International Comparisons of Australia's Infrastructure Performance

International benchmarking has played a key role in the reform of Australia's infrastructure industries by promoting indirect or yardstick competition, in highlighting the need for further reform and building a consensus for implementing necessary changes. The international benchmarking of infrastructure performance by the Bureau of Industry Economics (BIE) between 1991 and 1996 did much to focus attention on the need for change. The BIE examined the performance of eight infrastructure industries relative to international best practice: electricity, rail freight, telecommunications, the waterfront, road freight, coastal shipping, aviation and gas supply. Performance comparisons concentrated on indicators of price, service quality, labour productivity and capital productivity. This paper reviews and summarises the performance comparisons the BIE undertook over the last three years of its infrastructure benchmarking program. The BIE international benchmarking program provides a useful role model for other countries wanting to seriously pursue reform of their infrastructure industries.     

Distinguishing external from internal scale effects: The case of public infrastructure

The recent applied production theory literature focusing on the economic performance of firms has increasingly recognized the importance of scale effects on costs and therefore efficiency. These scale effects may include short run returns due to fixity of privately demanded inputs (i.e., capital, long run internal returns to scale, and external factors affecting costs. Since these different types of scale effects can be thought of as shifts in and movements along cost curves, the different cost effects of such factors can be identified in a framework which explicitly takes them into account in the definition ofscale.In this article we formalize such a framework, and then use it to measure short run, long run (internal) and external scale effects from fixity of private capital, nonconstant returns to scale and public infrastructure. We then use these measures to identify the impacts of these different scale factors on productivity growth. The focus on public infrastructure as an important external scale factor is motivated by the current theoretical and policy interest in this issue; we show how a structural production theory model provides a rich basis for the analysis of the cost effects of infrastructure investment.     

基础设施在中国农业全要素生产率中的作用

This paper uses the Malmquist index to examine the sources of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) in Chinese agriculture. The overall goal of this study is to create a framework for assessing the trend of China’s agricultural infrastructure and to measure its impact on Total Factor Productivity. The main methodological contribution is to provide more contributive measure of crop-specific technologies. Based on the province-level panel data set during 1988–2002, the primary finding is that infrastructure has positively and statistically significant association with the estimated coefficient on Total Factor Productivity for rice, wheat, maize, and bean. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Do Institutions Cause Growth?

We revisit the debate over whether political institutions cause economic growth, or whether, alternatively, growth and human capital accumulation lead to institutional improvement. We find that most indicators of institutional quality used to establish the proposition that institutions cause growth are constructed to be conceptually unsuitable for that purpose. We also find that some of the instrumental variable techniques used in the literature are flawed. Basic OLS results, as well as a variety of additional evidence, suggest that (a) human capital is a more basic source of growth than are the institutions, (b) poor countries get out of poverty through good policies, often pursued by dictators, and (c) subsequently improve their political institutions.     

公共支出对我国技术效率的影响分析

文章首先应用随机前沿方法,估计了我国31省市的时变随机前沿生产函数模型,结果表明提高公共支出占GDP的比例能显著地降低技术效率,而提高公共支出的组成部分占GDP的比例对技术效率有显著的促进作用,其现实意义就是优化公共支出结构对我国的技术效率有促进作用.其次,计算了我国31省市的技术效率,结果发现东部与西部之间的技术效率差距较大,而且在进一步扩大之中.再次,对TFP变化率进行了分解,分析表明:不论是从全国还是从东中西部三地区看,对技术效率影响最大的因素都是规模经济性,而技术进步和资源配置效率影响较小.最后,根据我国目前以规模经济性对TFP变化率为主要影响因素的实际情况,指出从公共收支视角来提高技术进步和资源配置效率对TFP变化率的影响,缩短东西部技术效率的差距,是一条高效率的公共支出发展之路.     

Sectoral Energy- and Labour-Productivity Convergence

This paper empirically investigates the development of cross-country differences in energy- and labour productivity. The analysis is performed at a detailed sectoral level for 14 OECD countries, covering the period 1970–1997. A σ-convergence analysis reveals that the development over time of the cross-country variation in productivity performance differs across sectors as well as across different levels of aggregation. Both patterns of convergence as well as divergence are found. Cross-country variation of productivity levels is typically larger for energy than for labour. A β-convergence analysis provides support for the hypothesis that in most sectors lagging countries tend to catch up with technological leaders, in particular in terms of energy productivity. Moreover, the results show that convergence is conditional, meaning that productivity levels converge to country-specific steady states. Energy prices and wages are shown to positively affect energy- and labour-productivity growth, respectively. We also find evidence for the importance of economies of scale, whereas the investment share, openness and specialization play only a modest role in explaining cross-country variation in energy- and labour-productivity growth.      

中国城市化与经济增长的动态计量分析

为探讨我国城市化与经济增长之间的相互作用和相互影响,文章依据1978~2004年的时序数据,利用协整检验、格兰杰因果检验、误差修正模型、脉冲响应及方差分解等方法,对城市化水平与经济增长的关系进行动态计量分析。结果发现,经济增长是城市化水平提高的格兰杰原因,经济增长对城市化产生较大的正向冲击效应,而城市化对经济增长的作用强度不大;城市化水平受人均GDP影响的效应逐步增强,受自身影响的效应不断减弱,而人均GDP受自身波动影响的效应不断上升,受城市化水平影响的强度逐步下降。对我国城市化与经济增长关系的深入认识,有利于各级政府在推动城市化和促进经济增长的过程中采取合理对策,避免走入误区。     

"剑桥资本争论"与新古典边际分配论质疑

目前位居现代主流经济学地位的新古典边际生产力分配理论,由于完全排除了特定经济制度和资本 主义经济关系的研究框架,以至在与新剑桥学派发起的"剑桥资本争论"中不断以逻辑悖论形式公诸于众;从 而表明,真正的收入分配理论须联系到现实的资本主义经济关系这一竞争经济的研究框架。     

经验收入曲线:生产力还是制度作用?——高校教师收入的经验分析

经验收入曲线向上倾斜的原因是人力资本理论中教育、培训带来的较高生产力还是其他制度因素?由于个人产出品衡量上的困难,文章选择学术劳动力市场作为研究对象,利用M incer(1979)的经验收入方程对中国某一高校教师收入进行经验分析,结果验证了人力资本理论的同时并不排除制度因素的作用,在其他条件不变的情况下,经验对收入大于产出对收入的影响;教师职称对收入有较大的影响。     

中国货币供应、通货膨胀及经济增长关系实证研究

采用协整与方差分解的方法时中国货币供应、通货膨胀与经济增长的关系进行实证研究发现，通货膨胀与经济增长在短期和长期中作用关系相反，但都具有回归自然水平趋势，货币供应时通货膨胀和经济增长的影响具有滞后效应，长期内货币非中性。而通货膨胀和经济增长并不影响货币供应。一方面。应当采取措施降低货币供应增长率：另一方面，偏紧货币政策的滞后效应可能导致经济紧缩应当采取措施降低货币供应增长率，因此应谨慎调控宏观经济政策，以避免金融风险。