An Inquiry into the Efficiency of Water Projects Under WRDA'86

The aim of this paper is to check whether intergovernmental transfers for water projects accepted in 1986 in the U.S. can be rationalized by a simple efficiency criterion. The empirical findings support this conjecture only partially.     

公允价值会计:以历史和环境为视角的研究

本文通过对公允价值会计演进历史的回顾,及对公允价值会计适用的经济环境的分析,说明公允价值计量属性和经济的虚拟性有着密切关系,同时履行中合约的会计处理,也促使人们采用公允价值这一计量属性。笔者认为会计准则建设中适时的体现会计计量的公允性,不仅对整个财务会计系统建构有着重要意义,而且也充分体现了会计中的“真实和公允”的原则。     

Two remarks on the inner core

For the case of smooth concave exchange economies, we provide a characterization of the inner core as the set of feasible allocations such that no coalition can improve on it, even if coalitions are allowed to use some random plans. For the case of compactly generated games, we discuss Myerson's definition of the inner core, and we characterize it using lexicographic utility weight systems.     

虚拟经济条件下的资本市场与宏观经济分析

随着20世纪后期以来经济虚拟化进程的加速，需要一种新的宏观分析方法，能够将资本市场理和宏观经济理论更好地结合起来。本文在这方面作了一些尝试。试图将资本市场作为经济中内生的一部分，与居民、企业和银行等经济中其他部门联系起来，从而更好的分析和解释宏观经济波动。     

The Dynamics of International Trade Patterns

This paper introduces new dynamic measures for examining changes in international trade patterns. Using data for 20 OECD countries over the 1980–2000 period, we show that inter-industry trade changes contrary to countries’ previous specialization are frequently the dominant form of trade expansion. The econometric analysis indicates that the observed changes in trade patterns were explained by initial endowments of human-capital and industry-specific changes in labour productivity and labour costs. The results also suggest that trade liberalization induced an increase in the previous specialization of larger OECD economies in industries with increasing returns to scale. JEL no. F1, O33, O50     

Intergenerational risk sharing and fiscal policy

Risk-sharing implications of alternative fiscal policies are compared in a stochastic production economy with overlapping generations. Ex ante efficiency is shown to be achievable with optimal transfers, regardless of distributional concerns. For CRRA preferences, stylized real-world policies (notably safe debt and safe pensions) are found inefficient in the direction of imposing not enough productivity risk on retirees and too much on future generations. Safe transfers can be rationalized as efficient if preferences display age-increasing risk aversion, such as habit formation. The ubiquity of safe transfers suggests that governments treat the young as more risk tolerant than older cohorts.     

An equitable,efficient and implementable scheme to control global carbon dioxide emissions

We design an international scheme to control global externalities in which autonomous regions choose their own emissions levels in anticipation of interregional resource transfers implemented by an international agency. This agency follows a proportional equity principle, which preserves the status-quo ratio of regional welfare levels. We show that it is individually rational for each region to participate in the proposed international scheme and that regional environmental authorities choose policies that fully internalize the global externality. Although based on an admittedly ideal scheme, these results are especially noteworthy in light of the call for various forms of transfers in international agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol. JEL Code: C72 · D62 · D78 · H41 · H77 · Q28     

The dynamics of European industrial structure

Has the European integration process lead to increased specialization and what drives changes in countries’ specialization? To address these questions we apply a model that incorporates endowments, technology and increasing returns to scale. Analysis reveals that countries with high capital accumulation have become increasingly specialized in capital-intensive industries; this holds for both human and physical capital. No general tendency towards increased specialization is found with the exception of capital-intensive industries. Analysis indicates scale economies in R&;D at the firm level and that R&;D at the firm level drives productivity and competitiveness. JEL no. C29, F12, O33, O52     

Stock‐bond return co‐movement and accounting information

I examine how an important attribute of financial reporting quality, i.e., accounting conservatism, affects the sensitivity of corporate bond returns to changes in the value of equity (i.e., the hedge ratio). The correlation between stock and bond returns (co‐movement) is a fundamental input for asset allocation decisions as it determines the diversification benefits of bonds relative to equities within an investment portfolio. According to structural models of credit risk, co‐movement should be generally positive, but lower when the risk of wealth transfers from bondholders to shareholders is severe. I find that firms that report conservative earnings and use covenants in their bond contracts exhibit on average stronger co‐movement. This result is consistent with conservatism providing bondholders with a credible and contractible signal that improves monitoring, thus preventing wealth transfers.