丹麦的福利政策

丹麦的福利政策已经成为与市场经济、技术和社会可能协调发展的一个范例 ,与此同时 ,这一政策能够确保社会成员的高度平等 ,也使得社会福利政策能更好地关注儿童、老年人及卫生事业。这一政策同时能够确保丹麦人享有较高的生活水平 ,也能够确保丹麦经济的持续发展。《丹麦福利政策的历史》一文阐释了形成这一政策的关键原因是核心人物在制定这一政策方面所表现出的高度一致 ,即初期主要是工人、农民的意愿 ,但随后各主要党派对创造平等的生活水平作为目标都形成了政治共识。因此 ,与其它国家相比 ,丹麦的福利政策能够将占GDP比重较高的税…     

中国的双顺差、日本经验及失衡调整

我要讲的题目是"中国的双顺差:失衡与相互依赖",主要是从90年代开始,在过去十六年中的十三年,中国国际收支经常账户和资本账户同时出现了盈余,也就是出现了双顺差.这是非常特殊的现象.首先,我从国别比较的角度来透视中国出现双顺差的独特性,然后分析中国的双顺差是如何产生的.我认为,中国的双顺差主要是由加工贸易和外商直接投资推动的.     

Tests of the empirical classification of horizontal and vertical intra-industry trade

Tests of the Empirical Classification of Horizontal and Vertical IntraIndustry Trade. — Using longitudinal data this paper shows the separation of international trade in (a) inter-industry trade, (b) horizontal intra-industry trade, and (c) vertical intra-industry trade used in the empirical trade literature to be non-stable at the individual product level. The high level of vertical intra-industry trade mentioned in the empirical literature probably covers up many products shifting between e.g. vertical and horizontal intra-industry trade. The paper therefore questions the work of the last decade in the measurement of intra-industry trade.     

What can managers do about unethical management?

What can and should we do as managers and administrators when our sense of personal morality is at odds with our organization's behavior? Among the many alternatives are: (1) not think about it; (2) go along and get along; (3) protest; (4) conscientiously object; (5) leave; (6) secretly blow the whistle; (7) publicly blow the whistle; (8) secretly threaten to blow the whistle; (9) sabotage; and, (10) negotiate and build consensus for a change in the unethical behavior. This article considers the advantages and disadvantages of these ten types of strategies based on some philosophy, game theory and everyday pragmatics.     

The riot as politics

Conclusion Two independent tests with a total of 36 large and medium-sized non-southern cities have demonstrated support for a political explanation of the major riots of the 1960s. It is argued that politically interested and motivated segments of the black community were disaffected because of the failure of government to respond to their demands. Their participation turned minor disorders into major uprisings. An alternative hypothesis, that public policy response generates increased expectations and ultimately greater violence, has been rejected. However, the findings rest upon the riot experience of a small number of cities in the 1960s. It seems very unlikely that the public policies of these cities would have much impact on the expectations of their black citizens and thus the rationale of the alternative hypothesis is undermined. The public policies of other governments, at other times, might have more influence on the expectations of their citizens. Additional research would be required to identify circumstances under which public policy response might lead to increased expectations, disaffection, and ultimately greater violence.     

ON THE ACCURACY OF INDEX NUMBERS

Index number accuracy is affected by formula specification and sampling error. The authors argue that an index formula should be "ideal" and "exact" (with reference to the range of economically plausible aggregator functions) to be economically justified. These indices are invariant in the homothetic case, as well as in certain non-homothetic scenarios. Empirically, based on foreign trade data for Egypt from 1885-1961, the set of economically justified indices are virtually identical, supporting the theoretical argument that "instrumental error" or "formula variance" should be a negligible factor contributing to index number error. In a discussion of sampling error, on the other hand, the authors criticize earlier work and propose an upper and lower bound. Using the same data, these limits imply that sampling error may be a serious problem for many indices.     

Progressive Taxation, Moral Hazard, and Entrepreneurship

This paper considers the general equilibrium and welfare effects of a linear progressive income tax with entrepreneurship and moral hazard. A competitive intermediation sector diversifies risk associated with entrepreneurial activity, but full risk consolidation is prevented by moral hazard. Since effort is not observable, risk bearing of entrepreneurs is required for incentive reasons. The extent of risk consolidation is endogenously explained. We find that a nonredistributive tax is neutral. A progressive tax always impairs entrepreneurship while the effect on welfare can be positive or zero, depending on the specification of moral hazard. Some results may also depend on the concrete formulation of preferences.     

Non-parametric estimation of operational risk losses adjusted for under-reporting

Not all claims are reported when a database for financial operational risk is created. The probability of reporting increases with the size of the operational risk loss, and converges towards one for big losses. Losses in operational risk have different causes, and usually follow a wide variety of distributional shapes. Therefore, a method for modelling operational risk based on one or two parametric models is deemed to fail. In this paper, we introduce a semi-parametric method for modelling operational risk that is capable of taking under-reporting into account and being guided by prior knowledge of the distributional shape.