The Impact of Cannabis Use on Health

Summary Chronic daily cannabis use has been shown to have long term harmful health effects, which in turn is expected to reduce labour market productivity. The evidence is less clear on the health impact of less frequent consumption, which is the more typical mode of use, and previous empirical studies fail to find robust evidence of an adverse impact of these modes of use on labour market productivity. This paper attempts to shed some light on this issue by directly estimating the impact of cannabis consumption in the past week and past year on health status using information on prime age individuals living in Australia. We find that cannabis use does reduce self-assessed health status, with the effect of weekly use being of a similar magnitude as smoking cigarettes daily. Moreover, we find evidence of a dose-response relationship in the health impact of cannabis use, with annual use having roughly half the impact of weekly use.Helpful comments on an earlier draft were received from Jan van Ours, Rosalie Pacula, two anonymous referees and participants at the 81st Annual Conference of the Western Economic Association International.     

外资银行在拉美国家银行改革中的作用

20世纪80年代末至90年代初,受“华盛顿共识”影响,拉美国家开始了大规模的银行私有化改革。1994年末的墨西哥金融危机之后,为了缓解危机和提高银行经营效率,多数拉美国家在银行私有化改革中积极鼓励外资银行进入。对于新兴市场国家而言,盲目地西化,照抄照搬发达国家的经济模式不利于本国经济的健康发展。只有依据经济规律,根据本国实际采取适合自己发展水平和管理水平的金融体系,各个经济要素才能实现最优配置和利益的最大化。     

Multilateral Comparison of Cost Structures in the Input–Output Tables of Japan,the US and West Germany

This paper presents a multilateral comparison of relative levels and structures of costs of production in Japan, the US and West Germany. The analysis is carried out by using harmonized input–output tables, which are converted at US prices by using adjusted sectoral purchasing power parities. A new accounting methodology is derived from recent developments of index number theory, whereas the chosen multilateral comparison procedure gives results that are invariant with respect to the order of the pairs of countries examined.     

Localized Innovation and Productivity Growth in Asia: An Intertemporal DEA Approach

Recent contributions to growth theory stress the importance of localized innovation for the performance of more backward countries. In earlier papers, analyses by means of DEA techniques confirmed this intuition. In this paper, we extend this type of analysis by relaxing the macroeconomic viewpoint adopted until now. New databases on output, labor and capital input in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors are developed for 40 countries. Using intertemporal DEA, it is found that changes in the global production frontier are localized at high levels of capital intensity. This result is stronger in agriculture than in manufacturing. Further, a decomposition of labor productivity growth in eight Asian countries for the period 1975–1992 into the effects of capital intensification, learning and innovation is made. The results suggest that there is a particular development path in which increases in capital intensity appear to be a prerequisite to benefit from international technology spillovers.JEL Classification: O14, O30, O40, O47     

Productivity and Welfare

Technical change is generally characterized by a rate and biases, both evaluated for given producer prices. This paper examines the potential discrepancy between this rate and the corresponding rate of consumer welfare change as measured by Allais distributable surplus. We postulate a general equilibrium context with various market failures (taxes, quotas, imperfect competition, and “poorly priced” commodities), and use comparative statics to express the rate of welfare change in terms of the rate and biases of the technical change. An elementary simulation model of a taxed economy suggests that the rate of welfare change may differ from the rate of technical change by as much as 50% under plausible circumstances.     

How Fast Do Banks Adjust? A Dynamic Model of Labor-Use with an Application to Swedish Banks

This paper deals with a dynamic adjustment process in which adjustment of a key variable input (labor) towards its desired level is modeled in a panel data context. The partial adjustment type model is extended to make the adjustment parameter both firm- and time-specific by specifying it as a function of firm- and time-specific variables. Desired level of labor use is represented by a labor requirement function, which is a function of outputs and other firm-specific variables. The catch-up factor is defined as the ratio of actual to desired level of employment. Productivity growth is then defined in terms of a shift in the desired level of labor use and the change in the catch-up factor. Swedish banking data is used as an application of the above model.     

Applying efficiency measurement techniques to the measurement of productivity change

Deterministic frontier analysis (DFA), stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), and data envelopment analysis (DEA) are alternative analytical techniques designed to measure the efficiency of producers. All three techniques were originally developed within a cross-sectional context, in which the objective is to compare the efficiencies of producers. More recently all three techniques have been extended for use in a panel data context. In the latter context it is possible to measure productivity change, and to decompose measured productivity change into its sources, one of which is efficiency change. However when efficiency measurement techniques, particularly SFA, have been applied to panel data, it has infrequently been made clear what the objective of the analysis is: the measurement of efficiency, which may vary through time as well as across producers, or the measurement and decomposition of productivity change. In this paper I explore the use of each technique in a panel data context. I find DFA and DEA to have achieved a more satisfactory reorientation toward productivity measurement than SFA has.     

货币政策和银行风险承担：一种非线性关系

宽松的货币政策会通过估值、收入和现金流机制,追逐收益机制以及中央银行沟通和反应机制等渠道增加银行风险承担,通过风险转移机制降低银行风险承担,从而导致货币政策与银行风险承担之间可能存在复杂的非线性关系。本文使用面板阈值模型,基于我国银行业数据研究了货币政策对银行风险承担的影响,发现我国货币政策对银行风险承担的影响存在门限效应,即货币政策对银行风险承担的影响取决于货币政策基准利率偏离泰勒规则利率的程度。当这种偏离小于门限值时,宽松货币政策会增加银行风险承担;当这种偏离大于门限值时,宽松货币政策会降低银行风险承担。本文研究对更好地理解我国货币政策对银行风险承担及金融稳定的影响有一定参考意义。     

强化银行内部审计质量控制的环节和措施

内部审计在我国银行向现代银行迈进的过程中,越来越受到极大的重视,加强和完善内部审计成为银行改革进程中的一项重要内容。不断提升内部审计质量是审计工作发展的内在要求,也是提高银行风险防控能力和经营管理水平的客观要求,因此,加强内部审计质量控制已成为内部审计理论和实践工作者的重要课题。     

中国乡镇企业产出增长来源实证分析

本文简要介绍了中国乡镇企业的发展概况和影响其发展的主要因素 ,以实际总产值作为产出指标 ,对乡镇企业产出增长与全要素生产率增长率、资本投入、劳动投入和规模损益之间的联系进行了详细的实证分析 ,分别考察了技术进步 (全要素生产率增长率 )、资本投入、劳动投入和规模损益对乡镇企业产出增长的绝对拉动作用和相对贡献份额 ,并分别考察了乡镇企业产出增长的波动程度、乡镇企业的资本生产率、劳动生产率及有机资本构成情况。在此基础上 ,提出了保证乡镇企业健康、稳定、持续增长的若干政策建议