (oblasts, republics, krais and okrugs) from 2001 to 2008, a period of rapid economic advancement and recentralization. Approximating sub‐national institutions with the RA Expert index of investment risk, we find that a reduction in investment risk by one standard deviation increases output by 1.4 percent in the short run and 11.9 percent in the long run, suggesting a substantial regional performance gap in government practices, despite intensive political recentralization. Assuming that the main components of effective governance are running satisfactory public health programmes aimed at decreasing overall mortality among the working‐age population, creating fair labour market conditions and improving the regional institutional climate to encourage investment in fixed assets, we argue that sub‐national institutions remain important for growth in post‐Soviet Russia after 2000. This paper contributes to the literature on institutional persistence.     

我国国有企业竞争中立制度框架及其改革路径*

国有企业竞争中立制度的构建是未来深化国有企业改革的必然方向。改革开放以来,中国国有企业一直坚持进行市场导向性改革,高度契合竞争中立宗旨与理念。本文系统梳理了改革开放以来国有企业市场导向性改革脉络,总结目前国有企业竞争中立改革面临的问题。在此基础上,本文构建了我国竞争中立制度框架的体制基础和具体构成。最后,本文提出从深化国有企业改革和扶持民营企业发展两方面来塑造中国国有企业竞争中立改革的制度框架,并根据九大制度安排构建了竞争中立制度改革的路径。现有研究多从法学和贸易视角质性分析竞争中立定义、原则内容和中国应对措施,尚未提出我国竞争中立改革的制度框架和实践路径,本文所建立的国有企业竞争中立制度框架与改革路径对建立中国特色的国有企业制度与社会主义市场经济体系具有一定借鉴意义。     

Interrelations between policy and the economic reform in Hungary

The history of the economic reform movement in Hungary and to some extent in the other Eastern European countries since the 1950s is discussed in its political context, as are East-West trade relations and the relationship of Hungary with the CMEA. Possibilities of further development of reform are discussed.     

Strategies for Fiscal Reform in the Context of the EMU: the Case of Portugal

The authors use an endogenous growth dynamic general‐equilibrium model, which accommodates the institutional constraints of the Stability and Growth Pact, to study tax reform in Portugal. Simulation results suggest that tax cuts financed in a nondistortionary way increase long‐term GDP; i.e., they are efficiency improving, but do not always increase welfare. The tradeoff between efficiency and welfare is alleviated when reductions in public spending or increased public indebtedness finance the tax cuts. Since these mechanisms are not realistic under the institutional setting of the Stability and Growth Pact, tax reform in Portugal must involve trading off distortionary tax margins. In this case, the best strategy to increase both efficiency and welfare is to increase investment tax credits and finance them either through personal income taxes or through employers’ social security contributions.     

中国经济增长的源泉:1978—2007年

中国经济增长过于依赖资本投入。从长期来看,中国经济需要完成向集约型经济的转型。在2000年以后突出表现出来的出口导向增长模式很可能在未来难以为继。人力资本、科技进步和制度改革应该是未来中国经济保持健康持续增长所需要依赖的主要动力。     

Effects of structural changes on the risk characteristics of REIT returns

This investigation provides evidence and identifies two important structural changes in the risk characteristics of real estate investment trusts (REITs), namely, the 1993 tax reform and the inclusion of REITs in the mainstream S&P indices in 2001. Using daily data from 1989 to 2008, this study finds that institutional investors tended to increase their investment in REITs following the 1993 tax reforms, and these increases in institutional investment are significantly reducing exposure to interest rate risk, which may result from the benefits of external monitoring. Additionally, the inclusion of REITs in the Standard and Poor's mainstream indices since 2001 has increased the market risk of REITs, led to associated returns behaving more like those of stocks, and improved the market efficiency in processing new information. These observation results demonstrate these two structural changes in the risk characteristics of REIT returns. Finally, the study results confirm that the shape of the distribution of REIT returns varies among sub-samples, indicating that risk management is increasingly important.