The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on business expectations

We document and evaluate how businesses are reacting to the COVID-19 crisis through August 2020. First, on net, firms see the shock (thus far) largely as a demand rather than supply shock. A greater share of firms report significant or severe disruptions to sales activity than to supply chains. We compare these measures of disruption to their expected changes in selling prices and find that, even for firms that report supply chain disruptions, they expect to lower near-term selling prices on average. We also show that firms are engaging in wage cuts and expect to trim wages further before the end of 2020. These cuts stem from firms that have been disproportionally negatively impacted by the pandemic. Second, firms (like professional forecasters) have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by lowering their one-year-ahead inflation expectations. These responses stand in stark contrast to that of household inflation expectations (as measured by the University of Michigan or the New York Fed). Indeed, firms’ one-year-ahead inflation expectations fell precipitously (to a series low) following the onset of the pandemic, while household measures of inflation expectations jumped markedly. Third, despite the dramatic decline in firms’ near-term inflation expectations, their longer-run inflation expectations have remained relatively stable.     

跨国企业的转让定价策略--基于价值链的案例研究

在全球价值链分工日益成熟的背景下,跨国企业的关联交易安排日益复杂,如何制定转让定价规则以保证整体税负和风险水平同时较低成为跨国企业面临的新问题。通过W集团在关联交易中转让定价策略的案例,运用价值链分析和功能风险分析,从企业价值创造和税收产生的源头着眼,沿着价值链的推进分析了VIE模式的跨国企业在转让定价中的税负与风险问题。基于价值链分析构建出跨国企业的转让定价分析模型,可为跨国企业制定转让定价策略提供新思路,也有助于丰富价值链分析的应用领域。     

A Different Perspective on the Evolution of UK Income Inequality

This paper scrutinizes the conventional wisdom about trends in UK income inequality and also places contemporary inequality in a much longer historical perspective. We combine household survey and income tax data to provide better coverage of all income ranges from the bottom to the very top (and make our estimates available to other researchers). We make a case for studying distributions of income between tax units (i.e. not assuming the full income sharing that goes with the use of the household as the unit of analysis) for reasons of principle as well as data harmonization. We present evidence that income inequality in the UK is as least as high today as it was just before the start of World War 2.     

数字普惠金融对地方税收影响的实证研究

采用北京大学测度的2011—2018年数字普惠金融指数与地方税收面板数据，研究了数字普惠金融发展与地方税收之间的关系。研究发现，数字普惠金融能够显著地促进地方税收增长，在考虑了内生性等因素后，这一结论仍然稳健地成立。分位数回归表明，数字普惠金融在低分位数上对地方税收影响小且统计显著性弱，在高分位数上数字普惠金融对地方税收的影响大且统计显著性强。数字普惠金融对地方税收的影响存在门槛效应，在不同发展阶段，其对地方税收影响有显著差异。数字普惠金融促进税收增长主要是通过数字普惠金融覆盖广度提高和移动化、便利化等程度加深实现的。     

中国横向税收竞争如何影响雾霾污染——基于环保支出中介效应的研究

分税制改革以来，省级政府间税收竞争激化带来的环境污染问题正在逐步凸现。在此背景下，首先从理论层面分析了税收竞争、环保支出及雾霾污染的关系，并提出假说；其次建立空间杜宾模型测度了税收竞争对雾霾污染的直接效应、间接效应和总效应，并利用中介效应方法实证检验了税收竞争通过环保支出对雾霾污染的作用路径。研究结果表明，税收竞争显著加剧了本地区雾霾污染，但是其间接效应和总效应并不显著；此外，环保支出是税收竞争影响雾霾污染的一个主要中介变量。     

Are microfinance institutions resilient to economic slowdown? Evidence from their capital ratio adjustment over the business cycle

Prior studies using pre-crisis data concluded that microfinance institutions are resilient to economic crises. However, some recent studies indicate that the microfinance sector is becoming part of the global financial system and microfinance lending activities are now vulnerable to economic and financial crises. Capital being a key resource to support lending, this paper analyzes the cyclical behaviour of capital ratio using an international sample of microfinance institutions from 2001 to 2014. We uncover a negative relationship between their capital-to-assets ratios and business cycle indicators. This relationship mainly concerns regulated institutions, comprised mostly of profit-oriented MFIs, and is driven by both asset-side and capital level adjustments. We identify the lending channel (loan-to-assets ratio) as the main mechanism to explain these cyclical variations. Our findings are consistent with the “procyclicality” of capital regulation documented extensively in the banking literature. Hence, macro-prudential regulation for MFIs should target regulated and profit-oriented MFIs.     

Pure rent taxation and allocation of capital in a two-sector open economy: A long-run analysis

In this paper, the long-run incidence of a tax on pure rent is analyzed in an OLG two-sector small open economy, in which one sector produces a capital good and one sector a consumer good. Contrary to what is obtained in a one-sector closed economy, a land rent tax does not necessarily foster nonhumam wealth accumulation and capital formation. The accommodating scheme for the government budget plays a crucial role for the effects of pure rent taxation. A rent tax stimulates nonhuman wealth if distortionary taxes on wealth or on income from nonland inputs are alleviated. The mechanism spurring capital formation is brought into action, instead, only when the rent tax is matched by a fall in capital taxation or, if the capital sector is capital intensive, by an increase in government spending on the capital good.     

Government size,composition of public spending and economic growth in Brazil

The performance of the fiscal policy is largely affected by the relationship between government size, composition of public spending and economic growth. We use a theoretical framework to find optimal relations among these variables and confront them with a panel data for the Brazilian states. Private capital and government spending are substitute inputs in production as the Brazilian states require provision of public spending to fill gaps in the underdeveloped private sector. Public investment and current government expenditures are combined in fixed ratios in the overall government spending due to strong rigidity of the public budget. The optimal share of public investment is considerably lower than current expenditures, as occurs in developing countries characterized by low economic dynamism. Finally, the average tax burden from the data is below the estimated optimal level, meaning that there is space for increasing tax rate without harming economic growth for some Brazilian states.     

Stabilizing and destabilizing mechanisms: A new perspective to understand business cycles

Economists believe that economic fluctuations can be smoothed by stabilization mechanisms, such as price adjustment, embedded in the economy. While price adjustment can be seen as a stabilization mechanism, are there mechanisms that can destabilize an economy? We find that as early as 1939, Harrod discussed a destabilization mechanism, the firm's investment adjustment, illustrated in his knife-edge puzzle. We build a macro-dynamic model with investment and price as the core macroeconomic variables. Our analysis shows that the interaction between the stabilization mechanism (price adjustment) and the destabilization mechanism (investment adjustment) generates fluctuations and cycles. However, due to price stickiness, the price adjustment mechanism may not be enough to stabilize the economy. In this case, a government stabilization policy is necessary for further stabilization. As this paper also addresses the microfoundations of Keynesian quantity theory, including the choice of output and investment in optimization, it can be related to traditional Keynesian economics, with a new perspective to understand business cycles.     

Economic forecasting with evolved confidence indicators

We present a machine-learning method for sentiment indicators construction that allows an automated variable selection procedure. By means of genetic programming, we generate country-specific business and consumer confidence indicators for thirteen European economies. The algorithm finds non-linear combinations of qualitative survey expectations that yield estimates of the expected rate of economic growth. Firms’ production expectations and consumers’ expectations to spend on home improvements are the most frequently selected variables – both lagged and contemporaneous. To assess the performance of the proposed approach, we have designed an out-of-sample iterative predictive experiment. We found that forecasts generated with the evolved indicators outperform those obtained with time series models. These results show the potential of the methodology as a predictive tool. Furthermore, the proposed indicators are easy to implement and help to monitor the evolution of the economy, both from demand and supply sides.