Political uncertainty,risk of Frexit and European sovereign spreads

Using data from a prediction market (crowd-based forecasts), we build a daily measure capturing the risk of Frexit related to the 2017 French presidential elections. We study how unexpected changes in this new measure of political uncertainty in France affect European sovereign spreads vis-à-vis Germany. We show that our uncertainty proxy drives not only the French sovereign spread but also the spreads of those EU countries deemed the most vulnerable to the risk of desegregation of the Euro Zone. These results suggest that specific political uncertainty affects short-term investor’s expectations and may outweigh other economic determinants of sovereign spreads shortly prior to high stake elections     

建构新政治经济学的关键:社会主义经济正义的建构

中国迫切需要自己的新政治经济学,建构中国国富论的关键是要建构社会主义经济正义。这需要对经济正义进行系统的思考和对马克思的经济正义思想进行时代的重新挖掘。张雄教授说"经济活动中,如果一种状态既是平等的,而又具有帕累托效率,那它就被描述为‘经济正义’的。"这一概念精准地抓住了马克思正义思想的内核。马克思的正义思想尤其是经济正义思想打开了现代正义讨论的新视域。他特别强调人的本质和历史发展纬度的正义评价原则,强调经济制度正义的核心地位,强调人民经济正义的人民主体价值纬度和直面现实问题寻求解决路径的务实精神,更强调历史的现实的"按劳分配"等经济正义方案的全面理解问题,这对于中国社会主义经济正义的现代构建和践行提供了理论基础和方向指导。     

Government Engagement,Environmental Policy,and Environmental Performance: Evidence from the Most Polluting Chinese Listed Firms

This study empirically examines the implementation of environmental policies and how government engagement impacts on a firm's environmental performance based on a sample of Chinese listed firms in the eight most polluting industries over a 10‐year period. The findings of the study demonstrate that government engagement, measured as ownership structure, is positively correlated with environmental performance, measured by environmental capital expenditure, for state‐owned firms, but no significant relation is found for non‐state‐owned firms. In addition, non‐state‐owned firms are more likely to perform better in terms of environmental investment after the 2006 enactment of a new policy explicitly linking environmental issues with political incentives to regional governments. This study also reports that corporate environmental performance impairs firm value for state‐owned firms but has no impact on firm value for non‐state‐owned firms, suggesting that investors negatively respond to environmental investments made by state‐owned firms as a result of government engagement/political pressure. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Distributional consequences of political representation

We investigate, both theoretically and empirically, the effect of the geographic concentration of representatives on the geographic distribution of fiscal transfers. Our theoretical model predicts that more representatives residing in a geographic area leads to higher government funds to that area. Our empirical analysis uses the fact that in Germany, due to Germany׳s electoral rules in state elections, the number of representatives varies across electoral districts. Controlling for various socio-economic, demographic, and political variables and using a variety of estimation methods, we find that districts with a greater number of representatives receive more government funds.     

异质性媒体与资本市场信息效率

新闻传媒通过其信息处理和传播功能 ,对资本市场的信息整合产生了重要影响.不同于以往的研究 ,文章深入新闻传媒行业内部 ,探讨了不同类别的媒体(中央媒体与各地方媒体)对中国资本市场信息效率的差异化影响.研究发现:中央媒体既可以直接提升资本市场信息效率 ,又可以通过削弱政治关联对资本市场信息整合的不利影响,间接改善资本市场信息效率;地方媒体虽然能够直接提升资本市场信息效率 ,但是无力削弱政治关联对资本市场信息整合的不利影响 ,其间接渠道并不起作用.这一结果考虑了媒体跟踪上市公司时可能产生的内生性问题 ,在一系列稳健性测试中始终存在.文章认为 ,相对于地方媒体 ,中央媒体在信息透明度较低情况下的信息获取和处理的能力优势 ,以及面对政治关联时保持客观报道的独立性优势,可以解释这一发现.     

高职思政课教学现状调查及改进策略分析

通过对北京地区高职思政课教学状况的调查发现，思政课教学质量及教学效果与预期有一定差距。根据高职教育与普通本科教育在培养目标、学生基础等方面的差异性，编写高水平的高职思政教材，完整配备责任能力强和专业水平高的师资队伍，提高课堂教学水平，是改进高职思政课教学的有效策略。     

Remittances during crises

This paper begins by examining the characteristics and determinants of remittances sent from Germany to ex‐Yugoslavia, and then takes a first look at how they were affected by the war and later political and economic crises in the first half of the 1990s. The findings tentatively suggest that the propensity to send among ex‐Yugoslavs increased in the early 1990s, despite a breakdown in formal remittance channels and in contrast with the roughly stable and even decreasing propensity to send among Turkish guest workers.     

Trade Liberalization and Environmental Taxation in Federal Systems

The literature on trade liberalization and environment has not yet considered federal structures. In this paper, we show how the design of environmental policy in a federal system has implications for the effects of trade reform. Trade liberalization leads to a decline in pollution taxes, regardless of whether pollution taxes are set at the federal (centralized) or local (decentralized) level, and it increases social welfare. The effect under a decentralized system is smaller than if these taxes are set by the federal government, and pollution emissions therefore decline in this case. Moreover, majority bias interacts with trade liberalization if federal taxes are used.     

新时代中国国际政治经济学研究:问题与方向

国际形势的迅速变化为国际政治经济学研究提供了更为广阔的研究视野,但面对复杂多变的世界经济和政治形势,单纯的经济学研究往往无法解释现实,经济学、政治学以及社会学等诸多学科间的分立与隔绝状态不利于国际政治经济学的深入发展。中国的国际政治经济学研究需要关注五个方面的问题:第一,打破经济学尤其是国际经济学研究的专业壁垒;第二,加强对经济全球化问题的综合性研究;第三,注重对美国国内经济结构变化及其对社会生活、政治生活与对外政策影响的研究;第四,加强对国际货币、资本、金融运行机制的深入研究并从货币权力视角构建国际政治经济学框架;第五,加强对1500年以来大国兴衰过程中"挑战国陷阱"问题的研究。只有在解决好上述五个问题的基础上,国内理论界才能构建一个符合新时代要求的国际政治经济学理论和大国关系理论,并以此支撑中国的可持续崛起。     

地方人大中的地域代表现象探析——基于五省市人大代表建议的内容分析

本文试图探析在中国地方人大中是否存在地域性代表及其相关因素。通过收集和分析2017年国内五省市人大收到的近四千条代表建议,发现在地方人大代表的履职行为中,一定范围内存在从整体资源中为选区争取利益的现象。进一步回归分析的结果显示:来自经济发展水平相对较低的地区的代表,更倾向于提出地域性建议;由代表联名提出的建议更可能是地域性建议;担任地方党政领导职务的省市人大代表,在提出建议时更倾向于提出地域性建议。上述实证发现对中国地方人大地域性代表的实现机制提供了初步启发性证据,也有助于丰富我们对非竞选体制下的政治代表性和回应性机制的理解。