Inflation Expectations,Inflation Target Credibility,and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Germany

Using the exact wording of the European Central Bank's definition of price stability, we started a representative online survey of German citizens in January 2019 that is designed to measure long-term inflation expectations and the credibility of the inflation target. Our results indicate that credibility has decreased in our sample period, particularly in the course of the deep recession implied by the Covid-19 pandemic. Interestingly, even though inflation rates in Germany have been clearly below 2% for several years, credibility has declined mainly because Germans increasingly expect that inflation will be much higher than 2% over the medium term. We investigate how inflation expectations and the impact of the pandemic depend on personal characteristics including age, gender, education, and political attitude.     

How does environmental quality perception influence people's fertility intention? Evidence from China

The ongoing population aging and few children are major challenges for human sustainable development in the 21st century. While the external environment is a crucial factor determining people's behaviour, the potential effects of subjective environmental quality on an individual's fertility decision-making remain poorly understood. Using data from the Chinese General Social Survey, this research has examined the relationship between environmental quality perception and fertility intention in China. Results reveal that an increase in environmental quality perception can significantly promote people's fertility intention. Our study proposes and verifies two pathways through which environmental quality perception affects fertility intention, namely, well-being and future expectation. This facilitating effect is greater for people with poor socio-economic conditions. The findings indicate that policymakers should coordinate environmental protection and population policies to promote sustainable development and design various tools targeted based on people's socio-economic background.     

It is different than what I saw online: Negative effects of webrooming on purchase intentions

Webrooming is a two-stage shopping process that begins with examining product options online followed by making a purchase at an offline store. In four experiments, we investigate webrooming effects on product evaluation and purchase intentions. The results suggest that webrooming (vs. non-webrooming) has negative impacts on (1) perceived product performance vis-à-vis expectations and (2) purchase intentions for the products offline. Our moderated-mediation analyses show that webrooming leads to lower perceived product performance, which in turn results in lower purchase intentions, and participants’ Need for Touch (NFT) moderates the negative mediation effect, which is stronger with instrumental NFT than autotelic NFT. However, this moderated-mediation effect is attenuated when products are searched across multiple categories. These findings contribute to the marketing literature by providing a more nuanced understanding of how two-stage, webrooming behavior affects consumers’ cognitions and purchase decisions. They also provide several managerial implications that when controlling for time intervals between the stages, (1) webrooming may adversely affect retailers’ business outcomes when webrooming within a single (e.g., blankets), related (e.g., baby products), and unrelated product categories; (2) thus, creating an integrated online-to-offline cross-channel customer experiences is critical to minimize the negative webrooming effects on final sales.     

Perceived economic prospects during the early stage of COVID-19 breakout

How does a new epidemic affect individuals' expectations on economic prospects in the early stage of the breakout? We implemented an incentivized longitudinal online survey soon after the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic in China to answer this question. Results show that fewer new confirmed COVID-19 cases significantly increase individuals' expectations on gross domestic product and consumer price index growth rates. Our finding provides evidence that at the early stage of an unfamiliar epidemic, containing the spread of the disease may help to maintain positive economic expectations among individuals.     

保障性住房、社会身份与公平感*——来自社区实地实验的证据

2020年中央经济工作会议指出要重视保障性租赁住房建设，同时明确提出要逐步使租购住房在享受公共服务上具有同等权利。长期租购权利的不平等容易使得人们在心理认知上给予租房与购房不同的价值权重，这种认知上的差异进一步造成了租、购两类住户社会身份上的差异。因此，探究租购身份差异是否会影响人们日常交往时的公平感，对于改善人民居住条件，避免租购不同群体之间的社会分割，促进全体人民共同富裕有重要意义。为控制其他因素的干扰，我们运用实地实验方法，以同一社区的经济适用房住户和公租房住户为实验对象，以是否公开租购身份信息为干预手段，将租购身份外生地引入最后通牒博弈中，从自我认知和对他人的认知两个角度考察租购身份是否会影响租、购住户之间的公平分配行为。结果显示，公开租购身份会唤醒租房者的自我认知，长期的租购权利不平等使得租房者渴望更公平的资源分配。同时，公开租购身份也会改变人们对他人的认知，相比于面对购房者，人们在面对租房者时会提出更加公平的分配方案。     

"租购同权"下房价对劳动力流动影响的研究

以我国35个大中城市2010-2019年的数据为样本,基于DID方法分析"租购同权"政策对房价及劳动力流动的影响及作用路径.研究表明:"租购同权"政策可以抑制房价上涨,但其抑制作用存在一定限制;"租购同权"政策通过限制市住房价格的增长,降低了劳动力流入的迁移成本,使得更多的劳动力愿意流入政策试点城市.根据理论分析和实证结果,本文从人才引进、土地财政、市场监管、房源供给以及融资渠道五方面,提出促进住房租赁市场高质量发展的政策建议.     

Disagreement in Consumer Inflation Expectations

By carefully matching the data sets from the Michigan Survey of Consumers with the Survey of Professional Forecasters, we show that there exists substantial heterogeneity in the propensity of U.S. households to learn from experts in forming inflation expectations. Additional results for a group of European economies broadly confirm this observation. We advance an extended version of the sticky-information model to analyze disagreement in consumer inflation expectations. Besides differences in consumers' propensities to learn, disagreement in our model arises from heterogeneity in consumers' fundamental inflation and past expectations and experts' different views about future inflation.     

期望业绩差距、管理者决策与企业数字化转型

推动企业数字化转型除了技术进步和资源扶持外,更需要有效激发企业转型的内生动力。基于企业行为理论,通过选取2012-2021年制造业行业的上市企业,研究了期望业绩差距对企业数字化转型的影响及传导机制。实证发现,期望业绩差距与制造业企业数字化转型程度之间呈“U型”非线性结构关系,即在期望业绩顺差和期望业绩逆差越大的两端,企业数字化转型的动力越强,表明我国传统企业数字化转型既有“居安思危”的谨慎性需求,也有“穷则思变”的变革性需求。传导机制分析表明,期望业绩顺差因资源冗余效应,期望业绩逆差通过倒逼管理者增加创新投入和改进组织韧性,提高了企业数字化转型水平。期望业绩差距下企业实施数字化转型能提高企业未来期望业绩,但具有时滞性。     

防风险、稳增长背景下的货币政策预期管理研究——基于消息冲击的DSGE模型分析

货币政策预期管理对于我国防范金融风险、稳定经济增长有重要的作用.通过构建含有托宾Q的新凯恩斯DSGE模型,在不同货币政策规则下引入预期冲击,运用贝叶斯方法对模型进行估计并分析货币政策未预期冲击和预期冲击对宏观经济变量的影响.政策实验分析发现,经济系统受到货币政策预期冲击之后,各主要宏观经济变量产生了消息冲击驱动的经济周期波动,表明货币政策预期管理能够影响到宏观经济运行,经济主体预期在经济系统中能够起到一定传导作用.此外,相对于未预期的货币政策冲击,货币政策预期冲击对宏观经济变量的影响更为平缓,更能起到抵御资产价格巨幅震荡、平滑经济稳定运行的作用.因此,我国央行有必要加强货币政策预期管理,进一步完善货币政策预期管理机制.     

高质量发展视阈下基本公共服务均等化的实现路径

我国经济已由高速增长阶段迈向高质量发展阶段,在这一阶段,基本公共服务均等化因与高质量发展新理念存在密切的内在联系,因而势必会发挥助力。本文采用定性与定量相结合的方法对我国2007年—2019年省级相关数据加以测算,研究发现:多年来在各级政府的重视和积极作为下,我国基本公共服务均等化水平整体上有所提升,可差异化问题依然存在,且在不同地区之间以及部分基本公共服务项目上均有所体现。基本公共服务的差异化表现与高质量发展相矛盾,因而今后应以经济高质量转变为契机,调整政府间财政关系,完善转移支付调节功能,改善基本公共服务均等化的配套社会环境,攻破基本公共服务均等化薄弱环节,持续推动基本公共服务均等化,助推经济高质量发展。