结构性减税与扩张政府支出的宏观经济效应

为了深入研究不同类型财政政策对宏观经济的影响效应，本文构建纳入异质性家庭和细化财税工具的新凯恩斯DSGE模型，并着重模拟分析了不同类型财政政策冲击对居民消费、私人投资、通胀率以及总产出水平的动态影响效应。研究结果表明，不同类型财税工具对宏观经济的冲击效果存在显著差异，对于税收政策，劳动收入税减税能够有助于提升消费水平和消费需求，并调节和完善消费结构；而对于政府支出政策，转移支付规模的扩张通过刺激家庭消费，引导消费内需有效提升，从而带动经济增长方式由投资驱动型向消费驱动型转变，进而推动经济高质量发展。     

Institutional investors and international investments in emerging economy firms: A behavioral risk perspective

While the extant literature has examined the influence of controlling and non-controlling principals on the internationalization decisions of emerging market firms, heterogeneity among non-controlling principals is largely ignored. The risk characteristics of different groups of owners, shaped by their institutional environments, could contribute to the differences in their preferences for firm internationalization. In this paper, we draw insights from institutional theory and behavioral risk perspective to examine the risk propensities and risk perceptions of various non-controlling principals, such as pressure-resistant (FIIs and mutual funds) and pressure-sensitive (banks, insurance companies and lending institutions) institutional investors. Empirical results from a sample of 2364 unique Indian firms during the 2005–2014 time-period show that, after controlling for firm-level resources and capabilities identified in prior literature, the ownership share of different types of institutional investors is associated with firms’ international investments differently. While pressure-sensitive institutional investors, such as banks and insurance companies, are not supportive of foreign investments by firms, pressure-resistant institutional investors, such as FIIs and mutual funds, are supportive of this strategic decision. Furthermore, our results show that the family ownership in a firm (measured in terms of family shareholding) further lowers the preference of pressure sensitive institutional investors for internationalization, whereas family ownership positively moderates the pressure resistant investors towards internationalization.     

Is health care a necessity or a luxury? Evidence from urban China

This article uses a smooth transition regression (STR) model to research the income elasticity of the health care expenditure of China’s urban residents in the 1990–2013 period. The results demonstrate that if the real income of China’s urban residents that lags a period is taken as a transition variable, urban residents’ health expenditure follows an LSTR1 nonlinear two-regime model. Here, the income elasticity of health care expenditure of China’s urban residents is 1.4919 in 1990–2002 and 1.2216 in 2003–2013. Overall, the income elasticity of health care of China’s urban residents is greater than 1, indicating that health care is a luxury.     

VIX term structure and VIX futures pricing with realized volatility

Using an extended LHARG model proposed by Majewski et al. (2015, J Econ, 187, 521–531), we derive the closed-form pricing formulas for both the Chicago Board Options Exchange VIX term structure and VIX futures with different maturities. Our empirical results suggest that the quarterly and yearly components of lagged realized volatility should be added into the model to capture the long-term volatility dynamics. By using the realized volatility based on high-frequency data, the proposed model provides superior pricing performance compared with the classic Heston–Nandi GARCH model under a variance-dependent pricing kernel, both in-sample and out-of-sample. The improvement is more pronounced during high volatility periods.     

Prioritization of government expenditure on health in India: A fiscal space perspective

Unequal distribution of fiscal resources and lower prioritization of budget towards healthcare are the most important challenges in achieving universal health coverage in India. This study has examined relationships between government health expenditure and fiscal space (i.e. tax revenue, non-tax revenue, fiscal transfer, and borrowings) in twenty-one states of India for the period of 1980–2014. Our panel regression results imply that mobilization of tax revenue has a positive impact, while borrowings have a negative impact on the allocation of government expenditure on healthcare in the long-run. The panel quantile regression results show that states associated with the low and middle level of revenue growth have been mobilizing finance through central government transfer and borrowings in short-run. Further, the panel vector error correction models show that sum of the lagged coefficients of borrowings have a greater impact on health financing process as compared to other sources of fiscal space at short-run, and the speed of adjustment towards long-run equilibrium is relatively slower. The overall analysis concludes that less domestic revenue mobilization and higher dependency of borrowings for healthcare financing may create fiscal stress on state finances in the long-run, and thereby it could possibly reduce the prioritization of spending. Therefore, improvement in revenue growth and proper utilization of fiscal transfer would be appropriate policy implications from this study.     

Measuring Inflation Anchoring and Uncertainty: A U.S. and Euro Area Comparison

We use several U.S. and euro‐area surveys of professional forecasters to estimate a dynamic factor model of inflation featuring time‐varying uncertainty. We obtain survey‐consistent distributions of future inflation at any horizon, both in the U.S. and the euro area. Equipped with this model, we propose a novel measure of the anchoring of inflation expectations that accounts for inflation uncertainty. Our results suggest that following the Great Recession, inflation anchoring improved in the United States, while mild de‐anchoring occurred in the euro area. As of our sample end, both areas appear to be almost equally anchored.     

地下综合管廊混凝土爆灰检测及加固

针对某市钢筋混凝土地下综合管廊的现浇顶板、侧壁出现的混凝土爆灰质量缺陷,为确保管廊结构的安全使用,采用钻心法、超声波法、沸煮试验、爆灰物质的化学成分分析等检测方法,对爆灰现象进行了检测。结果显示,混凝土中存在的块状氧化钙与水熟化后体积增大1倍~2.5倍,使得混凝土在强度未达到设计抗拉强度前在块状氧化钙体积膨胀应力作用下被拉裂,导致了此类质量缺陷的发生。分析了质量缺陷对管廊结构的影响,并对管廊结构进行了加固设计及处理,满足了结构的正常安全使用要求。研究结果可为类似爆灰缺陷的设计及处理提供参考。     

Farm size and productivity growth in the United States Corn Belt

In recent decades, agricultural production in the U.S. has continued to shift to large-scale operations, raising concerns about the economic viability of small and midsized farms. To understand whether economies of size provided an incentive for the consolidation of production, the study estimates the total factor productivity (TFP) of five size classes of grain-producing farms in the U.S. Heartland (Corn Belt) region. Using quinquennial Agricultural Census data from 1982 to 2012 the study also compares TFP growth rates across farm sizes to gain insight into whether observed productivity differences are likely to persist. The finding of a strong positive relationship between farm size and TFP suggests that consolidation of production has contributed to recent aggregate productivity growth in the crop sector. The study estimates the extent to which sectoral productivity growth can be attributed to structural change versus other factors including technological change. The study also explores some tradeoffs associated with policies that raise the productivity of small versus large farms.